The Chronicle

Our Stars of the Week this week are:

Congratulations to them all!

Crackley Hall celebrated Pi day this week as a fun way to get the children excited about Maths. Pi day is marked by mathematicians around the world as the mathematical constant which is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. The circle is often the first shape many learn in childhood and can be observed in nature everywhere. Across the school the children enjoyed a wide range of pi and circle themed learning.

Little Crackers got cracking with their maths exploring the circumference of a circle, following the rounded edge with their feet led to some interesting discussions about foot size! They thought about measuring circles in different ways, and then developed this interest into the creative area where the children cut out, stuck down, stamped, printed and created images using circles as a centre point.

Reception had great fun exploring Pi in their lessons. They learnt that the shape which is important to Pi is a circle, and played the Pi Circle game, calling out the numerals written in a circle on the ground and jumping on them. They put the first 18 digits of Pi in order and looked to see which of the numbers could combine to make bonds to 10.

Junior 1 celebrated Pi Day by learning that Pi helps us to find the circumference of a circle. On Numberblocks a new character was introduced to us - π. Everyone had the chance to design their own Pi character and name them. We had many different variations, from Victorian Pi, Mr Pi, Miss Pi, Cute Pi and Douglas Pi. There was even a Spy-Pi!

Junior 3 spent a fun filled maths lesson learning new vocabulary for the parts of a circle. They spent time measuring all the circular objects they could find before investigating the special relationship between the circumference and the diameter. They were fascinated with this amazing number that never ends, so much so, that many pupils decided to try to memorise the digits of Pi. Darcey managed an incredible 40 digits – what an achievement.

Junior 4 also had great fun investigating Pi. They enjoyed becoming more and more accurate with their measurements and there was great delight when one pair of children calculated 3.14 as Pi! 

Junior 5 took part in lots of different challenges including measuring the circumference of a circle using ribbon, then measuring its diameter and comparing the two. They then used string, to measure the circumference of circular objects in the classroom (water bottles, glue sticks, hand sanitisers and more) and the diameter to further explore the relationship between the two. The children even learned songs to help memorise Pi with many then able to comfortably recite up to 10 decimal places.

Finally, Junior 6 enjoyed their investigations into the relationship between the circumference and diameter of a circle, testing their theories using compasses, string and ruler and a little bit of brain power! The children then explored Pi Art made totally of circles and tried to create their own versions and worked out their Pi Birthdays and tried to see how many digits they could remember, they were all amazed to discover that the World Record is 70,000 digits!

It has been a marvellous week of maths.

As part of their Science studies, Junior 3 enjoyed a very special livestream session courtesy of Severn Trent Water. Educational workshop leader Maxine supported by her virtual assistant Molly took the children through the water cycle, explaining the journey water makes to and from our homes.

As well as explaining how Severn Trent deliver nice clean water to all our taps the children also learned all about how dirty water is treated and recycled and some of the problems and strange items that they have encountered in the sewers!

The children had great fun learning the 3P’s song, to help them remember the only acceptable things to flush down the loo. They had a tour of the sewage works and played the bin it or flush it game before finding out all about fatbergs. It was fascinating for them to discover the power of poo and why it is so important to use the drains only as they should be used.

It was a very informative and interesting workshop for both the children and teachers, and no one is going to forget the special song all about pee and poo! The session finished with a chance for Junior 3 to ask their own questions.

Many thanks to Severn Trent and to Maxine for such an informative and fun workshop and thanks to Mrs Woodall-Pagan for sharing details of the educational activities that Severn Trent offers.

Last week we reported that Crackley Hall School took first place in the latest Independent Schools Association (ISA) Limitless Skills Challenge scoring a huge total of 7,558 points, nearly double the score of the second placed school.

This week Mr Duigan received confirmation that Crackley's first place prize was in the post alongside a link to a video celebrating all of the participants achievements. You can watch the clip here. 

It was an amazing six weeks of physical challenges that Crackley Hall pupils threw themselves enthusiastically into and we are incredibly proud that their determination and commitment helped Crackley Hall to the top spot!

Junior 6 pupil, Seb spent last weekend supporting his local church. Their Youth Church Co-ordinator has been actively helping members of the local village who have needed assistance during the pandemic. As part of that support they had the idea to deliver a Mothering Sunday posy to every house in the village.

Seb volunteered to help and along with his sister delivered posies to approximately 100 houses; not even the stormy weather dampened their enthusiasm!

That was super kind of Seb and his sister, and we were very impressed to hear of their thoughtfulness.

Lego Club returned with lots of excitement this week when pupils brought in their own Lego to retell what they had created.  We had a super safari search, a monster car with supersonic blasters, an animal rescue centre with cats being caught in a tree and presents being exchanged at a beach resort!  This culminated in Lego stickers and Create the World Lego cards.  What fun!

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

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Glen-Root's class is Thomas

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

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

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

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

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

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Lammas's class is Willow

Well done all!

Calling all budding artists and inventors!

Please click and read through this information to enter the British Science Week 2021 poster competition on the theme of Innovating For The Future.

https://www.britishscienceweek.org/plan-your-activities/poster-competition/

Scroll through to the last page which gives details for the poster competition:

https://www.britishscienceweek.org/app/uploads/2021/02/BSQ_BSW_PACKS_0221_Primary_v15.pdf

Please send a photo of you holding your poster (make sure we can see it all clearly), or of your poster only, to me at juliaroberts@crackleyhall.co.uk by Friday 23 April, at the latest. Please ensure you send me details of your full name and your age, so that you get entered into the correct category.

Good luck!

Mrs Roberts

The Broadway Arts Festival are running a short story competition – it is the one that Seb Dibb won last year.

You can find the information here:

https://broadwayartsfestival.com/short-story-prize/

It is free to enter and there is no theme.  There is word limit of 2000 words and there is a prize of £50 for the U13 category.

The deadline for entries is 5pm on Wednesday 31 March.  All information on how to enter is on the website.

Please do have a look and encourage the children to enter.  We have some fantastic writers in all parts of the school!

The winning stories will be shared on the Broadway Arts Festival website - you can read Sebastian's winning story there!