The Chronicle

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!