The Chronicle

Dear Parents

I have heard that there has been considerable rain fall back in the UK and also some localised flooding.  I know that this can cause a delay in your journey to school which, combined with the various local road works, can be frustrating.  Please do not be concerned about arriving later than planned as children will be taken to after care if parents are not able to collect by the end of carline and will be kept there until your arrival at school.  The rainfall has also resulted in our pitches being almost water logged in places but hopefully the rain will ease next week.

Although I have been in contact with school on a regular basis, it has been interesting for me to read about all the classroom activities that have taken place this week.  Junior 4 have been busy with their science, Junior 5 have been making full use of their classroom library and have taken a quiz about their chosen books.  Mme Westerman has been helping Junior 6 prepare for their live link up with their French penpals which will happen very soon.  Junior 1 and 2 have been working particularly hard on their maths skills using some unusual resources.  Mrs Jackson-Mayne has introduced different Psalms to Junior 3 this week and they’ve trying their very best to memorise them by working in groups and introducing some fun actions.  There are some lovely photographs of the Reception classes enjoying learning about looking after pet animals.  I do hope that you can spend some time looking through this edition of the Chronicle and read in more details about this week’s activities.

Next week we will return to hosting fixtures with the first being a rugby match against Crescent School.  I certainly hope that the weather is kinder to us next week.  The PTA have organised another book sale in school and I know that there is an impressive selection this year for the children to choose from.  This event will take place during the school day on Thursday 19 January and more information is available in the PTA section of the Chronicle.

My thanks to Mr Cottrill who hosted the Key Stage 2 celebration assembly today.  I understand that Adreena in Junior 5 sang a beautiful piece from The Sound of Music for everyone present and Stars of the Week were presented to Max, Sebastian in Mrs Allen’s and Sebastian in Mrs Malcolm’s class, Henry, Tommy, Cleo, Isabel, Thomas, Manhoor, Leo, Issy, Elsie, Frankie and Lennon.  There were also some Crackley Compass bronze awards presented and a selection of music certificates.  Congratulations to everyone who received an award or certificate today, your hard work will always be recognised and rewarded.

I will return to school on Monday morning and am very much looking forward to seeing everyone again.  I am sure that I will be back in ‘the swing’ of things very quickly but it might take slightly longer to acclimatise to the change in weather.

I wish everyone a relaxing weekend.

God bless,

Rob Duigan

Our Stars of the Week this week are:

Congratulations to them all!

Scroll through the gallery to see photos from our Celebration Assembly this morning.

This week in French Junior 6 have been practising key French vocabulary as they prepare for meeting their French pen-pals via Teams. In particular, the children have been playing a game where they were tasked with finding the person who had the correct answer to their question using only what they have learned in lesson! The children’s letters have been sent off and we are all now eagerly awaiting a response and the chance to talk face-to-face and learn more about what life might be like for children on the other side of the Channel. Keep up the hard work Junior 6, Bon travail!

Junior 5 are raring to go with their reading this term. The excitement was palpable when they used their personalised reading ZPD range to choose from a range of many new books in our satellite classroom library. The children are very good at ensuring that they read for at least 20 minutes at home every day plus also recording each session into their reading records ready for their English teacher to check daily. Some children have even finished their books and have taken a quiz about their book. Beatrice scored a whopping 100% on her first quiz. Well done, Beatrice!

Junior 4 have been busy engaging in an ice cube investigation, where they’ve been trying to keep an ice cube solid for as long as possible. The pupils had to learn a variety of key facts, such as the temperatures of the classroom, and what an insulator is, to keep the cube as cool as possible. We had a lot of fun investigating this and most of our cubes impressively lasted for hours! Well done to, Malachi and Felix as theirs lasted the longest. We are all looking forward to our next Junior 4 investigation…which type of chocolate melts the fastest and why?

This week, Junior 3 have been looking at and recognising different psalms in RE lessons with Mrs Jackson-Mayne. The children worked collaboratively in their small groups to put actions to a psalm. They worked so well in their teams, suggesting actions that helped them to memorise the words and after some practise, performed their psalms to the other groups. Mrs Jackson-Mayne was so impressed with the children’s performances, they will be showcasing them to the rest of the school in our Mission Assembly on Monday.

We have also been getting to grips with some tricky 2-digit multiplication and have enjoyed using our trusty place value counters to represent equal groups of tens and ones, before recombining to solve our calculations.

Year 2 continued to work hard this week. In Maths we are working on recognising and using money. In English we continue to look at The Magic Paintbrush by Julia Donaldson. The children have wowed us creating imaginative expanded noun phrases, with some children even adding similes to their sentences. In Art we have drawn incredible dragons and created bright lanterns - decorating our room ready for Chinese new year.

This week we have been very busy mathematicians in Junior 1. We learnt how to add by counting on, using different resources and number lines to help us. It took some practice to realise that you don’t need to count the first group of objects if you know how many there are already; you just need to count on from the first number or the first group of objects. What a revelation! Our English lessons have also been lots of fun as we have started our new story, Mrs Armitage on Wheels by Quentin Blake. The children loved the humour of the book and there was lots of laughter ringing out in both classrooms. We are really looking forward to finding out more about the story next week. In Science, we have begun our topic of Polar Regions by looking more closely at Antarctica. We all loved learning so many new scientific facts this week!

This week Reception have been learning all about keeping pet animals. They have been thinking about which animals would make good pets and most agreed they would prefer a tabby cat to a lion, and a dog to a hyena. The children have been thinking about what each animal would need, and have linked this back to their own experiences and what they need to grow to be healthy and happy. The children have also enjoyed playing in the ‘Vets’ role play area this week.

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

Newsletter link

Collective Worship this Thursday saw the launch of ‘Wellbeing Wednesdays’ - this is the umbrella term for RSHE and PSHE. During the assembly, Mrs Jackson-Mayne and Mrs Burley talked about how our feelings are friends – they let us know how different situations affect us and give signs to help us know how to behave.

Pupils listened to the five Steps to improving mental health

• Connect with friends
• Be active
• Be kind
• Be grateful
• Eat healthily

Pupils were invited to take part in a logo competition to design a logo for Wellbeing Wednesdays.

A Creative da Vinci will be awarded for each entry.

A Full da Vinci will be offered to  the winners of each category: Reception – Junior 2, Juniors 3 and 4 and Juniors 5 and 6.

The overall winner will have their design made into a keyring which will be given to everyone to celebrate the launch of ‘Wellbeing Wednesdays’.

Mr Cottrill led Monday's School Assembly and he spoke about the late Pope Benedict XVI.  We learnt how one of Jesus' disciples, Simon Peter, was asked by Jesus to be the first leader of the Church and how Pope Benedict continued to work for St Peter throughout the world.  Pope Benedict was the first Pope to establish The Rule which revolves around five practices of Prayer, Work, Study, Hospitality and Renewal, which are used as a guide amongst Christians today. Mr Cottrill was able to link this into the Crackley Compass of being Curious, Responsible, Active, Collaborative, Kind, Enthusiastic, and wanting to Learn.

Please click on the links below for this week's Weekly Mission:

Weekly Mission

Please find information below:

Children's Liturgy

We hear how the Holy Spirit came and rested upon Jesus after his baptism. We reflect on how the Holy Spirit can help us to do what is right.

Activity Sheet

With the start of a new term and a new year, Lego Club decided to build a new school – a celebrity and adventure school with a difference! We had minifigures of Ant and Dec as stewards,  James Bond as Head of Drama, Harry Styles Head of English, Simon Cowell Head of Science and Michael Jordan as Head of Sports. They collaboratively decided on installing a conventional playground with the addition of abseiling down a climbing wall, making a splash with a sunken swimming pool and diving board with a supplementary golden buzzer to keep Simon Cowell happy, and special powered water which makes you get all Maths Passports correct!  Inside our school we explored science using lots of Bunsen burners and we had a Pet Day Care Centre too, where our pets could try out agility courses and have sneaky treats from cookie jars if they managed to get all their spellings right!  Sounds woofly!

Check out the flyer for details of upcoming PTA events.

Pre-Loved Book Sale - Thursday 19 January

The PTA's pre-loved book sale for the children will take place next Thursday during school hours.

The children absolutely love coming in to buy preloved books and do their own shopping. All books will be priced at £1 with a maximun of three books for the children to purchase.  

As always we can not make this a success without your book donations. We offer this book sale to all children from Nursery to Year 6. If you have any books you may like to donate, please drop them at school in the box labelled ’books’, which is located in the front porch of the school. We are always in great need of books for Year 4-6, especially those that are advanced readers for Year 7 and beyond. 

It’s always a great time of year to clean out the bookshelf and we are grateful for your help. 

Our second Colour Run is due to take place on Friday 19 May 2023. 

This event will take place on the school field from 4.00pm to 7.00pm, it will be a fun obstacle colour run for all of the family.

We will have a DJ, ice cream, face painting and more! Bring your Friday night picnic and drinks for an enjoyable night. We look forward to seeing you there.

Did you know you can find us on Facebook? Search Crackley Hall PTA to keep up with our events and what we are doing to help enhance your child's experience at Crackley Hall.

The engraved Crackley Hall reusable coffee mugs are back! These are perfect for bringing to assembly or when you are out and about and are £10 each. 

Please use this link:

https://www.pta-events.co.uk/crackleyhall/index.cfm

We regularly recruit for a variety of roles, please do share news of the vacancies with interested friends and family. Curent vacancies include:

Princethorpe College

• Head of English
• Head of History
• Teacher of Mathematics (Maternity Cover)
• Head Librarian

Crackley Hall

• PA to the Head and Office Manager
• Teaching Assistant - KS1
• First Aid Administrator

Further information and application forms on all roles are available on the Foundation's website - www.princethorpe.co.uk/join-us

We are having an increasing amount of lost property in school which is unnamed and, therefore, impossible to return to its rightful owner.

Every Friday, a table of lost property will be put in the Gables Foyer before Celebration Assembly. Lost property will be put out for two weeks, to cover KS1 and KS2 Assemblies, with any unclaimed uniform then being donated to the PTA for re-sale.

Unnamed, unclaimed water bottles, lunchboxes and snackboxes will be disposed of.

Please help us to return your child's property to them by labelling everything clearly.

Can parents check labels in children`s uniform to identify if they are in possession of other children`s property.

----

William (Junior 5) has lost his tracksuit trousers

Vaughan (Junior 5) has lost numerous items of uniform - please return if any are located