The Chronicle

Dear Parents

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Yichen Pan and Dari Kotlarsky playing their individual pieces at this morning’s celebration assembly.  We are blessed with many talented pupils at Crackley Hall and it is always a privilege seeing them perform, hearing how well they have fared on the sports field or looking through a piece of their English writing.  Well done to both girls who work so hard to enhance their outstanding talents.  Congratulations to all of our award recipients this morning, from those starting out in the swimming pool through to those mentioned as ‘players of the match’.

Young Voices last Friday was certainly a most spectacular occasion.  It really is amazing to see and hear one conductor bring together over 6000 children’s voices into a massive and magical choir.  The only down side to everything is that the poor staff members have to learn new dance moves in the space of a few hours before the live show!  Thank you very much to Mrs Olden for arranging everything from our school’s perspective, to the office staff for trawling through all the paperwork and to the teaching staff for accompanying the children last Friday night.  Our mums and dads also deserve a very big ‘thank you’ for their support on the night.

Our sportsmen and sportswomen acquitted themselves very well this past week.  I am delighted that all of our Junior 3 pupils (and many of the Junior 4 girls) could participate in an inter-school fixture.  The A teams were very competitive, the netball team drawing 1-1 with Bilton Grange A (who equalised just before the final whistle) and the footballers drew 4-4 with Bablake A.  The B and C teams gave of their best and enjoyed their matches, coming away with varying results.

Special mention must be made of our fantastic athletes on their collective performance in the Independent Schools’ Association regional cross-country championships this week.  Congratulations especially to Oliver Farquharson, Oliver Camargo-Jones and Iman Khan on securing entry to the national finals where they will be representing the Midlands.  Thank you to Mrs Vaughan, Miss Jones and the fantastic band of parent helpers and supporters who made the journey up to Bedstone.  I believe that the specially branded Crackley Hall gazebo, donated by our PTA, was put to good use and looked especially smart on the day.

We are still in the throes of a really bad sickness bug and I urge all families to take extra care at this time; please ensure that your child is fully recovered before sending them back into school.  We have had so many pupils and members of staff off ill over the past two weeks.

I was pleased to learn that the pupils preparing for their First Holy Communion were presented to local parishioners at Mass in St Francis on Sunday.  My thanks are extended to Mrs Jackson-Mayne and Fr Kevin for all the work that they are doing with our pupils and their families.  This is such an important part of the children’s journey.

The 2018 Six Nations Championship kicks off tomorrow with England seeming to be the favourites.  We can hopefully look forward to a couple of months of good rugby viewing.  The South African cricketers did well to beat India in the recent test series but, I think, they will come second in the one-day series, with India already 1-0 up.

I end off with a genuine and heartfelt plea to all parents to please park considerately in the neighbouring roads.  I know that almost all of you do.  We have received a number of complaints from residents in Moss Grove and Fennyland this week who have had had cars parked across driveways or seen cars parked half on the pavement. Additionally, one Fennyland resident has taken it upon himself to collect litter each afternoon – litter that allegedly is dropped by our pupils as they walk to their cars.  I am not able to verify this so, instead, I ask everyone to mindful of this.  Thank you very much for your understanding and co-operation.  It makes our job so much easier if we enjoy good relationships with our neighbours – we don’t want to be taking up too much time each week dealing with complaints.  Most of the neighbours understand the situation of living near a school and really do want to work with us; any who don’t are very much in the minority.

I hope that you are able to enjoy a happy and restful weekend.

God Bless

Robert Duigan

click here to watch the video