The Chronicle

Our Stars of the Week this week are:

Junior 5 pupil Isabella Ward, and former Little Crackers pupil, Bode Owen, were both recently recognised in the Independent Schools’ Association’s prestigious National Art Competition.

Isabella's 'Saxon Weaving', which she produced last year in Junior 4, and Bode's 'Masai People and Beads' both received Highly Commended in the Key Stage 2 Textile Art class and EYFS and Key Stage 1 3D Art class respectively.

The National competition followed on from the Regional Midlands competition which took place back in September where Crackley Hall School received the following results:

KS2 Textile Art Individual: 1st Place Isabella Ward - Saxon Weaving

EYFS & KS1 3D Art Individual: 1st Place Bode Owen - Masai People and Beads

KS2 3D Art Individual: 2nd Place India Ferguson - String Panda

EYFS & KS1 Textile Art Individual: Highly Commended Milana Lambeth - Heart Strings 

All of the artists are to be congratulated on their success.

Pictured are Isabella (right) and India (left) and scroll through the gallery to see Milana.

On Saturday 24 November 12 Crackley Hall pupils from the school’s Drama Festival Club competed in the Coventry Festival of Speech and Drama at Bablake School.  It proved a long, but very successful day.

During the morning session Key Stage 2 pupils took part in the Group Verse class.  They performed The Old Wife And The Ghost against extremely competent groups from specialist arts school, Pattisson College.  Their performance delighted the judges and was rewarded with a superb score of 92% (anything over 90% is classed as an outstanding performance).  That result just pipped Pattison at the post, reversing the result from last year.  The Key Stage 2 pupils were awarded the ‘Oscar Trophy’ as a reward for their first place.

Then brave six-year-old Jia Mehta impressed the judge in the Humorous Verse class with her solo rendition of My Mother Does My Homework, scoring a brilliant Highly Commended with 85%.

The evening session started with Elle Weir and Lily Bryson’s super duologue The Three Bears.  Then, against stiff competition from other local schools, Kiran Dhillon and Jasper Nicholls took first place with another outstanding score of 90% for their humorous duologue, Excuses, Excuses. Finally, the Drama Group delighted the adjudicator with a fantastic performance of the hockey scene from Daisy Pulls it Off, scoring an absolutely amazing 95% to take the coveted ‘Blue Trophy’ for first place in the Small Dramatic Scene category against the accomplished Cobweb Theatre Company.

Drama teacher, Nicola Wildey, was ecstatic commenting, “I am so very proud of all the children who have worked so incredibly hard all term to learn their lines.  They have been so dedicated attending numerous rehearsals during break and lunchtimes. Well done to them all, this is an absolutely outstanding result.”

Crackley Hall’s Junior 5 pupil Fintan McGrory has stepped straight from his role as ‘cute Joseph’ in the successful stage production, Nativity The Musical, to the latest edition of the Christmas film franchise.  The movie, Nativity Rocks, was released just last week on Friday 23 November, and stars Fintan as a pupil at the much loved fictional St Bernadette’s Primary School.

Filming took place at various local locations in February and March this year, and included a grand Rock Opera held at Coventry Cathedral and a mock Christmas market set up just outside.  The film, the fourth in the series, follows the fortunes of St Bernadette’s staff and pupils as they try to help Coventry win the title 'Christmas Town of the Year' by auditioning for a coveted place in a spectacular rock musical competition.

Fintan plays a pupil at St Bernadette’s and, in the film, he can be seen making his Christmas wishes and then later on riding a motorcycle at the end of the show.

The film premiered in Coventry on Monday 19 November, when Fintan joined other members of the cast, and the stars of the show Simon Lipkin, Daniel Boys and Craig Revel Horwood, on the red carpet.

Fintan loved making the film even though the filming often went on well in to the night.

With all of his performance commitments you would think Fintan has more than enough on his plate to cope with but that is certainly not the case for this talented young all-rounder who following trials at Edgbaston Cricket Ground has just had the call up to the Warwickshire Cricket U10s winter development squad for 2018-19.

Fintan will now take part in a 12 week winter coaching programme with the rest of the squad where he hopes to develop both his batting and bowling skills.  He will also have the chance to work with a specialist wicket keeping coach, as he particularly enjoys playing behind the stumps, explaining, “You get more involved in the match when you’re the wicker keeper”.

Well done Fintan we are very proud of your success.

The Scholastic Book Fair has been in school all week. The books arrived in their special display cases on Monday afternoon causing much excitement. The brightly coloured jackets and bold titles catching the imagination of all who walked past.

Every class had the chance to visit the fair with their teacher during lesson time. They were able to look at the selection of books on offer and reserve the books they wanted to buy. On offer were books for girls and boys of all ages and reading levels. The fair was also open after school for parents to come along and purchase books. 

The book fair was very popular, there really is nothing like the sight, feel and smell of a new book!

Thank you to everybody who supported the fair, all your sales have provided the school with the opportunity to purchase some lovely new books for our library.