The Chronicle

Dear Parents

After recently returning from being away from school for a short period, I was fortunate to be able to enjoy some time outdoors with the Estates Team today, discussing the Jubilee tree planting which will take place next week.  It almost felt like Spring during the late morning and I look forward to being involved in the planting on Monday when each class will be able to plant their tree.  We are incredibly lucky to have such beautiful surroundings as a school and I am delighted that part of the lower playground will be developed into a Jubilee Garden.  I will provide everyone with more details next week but this will be an area that all children will be able to visit and contribute to whilst, hopefully, also providing a haven for insects and birds.  Thank you to the PTA for organising the ordering of the trees and the various classes for their participation in this initiative.  I hope that, if you have ordered a tree as a family, that you are able to enjoy planting your own Jubilee tree this weekend, or early next week.

Last Friday, the whole school participated in Number Day and raised over £430 for the NSPCC.  My thanks are extended to Mrs Van Zyl who expertly co-ordinated this event and I would encourage you to read the full feature report later in this edition.

This week we focussed on Mental Health Week which included various activities across the year groups including meditation, mindfulness, Yoga and some time spent in the Forest School area.  We will be continuing with elements of these important activities as part of the school day as children respond positively to ways in which they can deal with various daily concerns and situations.  I do hope that your child has been able to share some of these activities with you.

During Celebration Assembly this morning, Mr Cottrill awarded quite a collection of certificates including our Stars of the Week: Sebastian, Ella, Lucas, Cameron, Casper, Leyton, Henry, Rory, Molly, Isabelle, Aidan, Kate, Elsie and Joseph.  There was also an impressive selection of Da Vinci Awards presented to Darcey, Jenson, Adreena, Josh, Mahnoor, Alexander, Georgie S and Elora receiving two awards.  Congratulations to everyone involved.  Thank you to Mr Cottrill for leading the assembly in my absence.

Next week the PTA have helped to organise two fund raising events which take place on Monday 14 February.  As previously mentioned, the Jubilee Tree planting will involve each class during the morning where they will be planting a native tree commemorating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee (10 min per class).  Following that, the book sale will be held in the school hall and every £1 raised will be directed to the PTA funds. Mrs Stephenson will be on hand to capture both events on camera and I look forward to updating you on these events next week.

I am delighted to announce that two new members of staff will be joining the Crackley Hall School family next week.  Miss Francis will be joining Little Crackers Nursery and Mr Hunt will be joining the Estates Team and assisting Mr Luis around school.  I am sure you will join me in making them feel most welcome.

Junior 1 and Reception classes both have visits to look forward to next week which will be a lovely way to end this half term.  Holiday club is currently receiving bookings but these will close by Wednesday next week to enable staffing to be confirmed.  If you have not yet booked or are unable to do so, please contact the school office as soon as possible to secure your child’s place.

Please look out for reports on the various sports results and class activities that took place during the past week.  I wish you and your families a happy and relaxing weekend.

God bless,

Mr Duigan

Holiday club will run from Monday 21 until Friday 25 February 2022.

It will be open from 8.30am to 5.00pm each day, and will cost £30 per child. Hot lunch will be provided.

Holiday club will only operate on the days where there are sufficient numbers to open, therefore it is important for you to book early as we may not be able to accommodate last minute bookings, due to staff ratios and COVID bubbles. If you have booked a day and the numbers attending are not high enough, you will be contacted to either cancel or rearrange the day booked.

Please book via My School Portal.

Thank you.

Our Stars of the Week this week are:

Congratulations to them all!

The wellbeing of our community is of paramount importance to us here at Crackley Hall School. This week has been Children's Mental Health Week, with the theme for this year of 'Growing Together,' and the children have been focusing on how they have grown and how they can help others to grow.

Challenges and setbacks can help us to grow and adapt and trying new things can help us to move beyond our comfort zone into a new realm of possibility and potential. However, emotional growth is often a gradual process that happens over time, and sometimes we might feel a bit ‘stuck’. To support children's growth, teachers have planned and delivered teamwork activities across the curriculum this week for example in PSHE, PE, Music and Drama. Next week, the children will all take part in a guided meditation session, that we hope they come home and tell you about.

Nearly every year group across the school has enjoyed a Forest School session this week. The School Councillors asked their peers what they would like to do during this week and there was a resounding request for Forest School. We will get the Year 6s in the Forest soon.

We hope that the children have had a wonderful week and we will continue to support them as they develop into resilient, creative, flexible, dedicated and proactive citizens.  

Children Mental Health Week Information

Crackley Hall joined schools across the country on Friday 4 February for a mega maths fundraising day for the NSPCC. The children and staff all came to school dressed in a mathematical theme – from human calculators, to clocks, dice and digits – you couldn’t turn a corner at Crackley without bumping into a number!

Teachers had carefully planned an exciting array of different ‘number’ themed activities for pupils, which cleverly highlighted that maths and numbers really are everywhere – from the intervals and beats in a Music lesson to co-ordinates and graphing in Geography and Science and hopscotch in French. There were lots of in-class challenges and number bond relays which were all a lot of fun.

All the children in Key Stage 2 took part in a House Super Speedy Tables Challenge with plenty of amazing results, many children scored 20/20 in under one minute. The year group winners clocking up the fastest times for all correct scores were:
J3 Joseph Beaman-Henderson in 45 seconds
J4 Arthur Cowell in 45 seconds
J5 Georgie Skrypchuk, Georgie Rea and Matilda Clarke all in 33 seconds
J6 George Knott in 32 seconds
The Houses placed 1st Jupiter, 2nd Venus, 3rd Mars and 4th Saturn, and Jupiter House Captain, Dhillon, was delighted to receive the Challenge Cup.

Junior 3 were visited for the day by a pair of Number Pharaohs who had travelled over 2,333 miles from 5,000 BC to teach the children in Junior 3 all about their ancient number system. They were very strict but luckily were impressed with their mathematical ability and skill at solving some tricky calculations.

And the children in Little Crackers Nursery joined in the fun, counting forwards and backwards, matching, recognising, adding, taking away inside, outside, and even at lunchtime!

All the children and staff thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to ‘play’ with maths for the day, and it was all for a good cause, with the school raising £437.92 for the NSPCC charity.

Well done Crackley – we counted on you, and you didn’t let us down!

This week the children have been enjoying Forest School sessions as part of a programme of special activities for Children’s Mental Health Week. Forest school encourages children to learn new skills in a setting where they are free to problem-solve and think of new ideas. Its play-based approach builds confidence and can pay dividends in academic performance – but it also improves pupils’ mental well-being.

Across the week the classes have been working with Forest School Practioner, Mrs Clark. On Wednesday it was the turn of Junior 4, and they were delighted to get outside. They enjoyed cooking in the mud kitchen, building dens and playing on the hammock and swings. As you can see from the pictures, great fun was had by all! 

Crackley Hall will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of World Book Day on Thursday 3 March with lots of book related activities in school.

As two of our year groups are out of school for the day on this date, we will be dressing up as our favourite characters from a book on Friday 4 March.

Please put the date in your diaries, more details to follow soon.

It was wonderful to see so many ex-Crackley pupils taking to the stage of the Clarkson Theatre last night in Princethorpe College's production of Matilda Jr.

All their many years of experience performing for Crackley Hall, have clearly stood them in good stead. We have some photos from their final dress rehearsal here for you to enjoy.

A huge well done to them all.

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

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Burley's class is Teo

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Glen-Roots's class is Aaryan and Will 

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Van Zyl's class is Josh

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Holmes class is Charlotte

Mathlete of the week for Mr Stedeford's class is Adreena 

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

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Lammas group is Kate 

Well done all!

Love Productions are looking for young budding bakers between 9-12 years old.

Filming will take place from July 2022, but applications close on Sunday 13 March 2022.

Interested bakers can apply online at - www.applyforjuniorbakeoff.co.uk

Please can parents check if they have any children's plastic bowls, plates, cups and cutlery that they no longer need as they would be gratefully received at Forest School for when the children cook outside.

Thank you 

Why not get involved with this competition to create a picture book for World Book Day!

The ReadingZone Picture Book Competition 2022, in partnership with World Book Day, is challenging those aged four to 18 years to make their own picture book. You can work on your own, or with partners or in a group to create a picture book.

Judging the entries will be acclaimed author and illustrator Sarah McIntyre (Grumpycorn, The New Neighbours and Pugs of the Frozen North).

The competition closes on Friday 22 April 2022, and the winners will be announced in June. Prizes include £100 of books for each winner's school or library, plus a free online author event for the overall winner.

Mini Grey provides tips and guidance in the resources, below, to help children to get started with their picture book projects.

External Link www.readingzone.com/creative-projects/how-to-make-a-picture-book/

Saturday 5 March 2022 - 10.30am to 12.30pm

Crackley Hall and Little Crackers will be opening the doors for a Spring Open Morning on Saturday 5 March from 10.30am to 12.30pm. 

This is a great opportunity for prospective families to look around Little Crackers Nursery and Crackley Hall School as well as meet key members of staff. The school will come alive with musical performances and sport in action as well as an activity trail around the school. Can you find all the Crackley lambs?

Come and find out more about what a Crackley education can do for your child, click here to book your place.

Please email Mrs Jenny Vaughan, Admissions Secretary at admissions@crackleyhall.co.uk or call her on 01926 514410 for more information on the Open Morning and admissions process.

For more information visit www.crackleyhall.co.uk.

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

This week, Junior 6 have transported themselves back in time to the 18th Century and have been thinking about highwaymen and highway robbery.  We have begun our study of the classic narrative poem The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes, set in 18th-century rural England. This poem tells the story of an unnamed highwayman who is in love with Bess, a landlord's daughter. Betrayed to the authorities by Tim, the jealous ostler, the highwayman escapes ambush when Bess sacrifices her life to warn him and then learning of her death, he is killed in a futile attempt at revenge. We have focussed on the different language used in the poem, sequenced events and also wrote our own versions of the story. We were interested to set the poem in context when we researched information about highwaymen in general, as well as 18th Century transport and weapons.

In Junior 5 this week the children have been celebrating the weird and wonderful as we look at the life cycles of a series of con-conforming critters such as the kangaroo or dung beetles! First the children set out to research their animals, paying close attention to any surprising differences such as how the platypus (a mammal) lays eggs! They then went on draw and annotate diagrams telling us in detail about how these peculiar animals develop and any other fascinating facts of note. The brilliant flair and individuality on show in J5 never fails to impress. Keep it up children!

Junior 4 have been very creative this week as part of Mental Health Week. In Computing, they have created PowerPoints on how to look after their mental health and well-being. They have also enjoyed making positive affirmation fortune tellers, and have patiently coloured in mindfulness patterns, whilst listening to the teaching staff reading their class novel aloud.  

As part of their ‘Growing Together’ theme, Junior 4 also thought about how they would like to grow emotionally, by creating their reach for the stars goals.

Junior 3H have had enormous fun this week, thinking about the Egyptian ‘mummification’ process and all that entailed. Through discussion and an amazing clip of how a third century BC character, Parocletes, was mummified, we used beef tomatoes to replicate the drying out process, using sea salt and bicarbonate of soda! Watch this space for the outcome, which should take around 40 days. Junior 3V have been creating art on a grand scale! Every Friday we eagerly scurry off to the art room to work on our sarcophagus project, where each of us (teachers included) are completely absorbed in creating our own life-sized sarcophagus. So far, we have learned all about the proportions of the face and how to shade to create a 3D effect, as well as creating some impressive headdresses. Now we are busy painting symmetrical designs fit for a pharaoh on the coffins. We can’t wait to embellish them with gold, bronze, glitter and jewels. Beware if you enter the art room – you may be met with a gloriously grizzly surprise!  In French Junior 3 have also been learning how to talk about birthdays. The children showcased some impressive acting abilities in their celebrity interview role plays! Bravo Junior 3.

Junior 2 have continued to enjoy their topic on China. This week, we have used our senses to experience different Chinese food during our Science lessons and we then recorded our findings. We loved all of the different smells and tastes of the food. In English, we enjoyed making our own cartoon strips of The Willow Pattern story and we then went on to write our own versions. After looking at the Willow Pattern design in class, we took the opportunity to recreate it in our Art lesson. Our Maths lessons have been all about the numbers 2, 5 and 10 as we continue to practise our times tables, make tally charts and pictograms, as well as recording information in a bar chart! Finally our highlight of the week has been our visit to Forest School where we were free to explore the great outdoors as part of Mental Health Week. There has been so much to smile about in class as this half term begins to draw to an end!

Junior 1 started the week by learning how to say who they live with in French. They are learning how to say mummy, daddy, brother and sister with beautiful French accents to help describe their families. We discovered that if you are a vegetarian you could also be called a herbivore! It was our final week of Mrs Armitage in English and we used everything we learnt to help write out the story in our own words and created a wonderful mini booklet of the story, with brightly coloured pictures to match. The capital city of Scotland, Edinburgh, was the focus in Geography, and after pretending we went to visit, we wrote a postcard home to describe the most famous sights of this historic city. In DT we made rockets and flying saucers that both flew through the air – great fun!

This week Reception have been learning all about farm animals in preparation for their visit to the farm next week. They have been learning to name and match baby animals to their adults and finding out about where animals live.  Reception have also enjoyed playing in the farm shop roleplay area and have been learning where our food comes from. They have listened to the story called What The Ladybird Heard and had a go at creating their own farm maps linked to the story.

Please find information below:

Childrens Liturgy

Activity Sheet

Please click on the link below for this week's weekly mission:

Weekly Mission

Reception have been having fun this week making stained glass windows in their RE lessons. They have been learning about what is inside a church in preparation for their visit to St Augustine’s during ‘One World Week’.

One World Week

Look out for notices about ‘One World Week’ – a time where all the pupils have the opportunity to find out about different faiths and places of worship. Thank you to the PTA who have agreed to fund Bhangra and Bollywood dance and storytelling workshops with Sohan Kailey.

On Wednesday the 9th of February, we played Warwick and drew 1:1. We played our best and George (J6H) was ‘man of the match’. Thank you to Mr Cottrill and Mr Stedeford.

On Wednesday, the under 11 Netball B team played against the Croft and Warwick Prep. In the 1st match against the Croft we lost 6:1 and the player of the match was Willow (J6H). Then we played Warwick Prep we lost 14:1 and the player of the match was Penny (J6H) The girls played really well.

On Wednesday the 9th of February, the under 11 B team played a football match against Eversfield. The team played really well and scored 2:0 win. We dominated the first half with Harry  (J6H) and George (J6H) scoring amazing goals. As a team we did well in the second half to maintain out lead until the final whistle. We all deserved the win and played with incredible skill, especially Marley (J6V) who was the ‘man of the match’.

On Wednesday, the under 11 A team played football against Eversfield and Warwick. We won 3:0 against Edenfield and the player of the match was George (J6V). We won 1:0 against Warwick and the player of the match was Sidney (J6H).

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner we decided to celebrate love and friendship to make this special day even more memorable by letting our close friends, family members and those we care about know how much we appreciate them. So, with this in mind, we delved into making an adorable pair of birds sitting on a branch decorated with pink hearts and flowers. A pupil wanted to make this for their mum, who they cherish very much. We also made bunches of flowers to symbolise appreciation for those we care about. We made a big red heart to represent just how much love we have for those we care about and we all fell in love with Bo the Seal sitting on a heart shaped rock making friends with a lovestruck elephant!

This week in nursery we have been exploring an old favourite at story time, we’ve been Going on a Bear Hunt. Can you believe this fantastic story, written by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury was first published in 1989!!! It’s 33 years old, and still as popular and relevant to our little ones today. We’ve had a lot of fun, creating a small world where the children could play out the story themselves, retelling the story in different ways – using our voices to recreate the different sounds in the different environments and engaging in our own bear hunts as we played outside. Maybe this weekend you could go on your own bear hunts – let me know what you find! 

Miss Clare has asked me to pop a reminder in the Chronicle about letting her know if you want to change or increase your child’s hours in September. With a high level of interest in places for next year we would like to make sure our current children get the spaces they need. 

I hope you all enjoy a relaxing weekend.

Newsletter

Keep an eye out for our term’s Newsletter: All you need to know on fundraising, spending, past and future events will be sent to you very soon!

The Crackley Hall School PTA are excited to be launching a 200 Club. This is open to anyone over the age of 18, so parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbours etc can all have a go. For just £30 (£5 per month) you will be entered into our prize draw to win £100, £75 or £50 every month from February until July! That's 18 chances to win a cash prize! More details can be found on the attached form which you can fill in, make payment and hand into the school office.

The PTA are hoping we have lots of people involved to raise funds for the school and also be able to give back to all of our generous school community.

If you are sending payment with your form, please use an envelope and mark for the attention of the PTA.

Crackley Hall PTA - Kenilworth needs your help!

Sign up to easyfundraising and raise FREE donations every time you shop online with over 6,000 retailers. John Lewis, Argos, Uswitch, eBay and many more are waiting to give a free donation.

Plus once you’ve signed up and raised £5 in donations, easyfundraising will give us an extra £5 bonus donation!

Sign up to support us here – https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/invite/5UA5P2/

The preloved book sale is back by popular demand! The children enjoyed the chance last year to purchase up to 3 books at £1 each. This year our book sale is on Valentines Day, Monday 14 February.

As always thank you for your donations. All proceeds will be used towards our goal of improving the sports fields by June 2022!

Have a great and healthy weekend.  

This takes place on Fridays between 8:30-10:00am (before and during the Celebration Assembly) and outside the hall entrance. 

It is important to know we can only accommodate one year group at a time, so please continue to use the uniform@pta.crackleyhall.co.uk email to submit your requests if you haven’t been invited to the assembly for your child’s year group. 

We are able to take cards, cash or cheque. 

We are also always looking for donations of items your child has outgrown, please drop these in the box labelled ‘PTA uniform’, located on the front porch of the school. We are in dire need of any sports track bottoms at the moment. 

As always we thank you for your support and couldn’t run the second hand shop without your generous donations. 

Thank you for purchasing a tree to honour the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and supporting the Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC), The Woodlands Trust and the Crackley Hall PTA.  The trees have been delivered and children will be bringing them home before half term.   

Each sapling will be wrapped in newspaper and a plastic support will also be supplied. If you would also like a bamboo cane to accompany the support, these can be collected from the school office separately.  Children will also receive a commemorative Jubilee badge to mark the occasion.

Everyone is welcome to come along, meet some news faces and see what events have been planned for the year ahead. 

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.

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Jellycat Dog - lost around the grass-crete area near the school last week

We regularly recruit for a variety of roles, please do share news of the vacancies with interested friends and family.

Further information and application forms on all roles are available on the Foundation's website - www.princethorpe.co.uk/join-us

• Head - Princethorpe College
• Finance Assistant - Princethorpe College
• Gardener/Groundsman - Princethorpe College