The Chronicle

Dear Parents

It has been heart-warming to witness the kindness, care and generosity of the Crackley Hall community this week with the continuation of charitable donations to both the Ukraine Appeal and for Mary’s Meals.  The Ukraine Appeal was launched last week and within hours donations were being collected ready to be transported to Poland.  During the course of last weekend, Georgie and Julia rallied volunteers to help bake over 300 cakes to be sold on Tuesday this week and Mrs Burley set up the online donation page.  I am hugely proud of the efforts of everyone, particularly the Junior 5 girls (and Molly in Junior 4) who have managed to raise over £477 in the cake sale alone which brings the total raised so far to over £1,400.

Mrs Simmonds has also worked incredibly hard organising the Skipathon this week and I am told that, this year, we hope to be able to provide Mary’s Meals with a donation that will make an enormous difference to the young people in the communities they support.  All year groups have been learning about Mary’s Meals and how a donation of £15.90 can feed a child in Africa for one year.

On Monday, I accompanied Junior 3 and Mrs Simmonds to St Augustine’s Church for First Reconciliation.  It was a pleasure to be involved in this event and to be with the children at this important milestone in their faith journey.  My thanks go to Mrs Jackson-Mayne for preparing the pupils and to Father Kevin for leading the service and celebrating the sacrament.

Parent consultation evening appointments were held this week and I hope that all families were able to attend an online meeting at a convenient time.  We intend to return to some face-to-face meetings in the new school year.  Please do make contact with the respective teacher f you encountered technical, or other, problems and we will look to re-arrange or to have a follow-up meeting.

Junior 5 and 6 children have been involved in LAMDA examinations this week and I look forward to receiving the results of their performances soon.  Well done to everyone who performed and my thanks to Mrs Wildey for organising and helping prepare the children.

There have been several important sporting events this week starting with the ISA Midlands U10 Netball competition on Monday.  Mrs Roberts and Mrs Duigan accompanied the girls to Stafford Prep where they played well in a challenging tournament. On Wednesday we hosted the U10 girls triangular football fixture which resulted in over 100 children playing football on our school fields.  Well done to all the girls for their super performances and my thanks are extended to the staff for their organisation.   This morning, Mr Cottrill and Mr Stedeford accompanied the boys U11A football team to the ISA national finals at St George’s Park.  I have been kept up to date with the results throughout the day and they are doing very well indeed.  They made it through to the Plate Final, where they won 1-0. A fantastic achievement!  We will look to provide a more comprehensive report next week.

During assembly this week I congratulated our Stars of the Week: Clement, Elliott, Oscar, Poppy, Beatrice, Francesca, Jessie, Felix, Austin, Darcey, Isabella, Carter, Elsie and Carolina.  There was also another impressive collection of Junior Da Vinci’s awarded this week, as well as merit awards (linked to the Crackley Compass) and certificates from outside of school. Kate, Evie and the Junior 5 Chamber Choir all performed superbly well indeed. Congratulations to everyone!

We have begun to return to larger assembly groups on a Monday and it is hoped to continue to increase numbers in Celebration Assembly.  Next week, Junior 3 and 4 will be invited to the Hall.  This week Junior 5 attended and, as mentioned, children, staff and parents were treated to an outstanding violin performance from Kate, super singing by Evie and also from the J5 Chamber Choir.

There will be several events to look forward to next week including the Scholastic Book Fair and National Science Week. Junior 5 will be participating in the Tudor Day, there is an orchestral day at Crescent School for our Junior 5 and 6 orchestra members and on Friday we will end the week with our St Joseph’s Mass.  We also recognise our school feast day on Saturday with a Mass and open house for past pupils and members of staff. Thank you very much to the pupils who are coming in to participate and help and to all the members of staff who have helped to prepare for the events and who will also be in attendance next Saturday.

I hope that all families have an enjoyable and restful weekend.  There is certainly some interesting sport to follow.

God bless,

Mr Duigan