The Chronicle

Dear Parents

Welcome to the Chronicle which is filled with news and photographs of this week’s events which culminated today with our celebration of the Feast of our Patron Saint, St Joseph.

This week, children in all year groups took part in National Science Week and immersed themselves in exploring various scientific topics in many different ways.  Thank you to Mrs Roberts who provided the enthusiasm and ideas to help each year group celebrate science.

The Scholastic book fair has been running each day this week.  Thank you for supporting this event; each purchase made contributes to book rewards which will be used to update our current library provision.  Hopefully your orders will be with you before the end of term. Thanks to Mrs Steeples for her hard work and organisation.

We have had some super sporting results this week.  Mrs Vaughan kept me updated on Thursday when the girls took part in the ISA Midlands Under 9 Netball Competition at Stafford Prep.  The team played exceptionally well, cheered on by parents from the side-line, and reached the final, only to be pipped at the post by a golden goal.  Congratulations to the whole team and my thanks to Mrs Vaughan, Mrs Duigan and our parents for preparing and supporting the team for the fixture this week.

On Tuesday, children from Junior 5 and 6 visited to Crescent School for an orchestral workshop.  The day was a great success with children from both schools demonstrating their skills and performing to a Junior 5 and 6 audience at the end of the day.  My thanks are extended to Mrs Olden and Mrs Barnes, at Crescent School, for organising this event; and also Mrs Bhogal for accompanying the pupils.

Yesterday, Junior 5 stepped back in time to experience life in Tudor times.  This is a regular event in our calendar which is always enjoyed by staff and children alike.  The practical day brings history to life and children experienced workshops in craft making and learning about a range of typical Tudor professions.  Thank you to Mrs Wildey and Mrs Lammas for organising this event and to our parent helpers who were also able to take part.

I welcomed Father Kevin into school today to mark the Feast of St Joseph through the celebration of Holy Mass for the whole school.  This is the first time that the whole school have been present for Mass which made it an extra special occasion.  I am very grateful to Father Kevin for leading Mass, Mrs Jackson-Mayne, Mrs Paphitis, Ms McAloon, Mrs Simmonds and Mrs Horan for their efforts helping to prepare Mass.  Tomorrow, 19 March, is the official Feast of St Joseph Day and the doors of Crackley Hall School will be open to ex-students and staff, along with some current pupils and staff, as they are welcomed into school to remember their time here and see how the school has evolved over the years.

In assembly this morning, Junior 3 and 4 were present in the Hall when I presented the Stars of the Week to: Jamie, Wilf, Grace, Arabella, Savannah, Thomas, Theo, Joseph, Grace, Arthur, Lawson, Georgie, Moreton and Alex.   The Junior 3 and 4 year groups also had an impressive collection of Junior da Vincis, Bronze and Silver Awards; well done to everyone! The Junior 4 choral group performed two excellent pieces for the assembly – they were outstanding!

I have been kept informed of the continuing fund-raising efforts by many children in school who have thought of different ways to raise money for both the Ukraine appeal and Mary’s Meals.  This has ranged from making cakes, selling handmade jewellery and sponsored chores, all of which are highly commendable and everyone should be proud of their efforts which contribute to making a difference.  I understand that Mrs Simmonds is hoping to make a final count of the Skipathon fund raising so please forward any outstanding donations as soon as possible.

Congratulations to our U11 5-a-side football team who won the plate section at the national ISA finals last Friday. It was a pleasure presenting the team with their medals and trophy at today’s assembly.  Well done to the boys and Mr Stedeford. Thank you to Mr Cottrill for accompanying them and the parents who supported the team on the day.  Best wishes to all our athletes who will represent the Midlands at the national ISA Cross-county Championships tomorrow.  Thank you to Mr and Mrs Vaughan for accompanying the team.

Before ending this week’s message to you, may I please ask that parents continue to park considerately when arriving at school and use the school field on Friday mornings if attending assembly.  If you are parking within the lower playground, please collect your child then vacate the area as soon as possible to enable other parents to access the car park.  Children should not be using the lower car park as a play area after end of day collection as they cannot be supervised by staff and traffic continues to flow in this area.

I hope that you are able to enjoy the rugby this weekend. I can’t see anyone other than France winning the Six Nations. However, there might be a surprise winner

Thank you to the staff and pupils who are helping at the Open House and St Joseph’s Day celebrations tomorrow. I wish everyone a restful weekend. 

God bless,

Mr Duigan

Wednesday 23 March

Get ready for the Maths Competition like no other! The World Maths Day Live Mathletics 15th Birthday Special.

Who is invited: All pupils in J1-J6

When: Wednesday 23 March

Where: Online via your Mathletics login – just login on the day and follow the link.

Details: We will all be completing some live Mathletics in school on the Wednesday 23 March, but you can also login from home to ‘top up’ your score!

What to do now: Pop the date in your diary, practise on live Mathletics in the next few days and be ready to join in the fun and competition.

Remember - You have to be in it, to win it!

Exciting literacy news!

It is Shakespeare week all next week here at Crackley Hall School. The children will be enjoying various activities including an online tour of Shakespeare’s birthplace and listening to some of our local playwright's most famous works.
 

Want to become a fluency superstar?

Introducing a new maths app which we are starting to use in school to build greater mental number confidence and fluency. 1-Minute Maths offers children engaging and easily accessible practice in key number skills and is fully aligned to our maths scheme.

As well as using the app in school, it may be beneficial for you to download it onto a device at home. At the moment, it is designed primarily for school years Reception through to Year 3, but additional multiplication and division materials will be coming soon, making it suitable for all.

The link below give further details, including how to install it:

whiterosemaths.com/latest-news/introducing-our-brand-new-app-1-minute-maths 

We hope you will take a look!

Holiday club will run from Wednesday 6 until Friday 22 April 2022 (excluding the 15 and 18 April).

More details to follow in the next couple of weeks.

Please find the new lunch menus attached:

Week 4

Week 5

Our Stars of the Week this week are:

Congratulations to them all!

Crackley Hall School has thoroughly enjoyed celebrating British Science Week (BSW) and exploring this year’s theme ‘Growth’. Across the school the children have been exploring the topic in their Science lessons, taking part in experiments and investigations designed to engage and inspire the next generation of young scientists.

In Reception, the children have been watching the caterpillars grow. They are now 10 times bigger than when they arrived last Thursday! The children have also been learning about what plants need to grow and started an experiment growing cress. Junior 1 were growing cress too, after deciding plants need light, warmth and a growing medium to grow. They found out about the life cycle of a plant and how it grows from a seed into a plant. They learnt that it is the root that grows first, before the seedling pops out of the ground. Both classes can’t wait to see how their growing experiments go!

Junior 2 had so much fun thinking about what they would like to know about worms, researching those questions and then searching for worms around the outdoor classroom. Junior 3 were also planning to visit the outdoor classroom, but rain stopped play on Wednesday, so next week they will be investigating the different components of soil and how it helps things to grow!

Junior 4 had a wonderful week investigating Growth for BSW, and whether pupils with the longest feet, jump the furthest. There’s been lots of theorising, inquiry, measuring, jumping and the plotting of results on graphs. The J4S Scientists concluded that this theory was mostly correct, with most of the pupils with the longest feet jumping the furthest. Conversely, J4R discovered that pupils with the longest feet did not jump the furthest at all. Their interesting and energetic investigation was enjoyed by them all.

Junior 5 started British Science Week by watching a presentation which put the theme, Growth, in context for the children and that prompted plenty of discussion. They then joined in with the NFU’s live lesson about life cycles and saw a lamb and a cow being born – that was amazing. Then after reading about growth and answering important questions in their books, pupils designed their own planet-friendly burgers to address the part played by food miles in the growth of pollution.

Junior 6 celebrated British Science Week by exploring STEM topics that link to Growth. Working on their current topic of light, pupils explored how shadows grow and shrink. They investigated how big they could make their shadows and what they needed to do with the position of the light source in order to achieve this.

Science Lead, Julia Roberts, said, “British Science Week is always lots of fun here at Crackley Hall and this year’s topic of Growth has really inspired us all. Pupils have enjoyed a wide range of fascinating and fun experiments running alongside their normal day-to-day lessons. It was fabulous to see that many pupils were Star of the Week for being such super Scientists, and it’ll be great if we get another poster competition winner, after Blythe (J4) won last year." 

Junior 5 left modern day Britain behind and travelled back in time to the Tudor era on Thursday 17 March. Children and staff came to school dressed in costume and enjoyed a memorable day exploring life in the 16th century.

They began in the court of King Henry VIII in the year of our Lord 1536. Despite rumours and intrigue surrounding his second wife, Anne Boleyn, the King’s household had plenty of tasks to attend to. Set out in Crackley’s Great Hall were typical Tudor professions and a range of crafts that included: Alchemists, Apothecaries, Barbers, Chandlers, Embroiders, Leatherworkers, Miniature Artists, Scholars (ink making and writing), Scent bag and Soap makers. The children all enjoyed taking part in the traditional Tudor activities, it was fantastic hands-on learning.

As they worked, more rumours swirled around the ill-fated Anne Boleyn. The background narrative really helped bring the Tudor era alive.

Junior 5 teachers Sarah Lammas and Nicki Wildey, commented, “Our Tudor Day was led by History Off the Page who were both knowledgeable and enthusiastic. The children were immersed in the history of the time period and surrounded by authentic replica artefacts. It was a day full of practical learning, storytelling and drama that the children and adults thoroughly enjoyed.”

Crackley Hall’s Newspaper Club are pleased to announce that the first edition of the new school newspaper, the Crackley News, has just been published.

The school newspaper club started up after Christmas and runs every Wednesday lunchtime, and the newspaper team are hoping to publish a new edition each half term, full of articles and information that interests them and that they think other people would like to know about.

Pupils have been working hard collaborating, researching and writing articles for the newspaper and the first edition contains a whole host of content from interesting world news, birthdays and important dates to a focus on the Reception classes, fashion and uniform, arctic animals and book reviews.

The young journalists were delighted to distribute the first copies of the newspaper to all the classes this week and they very much hope that everyone enjoyed reading it!

On Tuesday 15 March, Crackley Hall pupils visited Crescent School for an orchestral workshop. It was a great opportunity for our young virtuosos to work together, with 12 members of Crackley Hall’s Orchestra joining 18 Crescent instrumentalists for a day designed to develop and stretch their music and performance skills.

Pupils worked under the guidance of Crescent School’s Director of Music, Julie Barnes, to prepare and rehearse a mixture of pieces ready for an impromptu afternoon performance.

The children relished making music, especially in such a big group. They worked hard to prepare two challenging pieces, including the stirring Can You Feel The Love Tonight from the hit film The Lion King and the complex jazz piece Fidgety Feet by Larocca and Shields, both pieces testing the players’ technical and music-reading ability.

The young musicians performed so well in the morning rehearsals, that Mrs Barnes organised an audience of Year 5 and Year 6 pupils to watch a short impromptu performance in the afternoon. The concert was superb, a symphony of sound, and as well as featuring the full 30-piece orchestra playing their now near perfect pieces, it also included four solo performances, from Kate Knudsen and Elsie Roots from Crackley Hall and Evie Bierton and Katherine Lee from Crescent School.

Mrs Barnes, commented, “We had a very successful day and the pupils enjoyed working and collaborating together. They achieved a very high standard of performance, learning challenging music in a short space of time, it was a great opportunity for them all to play with so many other talented musicians. Thank you Crackley Hall for joining us today."

Congratulations to the U11 Boys Football team on a super performance at the ISA National Football finals on Friday 11 March. The boys travelled to the home of the England teams, St George’s Park, an amazing venue, which was enough excitement in itself. They played brilliantly taking the game to their opponents, playing nine matches and only losing one. They came away as Plate champions, an excellent result. We are all very proud of them.

After all the fun of british Science Week son't forget to design an amazing poster.

More information about this year's competition can be found here: 

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

All entries need to be clearly labelled on the back and given to Mrs Roberts by Friday 1 April at the latest.

Good luck!

The Scholastic Book Fair has been a huge success in school. The children have thoroughly enjoyed choosing their books and we have raised some funds to enable us to buy more books for our school.

Thank you to everybody!
 

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

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Glen-Root's class are Savannah and Aaryan 

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

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

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Holmes' class is Anthony

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

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Robert's class is Elora and Isla 

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

Well done all!

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

In Junior 6 this week, we have been celebrating British Science Week. We looked at the many different topics within STEM that can be linked with BSW theme of ‘growth’. We then looked to link the theme of ‘growth’ to our current topic of light. The children have explored how shadows grow and shrink depending on where the light source is in relation to the object. They investigated how big they could make their shadows and what they needed to do with the position of the light source in order to achieve this. They then tried to put together a strategy for shadow tig to see if they could minimise their shadow length in order to not get caught!

On Thursday, our Junior 5 pupils became the terrific Tudors and immersed themselves fully in a fun-packed, fantastic day learning about ‘all things Tudor’! The day started when Sir Patrick, the Tudor Leader, invited the children into his Great Hall. He gathered them on the floor and introduced all the wonderful activities, such as candle making, soap making, embroidery and scent-bag making. During the afternoon, the Great Hall became a banquet with entertainment with all the children performing in groups. We had dancers, jesters and singers, to name but a few. I think we would all agree that it was a tremendous experience. We are very grateful to the fantastic parent helpers who gave of their time willingly.

Junior 4 have had a wonderful week of excitement investigating the 'Growth' theme of British Science Week, and whether pupils with the longest feet, jump the furthest. There’s been lots of theorising, inquiry, measuring, jumping and the plotting of results on graphs. The Junior 4S Scientists concluded that this theory was mostly correct, with most of the pupils with the longest feet jumping the furthest. Conversely, Junior 4R discovered that pupils with the longest feet did not jump the furthest. This interesting and energetic investigation was enjoyed by all. 

This week Junior 3 have loved exploring the new maths app ‘1-Minute-Maths’. We have practised our mental addition and subtraction skills linked to our maths passports, all thanks to Tiny the Tortoise and his super interactive app. We are now excited to give it a try at home too – see the link in the main Chronicle page to find out more. We have also been having fun learning all about fabulous fractions, including how to shade them, how to sort them into unit and non-unit and how to add them to make a whole. We also placed fractions on a number line using the Mathletics programme. We have also really loved finding out more about coasts and how they are formed. Our art topic this term is reflecting this as we look at how to create…but we can’t say just yet, as it’s a surprise. Watch this space! We continue our journey with Mowzer the cat and have loved writing our stormy night descriptions. We have ventured into the word of personification and adverbials to help embellish our work with fantastic imagery.

This week, Junior 2 have fully immersed themselves in their current topic - The Great Fire of London. Our English focus has been information writing and we have been finding out lots of facts to record in our books. This has also been the perfect opportunity to think about different sentence openers for our written pieces. In History, we completed a timeline for the days which the fire began, raged and then ended. We also learnt about the history of the fire service, how it has changed from the leather buckets used to fight the Great Fire. Science week has also been lots of fun and we have learnt numerous interesting facts about worms. Everyone loved searching the grounds to find surface dwellers, deep burrowers and earth workers!

To start off Science Week, we set up an experiment to see which seeds and plants need to grow. We thought they would need light, warmth and soil - a growing medium, so we decided to check. Using cress seeds we set some up without light, some without water and some without anything to grow on. We also set up a control which had everything. Now we must wait and see what happens to the seeds in the coming weeks! Over in Maths the scales came out as we learnt how to weigh and compare the weights of different objects. We used the balance scales to help us see clearly if one object was heavier, lighter or the same as another one, and recorded our results clearly in our books.

For Science Week, Reception have been doing lots of investigation about ‘growing’! We have been watching our class caterpillars grow and change by the day, as they gobble up their food and practice spinning silk ready to make their cocoons. We have also been planning our cress investigation, deciding where we want to put the cress in our classrooms and how much water to give it. We have made predictions and can’t wait to watch it grow!

On Friday 18 March, Crackley Hall School celebrated the feast day of St Joseph, the patron saint of our school. We thanked God for our trustees and governors, pupils, past and present, staff, current and those who have left and for all the people who have strong attachments to the school. During the mass, we reflected on the history of Crackley Hall School and we thought about the life of St Joseph whose trade was to shape, build and create. We gave thanks to those who have helped to do the same – who have shaped, built and created our wonderful school. It was an extra special celebration too, as it was the first time the school had celebrated mass together in two years.

Please find information below:

Childrens Liturgy

Activity Sheet

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

Weekly Mission

Pupils in Junior 2 had lots of fun this week learning about the different ways we can pray to God. One of those ways was writing a prayer and then seeing them fly like a helicopter! After seeing our prayers spiral from the top of the staircase to the ground, we listened to each other's prayers and spoke about how praying can be like talking to our best friend and having a conversation with God. Becoming comfortable with prayer helps us all to understand that God is always close and accessible and that our prayers can be in many forms - even flying helicopters! 

We also learnt about Palm Sunday and how this important celebration was the first day of Holy Week.  We made palms and pretended we were part of the jubilant crowd as we waved our palms triumphantly and welcomed Jesus as He entered into Jerusalem on a donkey.

Well played to our Junior 4 boys who travelled to Bilton Grange on Thursday 17 March for a triangular tournament that included Ratcliffe College.

We. Love. Dinosaurs! It’s official…Lego Club is buzzing with these prehistoric creatures. We will never know what it’s truly like to meet a T-rex in real life, but our continued fascination of these mighty and magnificent giants always sparks our imaginations and we really did, yes we really did, pretend that they were in our classroom, with roaring sound effects to match! We even discussed if we could keep dinosaurs as pets? How would they interact with humans, in cities, or in the wild? Which animal today resembles a dinosaur? We thought its common ancestor could be a bird? Questions, questions which culminated in a fascinating dialogue and discussion. Dinosaurs may be extinct from our planet, but they are roaring wild in our imaginations. Here’s something to ponder over…. What do you call a dinosaur that knows a lot of words? A thesaurus!

Please click on the link for this week's newsletter.

Please follow thw link for the PTA Newsletter. 

Please see flyer for more details of the next two non uniform days.

Please see more deatils of the Easter Egg Hunt in the flyer.

Our recently published Newsletter can be found on the PTA Noticeboard at the entrance of the school as well as details of other events and information.

Make sure to have a look for the latest PTA news!

Reusable Crackley Hall School mugs are now available to purchase through the PTA!

We have ordered a limited supply to start with. An email will go out to all the parents today. They are £10 each and once payment is confirmed in the bank, they will be sent home with your child.

Thank you and enjoy.

Link to order

All families of pupils at our school are members of the PTA. The PTA runs regular fundraising and social events for the whole school community. Our fundraising efforts have enhanced the education and experience of all the children at the school and will continue to do so with your support. We would like to know a little bit about you and the events and activities that interest you. The PTA Committee would appreciate it if you would take a few minutes to complete this questionnaire:

Main Survey

Volunteer Sign-Up

The PTA would like to collect outgrown Christmas Jumpers. We aim to offer them in November for a cheaper and environmentally friendly alternative than buying new!

Christmas jumpers can be dropped off at the front porch where the PTA uniform box is.

Thank you 

The 200 club will reopen for this week and next as our next draw will take place at the end of March! If you join this month you will be placed in a draw each month until July! We were so excited to give our February winners their prize of £50 (Grandma of a Y4 child), £75 (Y2 Parent) and £100 (Uncle of a Y5 child)! We still have a lot of tickets to sell and really need support from our generous school community.  100% of the money raised will go to the school fields and changing rooms so children will not be walking back and forth to school wet and cold. Any support is so appreciated and we want to give back to you! Please show your support where you can. All family members (aunts, cousins, uncles, grandparents, etc) are eligible to join.                       

To enter: Please email your details (name, email and phone number) to kategreevy@yahoo.co.uk. Please submit one form for each person's entry. Please pay £25 into the CH PTA sort code: 30-94-93 account: 02023477 Lloyds Bank. Good luck! 

Crackley Hall PTA - Kenilworth needs your help!

Sign up to easyfundraising & 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/

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. 

We would love you to join us for Coffee Mornings on Wednesday 11 May and Monday 13 June.

An opportunity to meet new faces and get to know the school better, but also 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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 Alexander (Rec M) has lost his jumper

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

• Nursery Manager - Little Crackers, Crackley Hall School 
• Library Assistant - Princethorpe College
• Archivist - Princethorpe College