The Chronicle

Dear Parents

The children and staff have all been fantastic in school during this first full week of the second national lockdown; thank you for continuing to support our school and the procedures we have in place to protect everyone here and in the wider community.

On Wednesday morning I held a Remembrance Assembly which was streamed to all classes so that we could all come together to participate in the 2-minute silence.  Isabella from J4 joined me, at a safe distance, in my office to play the last post and Mr Luis kindly raised the flag outside school to commemorate this event.  School fell silent at 11.00 am as we remembered those lost in conflict.

Thank you to all the children who submitted their artwork for the CISC Christmas card competition.  I have chosen the winner and will be announcing this next week; the winning entry will also be featured on the school Christmas card this year.  Everyone who entered will receive a Headmaster’s award and their designs will be on display in the Gables next week; I will share the winning art work and the runners up with you in the Chronicle.

I am pleased to let you know that both Mrs Jackson-Mayne and Mrs Lammas have returned to school this week and their children were very pleased to see them both.  Mrs Jackson-Mayne will be arranging for the school time capsule to be sealed very soon, so if you have any items you would like to include, please make sure these are sent to school next week.  You can read more about this later in the Chronicle.

During assembly this morning there were many celebrations including our Stars of the Week: Corin, Ashleigh, Oscar, Thomas, Grace, Isabelle, Adreena, Oliver, Amelia, Jasmine, Alfred, both Henry in Junior 6V and Henry in Junior 6H.   Theo in Junior 4 was awarded RE Book of the Week.  Theo was again congratulated, together with Finley in Junior 3 (History), for their excellent work which has been recognised through the award of a Junior Da Vinci each.   Well done to everyone including all the students who participated in LAMDA exams, your certificates with be distributed very soon.  It was exceptional that everyone who entered the LAMDA exams received a Distinction – a super effort from pupils (especially), parents who helped with the rehearsing and the staff involved.

Tonight, I will be hosting the PTA online quiz.  This is the first time our annual quiz has been held online and I am very grateful to Mrs Card and the PTA for helping arrange this event and to everyone who has bought a ticket which raises funds for the PTA.  It is something that you can take part in (if you have purchased the online ticket) whilst being safe and in the comfort of your own home - I look forward to seeing you this evening.  

Next week we will be supporting Anti Bullying Week and all children (and staff) are encouraged to wear odd socks on Monday to celebrate their individuality and what makes them unique.  You can read more about this initiative later in this edition.

I wish you all an enjoyable weekend.

God bless

Mr Duigan

Next week is Anti-Bullying week and we are encouraging the children to take part.  The children will be watching Andy and the Odd Socks and taking part in anti-bullying events during the week.

Everyone is invited to wear odd socks on Monday 16 November.

Please follow the link below for more information:

https://www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/anti-bullying-week/odd-socks-day/what-odd-socks-day

Now that the evenings are darker please can parents come to the office to collect their children from Aftercare.  Please also provide your child with an extra snack and drink.

Thank you 

Crackley Hall School

Please find Nativity Information below for Reception, J1 and J2:

Reception

J1

J2

On Wednesday, Crackley Hall School paused for Remembrance Day. Across the school the children took part in assemblies in their year group bubbles. Headmaster, Rob Duigan, led the virtual service, reminding the children about the significance of the poppy and why we all take time to remember. At 11am Isabella played the Last Post on her cornet and the children and staff observed the two-minute silence.

In school this week Remembrance has featured in the children’s learning, both in written and creative activities. Junior 2 created a Remembrance Wall featuring images of their hands holding poppies. Then Luis from the Estates team visited the children in Reception, he spoke to them about the RAF Reserves and the support he gave to the military in Afghanistan and Iraq. He brought his medals in for the children to see and explained their significance and he taught them how to do a RAF salute. The children also learned a poem about poppies and why we remember them, you can watch them reciting the poem here: https://vimeo.com/478854494/f434e359d6

Though our learning activities our community here at Crackley Hall School has remembered.

The Crackley Hall Junior Da Vinci programme encourages all pupils to be inspired to be the best that they can be. The Junior Da Vinci programme embraces three adapted principles - Creativity, Practice and Mastery - that the children demonstrate in their learning.

This year we are ensuring that all pupils in the school have opportunities to achieve Junior Da Vinci awards. The attached leaflet gives more information about this programme. Look out for children achieving Junior Da Vinci's in the Chronicle over the year.

Parent Information

Our Stars of the Week this week are:

Congratulations to them all!

Next Wednesday will see the release of the second in our series of Stay ‘n’ Play At Home fortnightly videos featuring favourite activities such as: settle down for story-time, join in our sing-a-long and get creative with craft. The second video again offers mums and tots the chance to take part in activities that will entertain and support early learning and as before, families can choose to join in with all or part of each session at a time to suit themselves.

Gail explains, “The first session went well and we were delighted with how many people tuned in.” Mary added, “It has been fun putting the videos together and they contain activities we always have on offer at Stay ‘n’ Play. So, we hope everyone is enjoying them.”

The second in the series of videos will be released on Wednesday 18 November and if you know someone you think might be interested in joining our Stay ‘n’ Play community and receiving the video links, especially as we are now back in lockdown, then please ask them to contact Jenny Vaughan on jennyvaughan@crackleyhall.co.uk or on 01926 514410.

We hope to resume Stay ‘n’ Play in its familiar format as soon as it is safe to do so.

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Hardwick's class is Leyton

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Glen-Roots's class is Oscar

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Holmes's class is Theo 

Mathlete of the week for Mr Stedeford's group is Olivia

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Wildey's class is Joseph

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Burley's group is Arisha

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Roberts's group is Ollie

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Lammas's group is Harry F and last week's was Sid.

Well done all! 

The Flu Immunisation Team will be visiting the School on Monday 7 December to carry out Flu Vaccinations for all children from Reception to Junior 6. Unfortunately, we have no control over the date as it is set by the Immunisation Team on a rolling monthly timetable every year.

The immunisation (given to the children in the form of a nasal spray) will be carried out in class bubbles, in the school hall, with the area decontaminated between each year group.

Further details will be sent to you approximately two weeks before the immunisation date and this will contain a link to an e-consent form which should be returned directly to the Immunisation Team.

The weather is on the turn and this quick reminder is to let you know that you can purchase your school winter wear essentials from either the Uniform Shop at Princethorpe College or from the Office at Crackley Hall. Items are priced as follows:

Fleece Gloves – Ages 2-4, 5-7, 7-9, 9-12 - £4.00

Fleece Hat – Small/Standard - £5.00

Fleece Scarf – One Size - £7.00

Crackley Hall's Office Team can accept cash or cheque, whilst the Uniform Shop at Princethorpe can also accept card payments. Alternatively, you might choose to add your purchase to your bill and have the items delivered to Crackley Hall for you to collect.

Monday 16 November - 6.30pm to 7.30pm

The Headmaster and the Admissions Team at Princethorpe College will be holding a Virtual Q&A session on Monday 16 November from 6.30pm to 7.30pm.

This is a chance for parents to ask any last questions relating to the admissions process and Entrance Examinations Day on Saturday 23 January in an informal forum, before the registration deadline of Friday 4 December.

If you would like to attend this virtual event please click here to register. A link to the Teams event will be sent via email prior to the event.

To access our Revised 2021 Admissions and Entrance Examinations Booklet, and to download the Registration and Scholarship Forms please click here.

Crackley Hall School and Little Crackers Nursery will be hosting a Virtual Reception and Nursery Open Evening and Live Q&A on Thursday 19 November from 7.00pm to 8.00pm.

The evening is designed to give parents an insight into the Early Years at Crackley Hall and the firm foundation we give our children for their future learning.

During the online event there will be a presentation by our Headmaster, Rob Duigan and Assistant Head (Early Years and Key Stage 1), Sue Glen-Roots. The evening will also feature a short video focusing on life in Nursery and Reception and prospective parents will have the opportunity to ask questions via a live chat facility.

To register for the event please complete the form here.

For more information on admissions or the event please email admissions@crackleyhall.co.uk or call 01926 514410 and speak to our Admissions Secretary, Jenny Vaughan.

Please click on 'View Gallery' to scroll through a few photos from this week's events.

During French this term, we have been learning how to accurately name and pronounce items in our school pencil cases, subjects that we study, the time of day and what our likes and dislikes are.

We are hoping to conduct a survey, asking each other (in French of course!) about our favourite subjects. This week we have sent a letter to our pen-pals in France and look forward to receiving a reply.

Another great week of learning!

Our forces topic continues to be investigative, with the use of Newton Meters to measure force and vehicles travelling down ramps, with pupils ably predicting and measuring the friction created by various floor surfaces around the school.

We commemorated Remembrance Day with a wonderful whole school assembly and J5R relished listening to our Caretaker Michael Luis, who proudly filled them in on his service in the military and the medals he had been awarded. In addition, this topic has inspired the pupils to create felt poppies in their Art lessons and Alfred penned a fabulous poem entitled 'Poppies' for his English homework.

The J5’s have also worked enthusiastically whilst creating an array of poetry and performing these to their peers. 

Year 4 have been writing their SuperGran/Grandad stories this week to reflect the superhero qualities we have been looking at this Vocations fortnight: kindness, humbleness, modesty and helpfulness. Our elderly superheroes certainly gave staff a big surprise at their sudden agility, acrobatics, ability and general heroics helping members of the public out of sticky situations. Zimmer frames became cages, walking sticks shot lasers, antique earrings frisbeed through the air and handbags were the ultimate weapon against those pesky villains!

The children have not been content using everyday words and have been using thesauruses to improve their vocabulary to include words that they’ve never used before such as: antiquated, hefty, bitter, hobbling, suspiciously, cobbled, haggard and lumbering.

We have a super class of budding authors!

This week, Junior 3 spent a wonderful morning immersing themselves in their Stone Age topic in the Forest School area. We worked together to build some amazing shelters and also tried our hand at fashioning stone-age weapons such as spears, bows and arrows and other simple tools.

We enjoyed creating paintings on ‘animal hide’ and recording messages for each other using symbols made from sticks, stones, shells and leaves.

A healthy dose of fresh air certainly helped our learning and we were all quite exhausted by home time! Thankfully, we all have lovely modern warm homes to snuggle up in so we didn’t need to rely on our handmade shelters.

This week we have celebrated Diwali. We had fun trying on a variety of outfits with sequins and sparkles enjoyed by all! The true meaning of Diwali is the 'celebration of light', 'making a fresh start', and 'new beginnings'. Many people consider that Diwali marks the start of their new year, enabling them to make plans for a new start, a little like New Year's resolutions. We looked at the importance of having the house cleaned just before Diwali and we had fun learning all about this wonderful festival. 

Did you know, Diwali literally means a row of lights? We learned about the story of Rama and Sita and how lights play such an important role in this festival.

Happy Diwali to you all.

Junior 1 have finally finished a whole year group piece of art work based on the topic of ‘Homes’. We spent a long time collecting cardboard boxes, turning them inside out and decorating them to look like houses. They were then stuck onto a display so they look like houses on a hillside – quite remarkable don’t you think?

In Science this week we have been looking closely at the weather, in particular the symbols used in a weather forecast. Each class has made rain gauges and put them outside to see how much rain falls over the next week. Fingers crossed for rainy and stormy days so we can have some interesting results to plot onto our bar charts next week!

Our theme in Reception this week has been Remembrance Day and the importance of remembering all those who have given their lives to enable us to live in peace.

We started the week by enjoying a presentation by Mr Luis, our caretakeer. Mr Luis has served in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, and the children thoroughly enjoyed quizzing him on his military service with the RAF. We learnt how to stand to attention, do a proper salute and we saw some impressive medals too! Following on from this, we learnt about the significance of wearing a poppy at this time of year and made our own class wreath for the classroom door.

We also enjoyed learning and reciting a poppy poem, painted poppy pictures and listened to the Last Post.

You can watch us reciting our poem here: https://vimeo.com/478854494/f434e359d6

What a busy and engaging week we have enjoyed!  

Please click on the link below for the weekly mission:

Weekly Mission

Please find information below:

Children's Liturgy

RE book of the week has been awarded to Theo Cowlishaw in J4W.

Theo was able to recount the complicated Bible story of Abraham and Isaac and Abraham’s relationship with God.  Theo was able to understand how Abraham’s faith was tested and he explained God’s earlier promise that Abraham would have many descendants.  Theo used intense emotional language to capture the feel of this story and he realised that this Biblical event displayed exactly how far Abraham  would go in his absolute trust in God.

Well done.

This week we really made the most of the puddles!  Today especially as they were really useful to clean our boots, after… wellie painting!  The youngest children popped on their bright red waterproofs, and some spare wellies (we were planning on getting really messy!) Then we took paper, and paint outside.  The children helped pour blobs and trickles of paint on the paper, then we covered the blobs with cotton wool… then 1, 2, 3… we stamped down hard… and ‘splat!’ The children had lots of fun, adding wet leaves to the autumn colours too.  Then, we stomped through the great big puddles to wash off the paint before coming back inside – with big smiles all round. 

Have a great weekend, hopefully with more sunshine than puddles… and don’t forget, it’s Odd Sock Day on Monday – when we will be finding out all about how to be kind to our friends.

Newsletter

Last week the spotlight in Nursery was on the Malleable and Tactile area as we all got hands on to strengthen our fingers and develop the skills we need when writing.

The firework filled bonfire tray was set up to excite and encourage the children to use their busy fingers to explore. We watched as they used paintbrushes to draw firework shapes and make ‘swirly whirly’ patterns in the sand – whilst making some excellent sound effects at the same time! Some focussed on exploring texture as they used both ends of the brush, the wooden end scratched the surface, whilst the brush end made wide marks in the sand. One child used the pipe cleaners to make her own sparkler, waving it as she would a real one, and another focussed on the shiny capital letters, finding the one that he needed for his name. Some children explored the area using great big arm movements, while others kept things small and neat, threading tiny beads onto the pipe cleaner fireworks, or pinching up fingerfuls of coloured sand to watch it fall.

The malleable tray is a doorway to different tactile adventures, and all the children access it in their own way, following their own individual learning journey as they explore, develop and most of all play.

Ordinary Meeting - Wednesday 18 November 7.30pm via Teams

We are always looking to welcome new members, so if the PTA is something you would like to be involved with we would be very pleased for you to join us. The committee get together once per half term and would really welcome some new faces, now more than ever.

If you would like any further information or to be added to our email list, please contact Chanel Camilleri-Willis ccamilleriwillis@gmail.com

We would be delighted to hear from you.

Thank you to our wonderful second hand uniform team, Nikki, Linda and Katie, for being ever patient and serving our wonderful school community with much needed pre-loved uniform.

We are having a coat sale and are offering 2 sizes at reduced prices; size 69cm and 74cm for £12.50, instead of the normal £17.50 - a special deal due to the colder weather.

Please feel to contact them on ptauniform@crackleyhall.co.uk to order, or to simply check stock availability.

Postponed but absolutely not cancelled

The PTA have been absolutely overwhelmed by your generosity and support for the school book swap.

We would like to say a huge thank you for all of those who have taken the time to rummage through your book shelves at home to find some great books to donate to the sale.

Due to the current lockdown restrictions, it has been decided to alter the date for the sale. This will ensure the amount of additional adults needing to go into the school during this lockdown period is kept to an absolute minimum.

We can announce with pleasure that the book sale will continue to go ahead, but at a date post -Wednesday 2 December. This date change has had the bonus of allowing us to extend the deadline for receiving books and will also mean that the books can be sorted and categorised earlier with greater time for quarantine.

Thanks again for all your support!

In order to make this possible, we need lots of volunteers 

This will be a treasure trail of Christmas light displays provided by Crackley Hall’s parents and teachers.

At each display there will be a letter which you will need to write down. Once you have completed the trail you will have all the letters for a Christmassy anagram which you will need to work out! Crackley families can drive around the magical trail hunting for the letters at their leisure over the week commencing Friday 4 December 2020.

There will be a prize for the winner as well as a prize for the most popular light display, as voted by all the participants!

In order to make this possible, we need lots of volunteers to provide a Christmas light display to be included on the trail map. Your displays can be as simple or as flamboyant as you like. We would just like as many households as possible to be included so we can create a really fabulous trail!

If you live within a 4 - 5ish mile radius from school and you can volunteer your Christmas light display to be included please email:

Jo Ward at PTAevents@crackleyhall.co.uk

The deadline to be included in the map is Friday 13 November.

Lost Property

Hugo (Reception) and Jenson (J3V) have both lost their named gloves

Max (J6V) has lost his named blazer

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Parents, please ensure that all items of school uniform and sports kits are named.

Could you please regularly check all uniform and sports kits at home – if it does not belong to your child, please return it to the School Office as soon as possible.