The Chronicle

Dear Parents

Welcome back to school and to the start of the Lent Term.  I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Christmas break with your families.  This week has seen children quickly settle back into the school routine and thankfully the weather has been mild and dry enough for them to enjoy break times outside.  It has been lovely to welcome Ria, Evie, Chloe and Caythan to Crackley Hall and I hope that they continue to grow from strength to strength.

I would like to thank you all for your co-operation with the new arrangements in place in the morning and at the end of the school day.  I am pleased to report that car line system has been a great success thus far and I have received positive comments from a number of parents.  I am sure that our neighbours have also appreciated the reduced congestion in the surrounding roads at the end of the school day.  Any short-term changes that you need to make in relation to collection times must be communicated through the School Office so that the system can continue to work efficiently.  We will continue to look to accommodate any timely and reasonable requests.

As a reminder, Reception parents are still able to bring their children into school during the morning and should please use the Gables entrance.  Other than those with Nursery children, all other parents wishing to come into school during a school day must please sign in at the School Office should they need to meet with a member of staff.  Whilst it may take a few weeks for the new arrangements to be firmly in place, I am very pleased with the initial feedback and improvements.  We are also very grateful to those parents who assist with reading and other volunteer work and we will be looking to ensure that you feel as valued as you have always been as we look to set in place a secure and formal arrangement from this term forward (wearing of identification after signing in, for example).  In essence, we need to know who is in school at any time, for a number of reasons.

Today we welcomed Father Kevin to school for the start of term Mass.  I would like to thank Father Kevin for always making time to lead our services and times of spiritual reflection; and also thank Mrs Jackson-Mayne, Mrs Olden and Mrs Simmonds for their efforts to ensure that Mass runs as smoothly as possible. 

Stars of the week will be celebrated next week when Mr Cottrill will host our celebration assembly as I will be attending the Catholic Independent Schools Conference. Next week Junior 4 and 5 will be visiting the NEC to take part in Young Voices.  This is an annual event, enjoyed by students, staff and parents.  Unfortunately, this year I am unable to attend but I look forward to hearing all about the performances.  Children will not be issued with tickets and will be leaving school earlier than those parents who are also travelling by coach.   It is anticipated that the children will return to school at approximately 9.45pm and due to this late finish, a later registration until will be permitted for those attending (and siblings) on Friday.  Please look out for further details on Monday.

As you will be aware from my recent letters, we decided to have a whole school review and reflection, focussing on many areas of school life.  This is to aid improvement and development as a school, including logistics such as car-line and morning drop-offs.  Another Foundation-wide review recently undertaken was on communications and the amount of time spent on email.

An area that is a cause for concern is the increasing amount of emails (including internal mail) in recent years and the sheer amount of time it takes to read and respond to them. We have set ourselves a target to reduce internal email traffic by using more efficient ways of sharing information or by talking more face to face.

We also have a genuine desire to make our parental communications as efficient as possible. As you know we try to keep you well informed by publishing the termly calendar and the weekly Chronicle.  We also have bespoke on-line platforms such as the Parent Portal (My School Portal), SOCS (school sports fixture information) and Evolve (for trips); or use iSAMS for messages to parents.  We also realise that from time to time parents may need to contact a member of staff directly and therefore email is a key part of our parental communications. There is an expectation that staff regularly check their emails at work (though not when they are teaching of course) and we have a target that a parent email is responded to within 24 hours (working week) of receipt.  Please be aware however, that teaching staff often have limited time during the day to access their email – due to their teaching commitments, lesson preparation, marking, pastoral care, breaktime duties and running clubs and activities - and we do not expect staff to spend many hours in their evenings or weekends dealing with work emails.  If you have any feedback on our communications or suggestions as to how we could further improve, please do let me know.  Thank you to those parents who have previously shared their views and valuable opinions.

The cricket series between South Africa and England is poised at 1-1, going into the third of four test matches.  I was pleasantly surprised to see South Africa win the first test but, I think, order has been restored in the second test and I expect England to go on to win the series.  Nevertheless, it is enjoyable to watch.

I wish you all a restful weekend with your families.

God bless

Mr Duigan