The Chronicle

Combed hair, pressed uniforms and polished shoes whizzed around the playground on Monday morning as Crackley's 2019/20 cohort came to school for the first time. Old friends were reacquainted, sharing stories of how they had spent their summer, and new friends were made as our students enjoyed getting to know one another. As well as our two Reception classes, there are a number of new children in other year groups who we hope have already made friends and feel at home here at Crackley Hall.

It has been delightful to see so many enthusiastic, smiling, happy faces around school during the week. We trust this year will be a successful one, filled with lots of learning and friendships that will last a lifetime. We wish everyone every success for the year and ask you all to believe in yourselves always. May your hard work make all your dreams come true.

With a little over nine 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.

Launching My School Portal: Keeping parents informed 24/7

Over the last few months we have been working to transform the way we communicate with parents and manage important information about our students.  This has involved the implementation of a new, secure, web based communication and parental information system, My School Portal, which we are delighted to announce has now been launched.

Through My School Portal parents and guardians now have secure, 24-hour access to personalised data for their children via one user name and password.

From one intuitive, simple to use dashboard, parents can access communications, reports, attendance, timetables and sports fixtures from their phone, tablet or desktop device. Importantly, moving all personal data to a restricted user-only portal ensures that only the right people see the right information.

The portal can be accessed on any device at https://princethorpe.myschoolportal.co.uk, and current parents will have received an email this week detailing how to access the portal and guidance on making the most of its numerous features. Here you can access a selection of short videos which explain how each feature of the Portal works.

We are very excited about this new investment and the prospect of enhancing engagement with parents and keeping them even better informed about their children's progress, as well as developments within the school.

As an update for both our new and current parents, the Chronicle is our weekly parent newsletter.  It includes news and important information. When you receive the Chronicle email in your inbox, it will display a general overview message, welcome from Mr Duigan and an index list of the news and information as clickable title links.

Here are some top tips for navigating the Chronicle on your phone:

• From your email inbox, click the title link of the article or event you are interested in (this will open the newsletter in your browser with the article you have selected)
• From here you can scroll through all the articles in this category
• To get back to the top of a category quickly, there is a red arrow in the bottom right of your browser. Click this and you will jump to the category index
• The category index will list all available articles and if you select ‘Newsletter Index’, this will return you to the main newsletter index with all categories and articles
• To move between different editions of the Chronicle there is a red button with three white lines at the top of the newsletter. Click this and you can choose which edition of the Chronicle you would like to browse.

 If you have any questions, please contact chronicle@crackleyhall.co.uk.