The Chronicle

Our Stars of the Week this week are:

On Wednesday 18 September Little Crackers Nursery invited Warwickshire Wildlife Trust into school to help celebrate the nursery’s exciting ‘back to nature’ makeover.     

Over the summer holidays Little Crackers Nursery, at Crackley Hall School, has been transformed with a new natural look in its spacious rooms that includes new furniture, flooring, decoration and a completely new indoor/outdoor Garden Room with a decked area, a sunken sand pit, a glazed roof and retractable folding doors that open up to the woods behind.

In the morning the nursery’s Parent and Toddler group, Stay ‘n’ Play, explored the new look accommodation and took part in wildlife themed activities in the bright rooms.  Outside they went into the school’s woods and joined in wildlife themed activities run by the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust. The children really enjoyed searching for toy hedgehogs and making hedgehog homes.

In the afternoon the nursery children had their own party, with wildlife activities inside that included snail studies, bird watching and woodland craft before also joining Warwickshire Wildlife Trust outside for some wonderful Woodland Fairy Folk fun.

The summer makeover has also seen Improvements to the front nursery playground and the nursery children are now enjoying regular visits to the newly opened woodland at the back of the main school.  The ‘back to nature’ summer makeover means that the children now enjoy outdoor learning experiences in three very different settings.

To celebrate the new look Little Crackers has adopted new animal names to reflect the ‘back to nature’ theme, with the Terrific Twos becoming Dormice, the Thrilling Threes changing to Hedgehogs and the Fabulous Fours transforming into Badgers.

Comments Susan Glen-Roots, Assistant Head – Early Years and Key Stage 1, “This is an exciting project which will transform our children’s experiences in nursery.  A more natural environment inside creates a sense of calm whilst stimulating interest and providing the children with a blank canvas in which to learn and develop. This, coupled with more opportunities to take their learning outdoors and explore the wonders of the natural world will reap fantastic rewards in terms of self-confidence, imagination and physical development.”

The Warwickshire Wildlife Trust had lots of fun with the youngsters helping them explore the natural surroundings and encouraging their interest in wildlife.  

The latest edition of Crackley Hall and Little Cracker's Admissions Update e-newsletter was published last Monday.  The newsletter reminds parents that our next Open Day takes place on Tuesday 1 October between 10.00am and 3.00pm and our Nursery And Reception Open Evening will be on Thursday 21 November between 7.00pm and 8.00pm.

Designed to give prospective parents and pupils a feel for Crackley life, provide information on forthcoming events and offer helpful advice about the admissions process, it is particularly relevant for those who are looking at entry in September 2020.

Our Admissions Update Newsletters are published twice a year to coincide with key admissions periods, the next edition will be out in Spring 2020.

Please click here to go to the Admissions Update newsletter.

Or if you have any queries relating to admissions please do feel free to email the team at admissions@crackleyhall.co.uk or telephone our Admissions Secretary, Jenny Vaughan, on 01926 514410.

Crackley Hall enjoyed an extra special flying visitor today when Dave Sharpe from RaptorXotics brought his Owls into school to visit the children in Reception. 

Dave brought in three different species of owls including a white-faced owl, a spotted owl and a barn owl as well as a hawk to help the classes understand how the different birds of prey hunt.  He also brought in one of the owls' favourite foods – a rat called Squeak who the children also all got to meet.

The children learnt so much about the owls such as where they live, what they eat and how they hunt for their food at night time.  Did you know that owls are nocturnal animals and hunt in silence using their hearing?  Dave even flew the owls across the hall over everyone’s heads so the children could see their wings and feathers. They flew so quietly it really was very hard to hear them.

The children were enthralled, it was such an amazing experience, one that will really help the children with their learning in lessons next week.

On Tuesday 5 November we will be having our very first Super Hero Day, as part of our Vocations Week. Please come to school dressed as a Super Hero.

The aim of the day is to think about how we can all be super heroes and come to people's rescue by doing super acts of kindness for them.

More details to follow.

With a little over seven weeks to go, the countdown to Princethorpe's Entrance Exams for admission in September 2020 has begun. This year the exams for Year 7 to 10 entry will take place on Saturday 9 November from 9.30am to 3.30pm.

The College's friendly Admissions Team has been kept busy over the summer accepting registrations from prospective parents.  The deadline for registrations is ideally Friday 4 October, to enable the seeking of references from junior schools. Junior 6 parents wishing their children to sit the Princethorpe entrance exam must complete a registration form and submit it with the accompanying registration fee by this date.

There are still opportunities for prospective pupils and their parents to visit the College before the Entrance Exams, including the College's Open Morning on Thursday 26 September from 10.30am to 12.30pm, when pupil tour guides will be available to show visitors around the school.

Comments Melanie Butler, Assistant Head, Marketing, Admissions and Communications, "Parents and pupils still have time to register and one final opportunity to visit the College before the entrance exams.  We post the results out at the end of November, making for an exam-free Christmas holiday, which has got to be good news."

More information on the admissions process can be found in Princethorpe's Admissions Update newsletter here or on the Foundation website here.

If you have any queries relating to admissions please feel free to email the Registrars at admissions@princethorpe.co.uk or call them on 01926 634201.

Over 50 parents attended our New Parents Welcome Evening taking the chance to meet staff members and fellow new parents whose children had joined the school over the last year. Headmaster, Rob Duigan, welcomed everybody, introduced the dedicated Crackley team and talked about what makes Crackley such a special place.  Parents then had the chance to meet each other whilst enjoying the buffet.

The PTA were also on hand to warmly welcome all the new faces and encourage Crackley’s newest families to get involved in the wider life of the school.