The Chronicle

Dear Parents

We have ended this week on a very positive note with the wonderful weather and I know many of the children will be making their way to the school field at the end of the day to join their family for the PTA colour run.  This is the first time we have held such an event and it promises to be a fantastic and colourful display.  I am very grateful to Dr Card, Chair of the PTA, for overseeing this event and for the ever-willing team of PTA members who make fund raisers such as this possible.  As you will all know, the PTA raise money throughout the year which is used to purchase items or experiences which benefit the whole school community.  They are currently raising funds which will help provide enhanced facilities on the school field and I will hopefully have more information in this regard early next term.

On Monday, Mrs Vaughan accompanied 12 pupils to Manchester where they took place in the ISA National Athletics.  I am pleased to report that we returned with a gold medal (Oliver in Junior 6), a bronze (Sienna in J4) and a group bronze from the Junior 6 boys’ relay.  There were also a selection of 4th place awards.  We had the highest number of Crackley Hall pupils make the national qualifying requirements. This is outstanding work from everyone, congratulations to you all!

On Tuesday, our prospective Head Boy and Head Girl for next year made their speeches to the whole school and voting has now taken place.  Votes will be counted and the new roles will be announced at Prize Giving when we thank our out going Head Boy, Aaron and Head Girl, Lily.

On Wednesday, Crackley Hall hosted the ISA Cricket Festival for Under 11’s.  This has been long awaited as we were unable to host this event due to covid restrictions.  It was a glorious day and our visitors commented on how enjoyable the event was.  Thank you to everyone who helped to make this event possible, particularly Mrs Townsend and Mr Stedeford and Mrs Arler who catered for the event.  

We welcomed two ISI Inspectors into school this week and they have been looking at procedures and compliance throughout school and nursery.  The Inspectors have been very thorough with their enquiries and also enjoyed talking to children in groups.  I am sure that most of you will have completed a parent survey and questions have also been extended to staff and pupils during the school day.  My thanks are extended to all our staff and trustees for their support. I am especially proud of our pupils for their efforts. My thanks are also extended to the many parents who wished us well and for the overwhelming support shown for the school. I will provide more detailed feedback to parents when we receive the report. 

During this morning’s Celebration Assembly we were treated to a super musical performance by our J2 guitar players, co-ordinated by Ms Palmer.  Our school orchestra were superb in playing Yellow Submarine and the J2 cello ensemble were also excellent. Thank you to Mrs Olden and Mrs Lomas. The children really do take pride in their performances to the rest of school and it helps their confidence too.  I was able to congratulate our Stars of the Week: Charlotte, Katie, Nirvair, Olivia, Aaryan, Hector, Charlotte, Josh, Isabelle, Harry, Leo, Sarah, Henry and George.  Well done everyone!

Next week’s assembly will be for Junior 5 and Junior 6 and their families are welcome to attend.  As it will be the final assembly for this year, I would also like to extend this invitation to parents of children who have a certificate, award or trophy they would also like to celebrate.  I would ask that parents please use the school field for parking for this assembly.

Our school production ‘Faraway Places’ will take place next Friday, 24 June, at the Leamington Spa Centre and tickets are currently on sale via the Spa Centre Box Office.    Please take time to read the communications from the school office detailing arrangements for next week which include information regarding school finishing early on Friday afternoon.

The final few weeks of this school term seem to pass quicker each year and there are still many events on our calendar, please do keep a look out for updates from class teachers and the school office.

I would like to wish you all a very restful and happy weekend.

God bless,

Mr Duigan

Please click on the link for the 2023-2024 term dates.

If possible please can parents park on the School Field on assembly days or if parking in the Lower Car Park please ensure that you park between the lines.

Thank you

Please can parents provide sun-cream for their children for Games lessons on hot days.

Please can children take their anti-histamine medication in the morning if they suffer from hay-fever.

Thank you

Our Stars of the Week this week are:

Congratulations to them all!

Crackley Hall School has marked the Queen's Platinum Jubilee with the creation of a new wild garden at the bottom of the school’s playground. The new Jubilee Garden was officially opened by the Headmaster after assembly on Monday 13 June. The Head Boy and Head Girl, Aaron and Lily, helped to unveil the new garden's sign in front of the whole school who had gathered on the playground for the event.

The new garden has been landscaped as a semi-wild area. It is accessed through an arch and path planted with willow, that as it grows will be woven to create a tunnel. The garden includes native trees purchased by the PTA earlier this year as part of the Queen’s Green Canopy initiative, a small wildflower meadow with seating and a bird bath.

The Jubilee Garden is intended as a space for the children to spend time relaxing together with their friends away from the busy playground at breaktimes and lunchtimes.

The plan is to continue to develop the garden year on year and for the Jubilee Garden to be looked after by the school’s gardening stewards.

Headmaster, Rob Duigan, said, “We hope the garden will grow into a peaceful wild space that will encourage wildlife. It has transformed what was a patch of unused land into a space where the children can enjoy nature through the seasons. I am really looking forward to watching it grow.”

What a fantastic day Crackley Hall School had at the Leamington Festival of Arts on Saturday 11 June.

Crackley children from Junior 3 up to Junior 6 competed with many others, including private LAMDA pupils, at the Motionhouse Studios, performing a variety of poetry and prose to a distinguished adjudicator. The children from Crackley showed commendable confidence and performance skills and were a cut above the rest, winning a whole host of gold, silver and bronze medals and receiving excellent feedback from the adjudicator who was very impressed with the high standard of performance on the day.

All together, Crackley pupils came away with five gold medals, six silver medals, five bronze medals and four certificates, an amazing achievement. Special mention must go to Willow R from Junior 6 who won a gold, silver and bronze medal for her performances. Congratulations also to Elsie G, Leo C, Mairen S and Marley H who were our other gold medallists.

For many of the children, this was the first time they had performed at an arts festival and they certainly rose to the occasion showing enthusiasm and confidence. Mrs Wildey was so proud of the hard work of each and every one of the children who had entered, commenting, “Crackley had its most successful results to date. The competition was to a very high standard but the children absolutely smashed it. They all did brilliantly not just the winners, they all gave their very best. It's another excellent result for the performing arts at Crackley!”

There was also good news for Junior 2s, Henry F, who was delighted to win the Henri Shawe Trophy for Piano Grades 1 and 2, when he competed at Warwick School, in a separate festival event. It is wonderful to have such talent here at Crackley Hall. 

On Wednesday 15 June, Crackley Hall hosted its annual ISA Midlands U11 Hardball Cricket Festival welcoming teams from The Priory School, Twycross House School, Birchfield School, Old Vicarage School, Tettenhall College and Ruckleigh School to play two teams from Crackley Hall on the sports fields.

In addition to the main competition, all the teams participated in a range of fielding, catching, batting and bowling clinics. The quality of play on display was excellent, with clear evidence of each school improving not only their cricketing skills, but also their tactical awareness in the 6-a-side format contested over 5 overs each way. It made for plenty of fast-paced action on the field of play. 

After the first round, The Priory School and Ruckleigh School topped their groups and both went forward to contest the final, with Ruckleigh School eventually lifting the winner’s trophy. Having finished second in their group Crackley Comets faced Tettenhall College to decide third place. After a tight match, Crackley Hall was delighted to take the win and claim the Bronze Medal.

In the presentations there were also awards for the best fielder, batter and bowler, as well as the longest throw and the player of the tournament. 

Special thanks to all the Crackley Hall and Princethorpe staff for their support of the event, and to Sixth Formers Will and George who did an excellent job umpiring all day. 

Last week the Nursery children welcomed some very special visitors - Warwickshire County Council's Road Safety Officer and their friendly mascot Warwick Bear. Warwick Bear came to visit to share some important road safety messages.

Through story, song and activities the children were helped to understand how to be safer around traffic. They found out that they should stop before the kerb, look and listen for traffic and then hold hands with a trusted adult to cross the road safely.

It was a really engaging interactive session and our lovely little ones were delighted to receive their very own safety bears.

Crackley Hall School’s Mini Vinnies would like to invite Grandparents and Housebound Parishioners to their Strawberry Tea afternoon on Tuesday 28 June between 1.30 and 3.00pm. Guests to be seated by 1.15pm.

Please contact the school office to book a place - 01926 514444.

Dear Parents,

Do you have any of the following?

• Aladdin/Turkish style rug
• Large baskets – round (think snake charmer or similar)
• Unwanted costume jewellery

Please send a photo of anything you have and we will see if it is suitable.

Please send details to CarrieHolmes@crackleyhall.co.uk

Many thanks,

The Props Team

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

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Glen-Root's class is Aaryan and Harry

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Burley's class is Thea and Francesca 

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

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Holmes' class is Henry

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Wildey group is Esme

Well done all!

Please click on 'View Gallery' to scroll through a few photos from Celebration Assembly this morning.

Last Thursday and Friday, Junior 6 were treated to a visit from Police Constable Lund, who came to talk to the pupils about being safe and kind on the internet. He started off his talk explaining what the role of the police was – to keep people safe from harm. PC Lund expressed the enormity of the negative impact being unkind to someone has on them as a person and that once you’ve said it (or typed it) it cannot be taken back! He explained that EVERYTHING the children searched for or looked at, using a device, and for how long they looked at it, could be traced back to them. This was a great opportunity for the pupils and prepared them well for their next phases in life.

To finish off our latest Geography topic of mapping skills, Junior 5L went outside to take part in their first orienteering experience. The children were told to get into groups of six, each having a grid of coloured cones in front of them. They then had to take each of the 12 maps, in turn, and follow the instructions. Each cone had a number written underneath and they had to record each number, then each total for the 12 maps. When all 12 maps had been completed by all groups, they had to do a grand total for their group. Only one group managed to successfully add up their scores and win overall, but all the children enjoyed the experience – especially because we got to be outside in the sunshine for the lesson! The children are now more familiar with the eight compass points, which is great!

This week, Junior 4 have been exploring the wonder of trees and completing their very own tree poetry. Having visited the Forest School last week, to immerse themselves in the company of trees, the children have worked hard to combine their excellent personification phrases, super similes and exciting adjectives, to create a free-verse poem. The children then wrote one of their verses on a leaf template, which was then used to create a lovely class display. As we progress towards the end of Junior 4, each child continues to work incredibly hard and we are all looking forward to the many school events that are left to come. 

This week Junior 3 have been having a wonderful time exploring all sorts of mathematical lines: horizontal, vertical, diagonal and even parallel and perpendicular. We have spotted these lines in the environment and practised carefully drawing them using rulers. We have also reviewed our understanding of 2D and 3D shapes with some exciting exploratory activities such as making 3D shapes with toothpicks and marshmallows so we could clearly see and count the edges and vertices. It was great fun!  In English lessons, we are busy perfecting our powers of persuasion, in readiness for writing a persuasive letter to convince logging companies to stop cutting down our rainforests. Through our core-text The Great Kaopk Tree, combined with our learning about Plants in Science and Geography, we are acutely aware of the importance of doing all we can to protect and preserve the trees of our world. How fortunate that we have just planted several in celebration of the Queen’s Jubilee! We are absolutely loving this story. What a treat to find out about the range of animals living in just one tree! Two of our children just can’t put it down!

The Junior 2 children have been reading a story called Silly Billy. Billy's a bit of a worrier. He worries about so many things, like hats and rain and clouds and giant birds, that it keeps him awake at night. One night Billy stays at his grandma’s and tells her about being worried. She has the ideal solution – a set of worry dolls who will do Billy's worrying for him while he sleeps. Junior 2 made their very own worry dolls, and we hope that they have been helpful if any of our children have had any worries this week. We are flying through our Maths topic on measuring and the children welcomed some time using water to measure in millilitres and litres or grams and kilos, to measure in weight. Science saw us set up an experiment into the conditions that plants need to thrive; we will keep a close eye on them in this heat! We are getting very excited for our performance next week. Well done Year 2 on another very busy and productive week. 

Junior 1 were especially excited this week when Mrs Jackson-Maine’s English class came to visit so they could read their minibeast fact files to them. They went out into the sun for this task and both classes enjoyed the opportunity to either read their fact files or listen to them being read. Geography this week saw all of Junior 1 become weather forecasters. They had the chance to add weather symbols to a map of the United Kingdom and tell everyone what wild and crazy weather we should expect over the coming weeks. Science took us to the seaside and we learnt about crustaceans that live in rock pools, and what the life cycle of a crab is like. We then talked about how their life cycle is similar and different to the ones we learnt about when studying minibeasts and found they were more similar than we first thought.

This week in Reception we have been very active and creative! We have been writing our own ‘Under the Sea’ stories, using fabulous describing sentences and our phonics knowledge to help us. We have made the most of the wonderful weather too, with lots of learning outside and even some yoga in the shade of our beautiful oak tree

Mrs Van Zyl led the school assembly on Monday where she explained the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount and how we, as a school community, can mirror these blessings in how we treat each other.  We can read about the Beatitudes in the book of Matthew Chapter 5, but they are essentially short, but powerful descriptions of what it looks like to live life God’s way.

Please find information below:

Children's Liturgy

Activity Sheet

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

Weekly Mission

Please follow the link for more information. 

A sunny bench tucked away on lush green grass with a willow tunnel walkway and the promise of a summer picnic or two – where am I?  The Lego Jubilee Garden of course! With a passion for the outdoors, we decided to add a cool Lego waterfall, a cosy campfire, swaying palm trees, a refreshing ice-cream van, a gardener’s truck with garden tools and bright summer flowers. Not surprisingly, no Jubilee Garden is complete without Crackley’s resident cheeky squirrels rummaging through the litter bins looking for any leftover bananas! And what about watering those blossoming blooms?  No problem...we can ask the corgis from last week to return!

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

The Big PTA Summer Raffle 2022 is a great way to boost PTA funds and support the school.

To add to the feel good factor there is the chance for 12 lucky supporters to win up to £5,000 while supporting the Crackley Hall PTA with their amazing work along the way.

Parentkind have already helped PTAs raise over £300,000 and this summer the Big PTA Summer Raffle 2022 aims to increase that amount to over £400,000. Every ticket makes a difference and entering is easy. For just £3 (25p per draw) you will get a ticket in all 12 draws and the best news is your PTA will benefit from every ticket sold. Three draws will take place each day between 18 July and 21 July 2022 and the lucky winners will be announced daily.

Good Luck and we hope you enjoy taking part in the Big PTA Summer Raffle 2022!

Please click the link to enter. 

Grab your kids a bargain coat from the PTA uniform shop, because you never know when they are going to need one!

Usually £17.50, all old style coats are now reduced to just £8. These coats look the same as the new ones currently being sold in the Princethorpe uniform shop, but are not reversible and the lining is black rather than maroon. Please get in touch via email to place your order.

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The second hand uniform sale takes place on Fridays between 8:30 to 8.45am (before the Celebration Assembly) and outside the hall entrance. 

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 also like to say a huge THANK YOU to our PTA members in charge of the second hand uniform shop who work so hard for us all!

Did you know we have a Noticeboard?

Our NEW 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!

Please follow the link for the PTA Newsletter. 

If you join this month you will be placed in a draw each month for six months! We still have a lot of tickets to sell and really need support from our generous school community. 100% of 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! 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 £10 into the CH PTA sort code: 30-94-93 account: 02023477 Lloyds Bank. Good luck! 

Congratulations to the May winners:

£100 Allan Card

£75 Georgie Guernsey

£50 Rob Wood

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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 Beatrice (J4S) has lost her black sports fleece

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

• Estates Assistant (zero hours) - Princethorpe Foundation 
• Head of Nursery - Little Crackers
• Marketing, Admissions & Communications Assistant - Princethorpe Foundation