The Chronicle

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/