The Chronicle

Dear Parents

When we returned to school in September I was hoping that we would not have to experience a second lockdown this year.  Unfortunately, it has been necessary to increase the restrictions nationally resulting in many changes to all of us but I am grateful that schools can remain open and children can continue with their learning and socialise with their friends. I’m also hoping that all households will adhere strictly to the government’s guidelines and regulations as failure to do so can probably impact on the health and wellbeing of others in our community.

I will be asking you to adhere and take on board the advice given by the Government, NHS and school to ensure that we can keep our school open.  You will receive a separate letter from me detailing any changes that will take place during the next few weeks but essentially, in order to keep the children, staff and wider school community safe, please do not send your child to school if they display any Coronavirus symptoms.  Schools have been informed that children may also display symptoms of fatigue or muscle and joint aches.  This too can be attributed to Coronavirus and the children should be monitored then a test book if the symptoms continue.

I do not wish for this week’s Chronicle to be dominated by the lockdown news received this week as there were many positive events in school.  On Monday, Father Kevin visited school to celebrate Mass.  I am very grateful that Father Kevin has been able to visit school safely so far this term but his visits are now on hold until further notice.  Thank you to Mrs Jackson-Mayne (in her absence) and Mrs Simmons for their work in preparing for Mass.

On Wednesday, as part of Vocations week, the whole school were involved in planting daffodils on the grass bank below the top lawn.  This will provide a beautiful display in the spring and will give all of us something to look forward to.  The children may not remember exactly where they planted their bulb but hopefully they will enjoy looking for their daffodil and will be able to share this with you too.  My thanks to Mrs Jackson-Mayne for organising this activity, Mr Robertson from the Estates Team for assisting with the planting and to Mrs Stephenson for capturing the event on camera.  You will be able to read more about this later.

Unfortunately, two members of staff have been absent this week due to the virus which they contracted offsite during half term.  I have written to the respective class teacher’s parents to explain that lessons have been covered safely and within the existing bubble permutations.  I will continue to notify families who may be affected more directly by staff absences as a result of Covid19.  Certainly, any hint of an outbreak at Crackley Hall will be dealt with swiftly and carefully.

During celebration assembly this morning, ‘star of the week’ was awarded to Dalilah, Chase, Thomas, Zachary, Lexi-Jean, Elsie, Ted, Georgie, Jack, Mya, Dillon, Rosa and Helayna.  Very well done to you all.

Next week I will be delivering a Remembrance assembly to the children, with Junior 6 pupils also contributing.  Poppies are being sold at school and details will follow separately about how this will be facilitated.

I wish you an enjoyable weekend with your family.  Please keep safe.

God bless

Mr Duigan

Now that the evenings are darker please can parents go 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

Our Stars of the Week this week are:

Congratulations to them all!

On the Wednesday 4 November 2020, all children at Crackley Hall, from Nursery up to Junior 6, went out in their year group bubbles to plant Daffodil bulbs. We did this to brighten up the surroundings, to create memories and to remind us that things are always changing and growing. Children will be able to look back at the flowers and not only see a memory of planting them, but will also remember, as a team we can get through anything and that there is always hope for the future.

Here are a few quotes for some of the Junior 6 children:

“It’s a great experience planting new life.” Scarlet Hammond 6H

Anabel Davis in 6V said “I like how everyone got involved and no one was left out.”

Isabel Reddish commented “I am grateful to the school for giving everyone a chance to brighten up the surroundings and help out the environment!”

“I think planting bulbs was a great idea and I enjoyed it thoroughly.” Amelia Hunt 6V

We would like to thank Mrs Jackson-Mayne and the Estates team for making this wonderful experience possible for us and look forward to seeing the flowers emerging in the new year.

Helayna Collins
RE Captain

The montages show some of the children from Junior 2 through to Junior 6 planting.

Although Little Crackers Nursery has remained open throughout the pandemic, the nursery staff have been missing out on meeting up every Wednesday in term-time with all their Stay ‘n’ Play, toddler group, families. So, with social distancing restrictions set to continue for the foreseeable future, the toddler group’s organisers Gail Buswell and Mary O’Brien are now offering exciting virtual sessions to help entertain all those lovely little ones at home.

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

Gail explains, “The sessions are going to be great fun and although we can’t meet up in person, through technology I know we can keep the spirit and fun of our toddler group going.” 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 will enjoy them.”

The first Stay ‘n’ Play At Home was sent out on Wednesday 4 November, and we have been delighted with its popularity. 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.

A very warm welcome to Alan Sullivan who has joined our support staff here at Crackley Hall. Alan will be working in the Estates Team, alongside Michael Luis.

Alan is familiar with the Princethorpe Foundation having worked at the College site for several years but has now transferred across to join us here in Kenilworth. One of his first jobs has been to tackle the leaves all around the grounds so he has been busy with his rake all week.

Said a delighted Alan, “I am really enjoying working at Crackley, the staff and pupils here are so friendly, it already feels like the next best place to home!”

Crackley Hall’s Half Term Holiday Club offered an exciting programme of events that kept all the children thoroughly entertained. It ran throughout the two-week break providing parents with the perfect place to keep their children active and safe. With access to Crackley’s super facilities there was lots on offer and in the run up to Halloween the staff included plenty of spooky themed fun.

On the menu were arts and crafts including autumn creations such as leaf hedgehogs and autumn leaves collages and in the always popular cookery sessions the children really enjoyed biscuit decorating.

There were bingo challenges and scavenger hunts plus plenty of time outside playing on the playground, play area and in forest school.

For Halloween the children made wool spider webs, handprint spiders, witches made out of paper plates and spooky ghost banners. They also enjoyed Halloween sweet treats, including making marshmallow Frankensteins, edible body part cakes and chocolate covered apples.

And then on the last Friday, everyone had plenty of pumpkin fun designing and carving their very own Jack-O-Lanterns. They looked incredible especially when the staff lit them all at the end of the day.

Holiday Club hopes to be back at Christmas so do watch out for details and be sure to come and join in the fun.

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

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

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

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

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

Mathletes of the week for Mrs VanZyl's group are Sara and Ivy 

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Robert's group is Alfred

Well done all!

As in previous years, we are supporting The Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal and have various items in school for the children to purchase.

Because of the current restrictions, each form have an allotted amount of merchandise to purchase and will be offered it in their own bubble.

The items available are as follows:-

Small Zip Pull  in various colours - suggested donation 50p

Poppy Reflector - suggested donation 50p

Silicon wristband in various colours - suggested donation £1.00

Snap Band in various colours - suggested donation £1.50

Please note that no change will be available so please discuss with your child beforehand and send in exact money for your chosen items.

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.

Ms Holmes invites entries from children at Crackley Hall School from Nursery through to Junior 6

The theme this year is ‘Joy to the World’

Please see information attached - CISC Christmas Card Design Competition

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.

Junior 6V

All of the J6 pupils are so excited to get back to winter sports at Crackley Hall. In the Winter term the boys play rugby and football, the girls play hockey and netball. During football this week, we trained by doing different drills to practise our skills, and in Hockey we also practised skills and played fun matches against each other. For after school club we can choose a different sport each week. The girls and boys both chose football this week and are looking forward to trying rugby or hockey next week. We are so excited to be back playing Winter sports again...and especially looking forward to getting muddy!

Junior 5R

The J5’s returned enthusiastic and ready to learn after their half term break and have enjoyed a super week.

A sudden downpour of rain didn’t dampen our spirits during J5/6 PE and we all enjoyed the array of sports Mrs Vaughan planned for us: Hockey, Netball, Football and Rugby.

Our exciting new topic in Science is 'Forces' and we had fun estimating and measuring various classroom objects with Newton meters.

Creating Superheroes has been a real hit too as we delved into writing lively comic strips and detailed fact files.

Hattie was so inspired by our 'Earth, Sun and Moon' topic, that she googled famous female Scientists/Astronomers and discovered Dr Maggie and has since penned a letter to the Scientist herself!  We were impressed and are all eagerly awaiting her response.

Junior 4B

Year 4 are starting to write their own stories based around their own Super Gran or Super Grandad.

For all of those that remember, this is based upon the much-loved series 'Super Gran' - you can refresh your memory here.  We have had great fun creating our own characters before we go on to think about what special gifts our character has and how she will use them for the greater good. This all ties into our Vocations Fortnight where we are also thinking about our own special gifts, calling from God and contributions to the world. Here are a few of our designs for our characters. 

Junior 3S

This week in Junior 3S, we have been learning the anatomical names for bones in the human body. Assisted by Roy, Crackley Hall’s resident skeleton, the children have been exploring the function of bones, learning how they develop and the important jobs they do for us. Having heard a rumour that woolly mammoths are making a comeback, we have been preparing by learning how to wash this huge beast. The children have been practising being a ‘bossy boots’, improving their understanding of imperative verbs, ready to write instructions for 'How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth'. We are delighted to be back at school and are all excited for the next few weeks.

We, in Junior 2, are fast becoming Maths Magicians! Having worked so hard during the first part of half-term, we have come back fighting-fit using what we have learned to help us solve tricky maths challenges. Maths word problems can be problematic because not only do you have to be sure to read the question correctly, you must make sure the accurate operation is used in order to solve the problem. We started using concrete resources but as we became confident, we stretched ourselves by working out the problems without them! We are so smart that we even explored two-step questions. Ms Holmes and Mrs Bhogal are very proud of us!

Junior 1GR

What a busy week it has been in J1; we really can’t believe that we have only been back a week! Our English work has focussed on writing captions and lists, which has resulted in such enthusiastic writers in class.

We have read and retold Pat Hutchins’ story ‘Don’t forget the Bacon’ as a link to our English aim, which the children found enormous fun. They have sequenced the story, written their own shopping lists, labelled the pictures from the story and matched the new items to what was on mum’s original shopping list. There was great hilarity when the little boy remembered six farm eggs as six fat legs and nobody could believe that he even forgot to buy the bacon!

In maths, we have been learning about fact families and also how to count backwards by counting aloud as well as using a number line. We learnt how ‘counting back’ can be used for subtraction and we investigated how addition and subtraction problems can be related to each other, to form a fact family.

Of course, we have also celebrated bonfire night which is such an important time of the year for our youngest members of school. We have listened to fireworks music whilst working, coloured fireworks pictures and made our own sparkly rockets.

After a super half-term break, Reception returned to school full of beans, raring to go this week. With the nights’ drawing in and winter approaching, we have started to investigate both hibernation and nocturnal animals. We have been busy writing, researching and recording hedgehog facts in addition to reading stories about hedgehogs. Using our knowledge of hedgehogs, we each made our own hedgehog in clay. It was great fun using scissors to create the spikes and of course, googly eyes are obligatory! Mrs Convey and Mrs Green have been amazed by both our creativity and our impressive knowledge of nocturnal animals – why not see how many you can name? 

Crackley Hall celebrated the Feast of All Saints on Monday, which was led by Junior 4 with Fr Kevin in The Gables.  From the entrance hymn Colours of Day sung by soloists, the mass encouraged us to think about the people who are in heaven.  During our Vocations Fortnight we also thought especially about the people who have been guided by God to use their talents and gifts for others.  The sermon helped us think about how we can be open to God’s message so that we too can recognise our own vocation and continue on our own spiritual journey. With a nod exchange for the Sign of Peace, we concluded with the final hymn with soloists singing This Little Light of Mine.

Please click on the link below for the weekly mission:

Weekly Mission

Please find information below:

Children's Liturgy

During the half term Ted (J3V) was awarded coaches' player of the week for the U8 team and Will (J1H) was given player of the week for the U6 team, both play for Kenilworth RFC.

Well done Ted and Will!

We have come back after half term with a bang!  The nursery children have enjoyed meeting up with their friends again and we have welcomed everyone back, ready to learn and play together.  The malleable and tactile tray has been a particularly popular area this week as the children explored the firework stimulus, from tiny bead threading onto ‘sparkler’ pipe cleaners, to making swirly patterns in the coloured sand to represent catherine wheels and rockets.  Forest School was also a high point, and we must say a big thank you to Mrs Clarke for leading our fun on Thursday as she threw armfuls of leaves high into the air to float down around us, and then started the games rolling – literally, as she lay down to roll down the hill!  Everyone thoroughly enjoyed a rather muddy time, what a good job we had our waterproofs!!!

We are thinking of all our families at the moment as the new lockdown provides new challenges, and as always, if you need anything, or we can help in any way, then please let us know.  Stay safe, and enjoy a relaxing weekend with your family.

Newsletter

The PTA are excited to announce the Autumn Preloved Book Sale! The Sale will be held on Friday 20 November from 9.00am to 11.30am.

Thank you for all the donations we have received so far, however we still need more to make this event a success. We are especially short of chapter books and books suitable for KS1.

We are also happy to take more than five books per child if you are able to spare them. The deadline has been extending to Monday 8 November.

Good examples of books suitable for Pre-Teen are as follows; The Harry Potter series, Watership Down, Alex Rider series and the Hunger Games but other suitable books are welcome.

New Event News!

This year the PTA need to be super creative with Christmas events and we are very excited to tell you about a brand new event for Crackley Hall!

Crackley’s Christmas Light Trail

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 Monday 7 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.

We can’t wait to hear from you!

Friday 13 November - 7.00pm to 9.00pm

Join us on Friday 13 November from 7.00pm to 9.00pm from the comfort of your own home for Crackley Hall's first BIG PTA Online Family Quiz – the one thing that won’t be cancelled in 2020!

We encourage all Crackley Hall families and staff to come together for a fabulous night of entertainment! All ages are welcome to join in this evening, which will test everyone's knowledge, alongside entertainment from staff members, a Crackley Hall specific quiz round and an opportunity to win spectacular prizes! Tickets go on sale tonight and are £5 per family to join (£1 of which will go towards a raffle at the end of the quiz). Don’t miss the chance for your children to see Mr. Duigan himself as the ultimate quiz master! If that's not enough to tempt you, each family will be playing for your child’s house and a chance to increase their house points! 

For those of you wanting to go all out with this event, there is also an optional  themed 'A Night at the Movies' fancy dress option with prizes for the best dressed family. Let’s see how creative our Crackley Hall families and staff can be!

Please click here to sign up, you will need to scroll down the page. Tickets are limited so don't delay.

We promise this will be a night to remember and one your family will really enjoy!

The Foundation currently has the following vacancies:

• Teacher of Chemistry (maternity cover) – Princethorpe College
• After School Supervisor – Crackley Hall

Full details and information on how to apply are available on the Foundation website here:

www.princethorpe.co.uk/joinus

Should you know anyone who might be interested in these posts, please do share this information with them.

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.