The Chronicle

‘Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.’  John Maxwell 

Dear Parents

It has been a positive and warm start to the week, and I am hoping that the sunshine will continue into the bank holiday weekend. 
 
It was wonderful to receive the news that the pupils who entered the group choral speaking competition at the Nuneaton Festival were placed first.  This was a wonderful way to start the week. Congratulations to all the pupils and to the staff involved. 
 
There was a busy day of sports on Wednesday, with some very good results along the way.  I am impressed by the number of pupils who took part in the inter-school cross country and I am sure that all benefitted immensely from their participation.  Much gratitude goes to Mr Vaughan and all the staff who helped him. 
 
Our Junior 5 pupils were able to spend a taster day at Princethorpe College on Thursday where they experienced what it would be like to be a pupil at the college.  Although children from Crackley Hall may have siblings at Princethorpe and have also attended various sporting, academic and pastoral events there, it is a valuable experience as they were involved in lessons and able to appreciate the facilities more fully.  I hope that parents found the information evening that followed the taster day useful. Thank you to Mrs Lammas, Mrs Wildey and Miss Broadbent who accompanied the children on this occasion and thank you to Mrs Edkins and Mrs Townsend for taking on the task of ensuring a smooth day for both parents, staff, and pupils. Can we please politely remind parents to supervise all children in the playground areas during end of the day, carline and aftercare in particular, to ensure children are safe at that busy time.
 
Teams from local catholic primary schools visited Crackley Hall to take part in its first-ever school debating competition.  All teams rose fantastically to the challenge, presenting strong arguments for and against subjects that were clearly close to their hearts.  A huge well done to our Crackley pupils, Jia, Julia, Leani and Lucas who were declared the winners of the competition. 
 
This week’s Stars of the Week’ were: Nursery Amelie, Reception A Samuel, Reception M Jamie, J1H Reuven, J1G Arjan, J2B Josh, J3H Henry, J4R Henry, J4S Felix, J5L William, J5W Isaac and J6H Matilda. Congratulations to all of you.  We also congratulate the pupils who earned their Crackley Compass stars and also those who were awarded their Da Vinci’s – well done, everyone! 
 
We were treated to some beautiful musical performances at assembly today! Well done and thank you to the Junior 6 Musical Theatre group who performed their ‘Wicked’ show, and to Beatrice in Junior 5 who played the piano. Both performances were excellent! 
 
I would like to wish everyone a restful long weekend with your families and friends. 
 
God bless, 

Rob Duigan 

Please remember to inform us if any of your contact details have changed, so we can update our records here to ensure the correct information is held. 

Parents who require either permanent or occassional Aftercare for the new Trinity Term are requested to do so by either emailing aftercare@crackleyhall.co.uk or receptionist@crackleyhall.co.uk with as much notice as possible to ensure children attending, receive a snack.

If you have booked an Aftercare session, it would also be helpful to let your child know.

Please also note that permanent bookings are only valid for the term, due to club and activity changes.

Any children who are not collected from carline, for example if parents are stuck in traffic, will be taken to Aftercare at 4.15pm, when carline finishes and charged accordingly.

Aftercare runs from 3.45 pm until 6:00pm, with charges being £4.75 per hour or part thereof.

Childcare vouchers can be used as payment or part payment for Aftercare.

As the office now closes at 5.30pm, please call Aftercare directly on 07732 036625 if you need the staff after this time.

Our Stars of the Week this week are:

Congratulations to them all!

17 pupils from Crackley Hall School are celebrating after winning the Meredith Cup for Choral Speaking at the 2023 Nuneaton Festival of Arts.

Crackley Hall’s Key Stage 2 Performance Poetry Club competed in the Juniors competition, in the Speech and Drama section of the festival, when they performed their poems at the Abbey Theatre in Nuneaton on Monday 24 April.

The pupils impressed the judge, the professional actress and famous poet Eleanor McLeod, with their beautiful performance of Television by Roald Dahl and My Little Red Alarm Clock by Michael Rosen.

The Group were awarded first place and ‘Distinction’ with a superb score of 88%, with the judge commenting on their perfect synchronisation, on how they emphasised certain words using different vocals to add meaning, and on how they physically performed their poems.

Drama teacher, Nicki Wildey, was delighted, commenting, “We are so proud of the children’s commitment to Performance Poetry. They have worked really hard and to come first is such an achievement. They have made us, their parents and the whole school very proud.”

Teams from local catholic primary schools visited Crackley Hall School on Thursday 27 April to take part in its first ever School Debate competition. Each team consisted of four or five Year 6 pupils and they were all welcomed by Crackley Hall’s Teacher and RE Co-ordinator Mrs Susanne Jackson Mayne who had organised the debate.

Each of the six teams taking part had been pre-allocated one of three questions to prepare on subjects that included: ‘Flights per person should be restricted’, ‘All packaging should be banned’ and ‘Voting age should be lowered to 16’. Pupils had worked together with their teachers to plan their arguments for and against the motions.

Judging the competition was Chris Lynn, the local CAFOD Co-ordinator, and Mike Swinburne from the Kenilworth parish.

St Augustine’s Catholic School, Kenilworth, and Our Lady’s Catholic School, Alcester, went first and they put forward persuasive arguments on whether flights should be restricted or allowed. They were followed by Our Lady and St Teresa’s Catholic School, Leamington, and Crackley Hall School, Kenilworth, who spoke passionately about the benefits and problems that packaging could cause. Finally, Winterfold House Catholic School, Kidderminster, and St Gregory’s Catholic School, Stratford, debated whether the voting age be lowered to 16.

All the teams rose fantastically to the challenge, presenting strong arguments for and against subjects that were clearly close to their hearts. The competition was tough, but the teams showed some impressive debating skills, made some very strong points of information, handled questions, put forward counter arguments and kept their cool throughout.

After all the teams had spoken the judges took time to consider their arguments reflecting on the points the pupils had made. Announcing their decision, they stressed how close the competition had been and how impressed they were by the children.

Many congratulations to all the participants who stood up in front of the audience and spoke. Public speaking is such an important skill, and it was great to see the children presenting their arguments with such confidence.

A huge well done to Crackley Hall School who were declared the winners of the debate, winning £50 to donate to a charity of their choice. £100 was also donated to CAFOD.

Many thanks to all of the schools for participating so enthusiastically and to the judges for supporting the debate.

Our U11 Netball team competed in the ISA Netball Nationals on Wednesday 26 April which was held locally at Rugby School. It was such a huge achievement for the girls to have even qualified for this prestigious national event where they faced the very best teams in the country. Historically, we have found this tournament to be a real step up in standard, both from a speed and skills perspective. However, the girls had trained hard for the challenges and approached the day positively with a mixture of nerves and excitement.

The girls started the tournament well, with a 5-2 win over Lingfield (the first time we have ever beaten them in this tournament). Next, they played Ursuline and narrowly lost 3-2.
Another close game against Polwhele House led to a 3-2 defeat. Then they played an exceptionally strong school (Lady Barn House), who played some amazing netball resulting in a 15-1 loss. Crackley’s girls showed real resilience following this defeat, picking themselves up and playing really well in their last pool game against Abbott’s Hill to draw 4-4. The team finished fifth in their group and went forward to the Bowl competition.

The quarter finals saw Crackley Hall facing St Edward’s Prep School. Following a well fought contest, Crackley came out the victors with a 5-2 win. In the semi-finals, the contest continued to be end to end action, with a really well matched opposition (Broomfield). Following a nail-biting game, Crackley were eventually defeated 4-3.

The girls then faced the third-place play-offs against Loreto Prep. At half time, Crackley were down by 3 goals to 1. They fought hard and brought the score back to 4-4 by full time. This meant the dreaded golden goal! It took more than 5 minutes for either team to score, with nerves playing a big part towards the ability to finish. Eventually, Loreto School secured a goal, so winning 3rd place.

As always, the girls did Crackley Hall proud. We had several comments from different teams saying how lovely our team were – polite, fair playing and positive. They were lovely comments from schools not known to us.

Mrs Vaughan would like to extend Crackley Hall’s thanks to:
• Dr Rea for her coaching sessions in the lead up to the tournament. The girls found these invaluable and most definitely helped them on the day.
• Crackley’s PTA for the beautiful new bibs worn by the girls on the day. Our girls really looked the part and were so smart!
• Mrs Divers for her support on the day
• The parent supporters – as always, more (and louder) than any other school!

Playing for Crackley Hall School in the U11 National Netball Squad were:
Georgie S, Georgie R, Leani dT, Esme C, Penny T, Jia M, Nell K, Lexi W, Emily D

A huge well done to them all!

Junior 5 pupils enjoyed a day at Princethorpe College on Thursday 27 April, taking part in a special Crackley Hall School only taster day. It was an early opportunity for them to experience life at the Foundation’s senior school and start to become familiar with the bigger school environment, helping to make the move to secondary school a less daunting experience.

Pupils have taken part in lessons such as Science, Spanish, French, Art, RE, Geography, Food Tech and Computer Science. They have also had a walk around the school buildings, enjoyed a legendary Princethorpe cookie, spotted old Crackley friends now at Princethorpe, taken lunch in the Refectory and participated in other activities including a Q&A with the prefects. At the end of the day they had the chance to familiarise themselves with the CEM tests used on entrance examinations day.

Their parents were invited to Princethorpe too, to meet members of the Senior Leadership Team at the end of the day.

Parents are reminded that Crackley Hall School children are not automatically entered for Princethorpe’s Entrance Examinations. Those wishing to apply for September 2024 entry must complete a registration form by Friday 29 September at the latest, with the Entrance Examinations then taking place on Saturday 11 November.

More information is available from the Admissions Office at Princethorpe, they can be contacted on 01926 634201/297 or by email at admissions@princethorpe.co.uk.

The new Crackley book-swap is now up and running! Please encourage your children to bring in any books in a good condition which they no longer want, to enable them to swap for another book(s).  Huge thanks again to the Lee family for the idea and implementation of the book swap; it is a marvellous and valuable addition to our school.

On Thursday 27 April, Warwickshire’s Road Safety Team visited school to work with Junior 6.

The children took part in a special session refreshing their knowledge and understanding of road safety and looking at why young people can fail to act safely when they are out and about on the roads.

As the children move on to secondary school, they face many distractions such as the use of mobile phones and headphones, time pressures and peer pressures, and these can all impact on their road safety decisions.

During their session, pupils learned to identify impulsive behaviour and how to develop coping strategies to enable them to stay safe. 

Many thanks to Warwickshire Road Safety for providing the safety session.

Thursday 4 May 2023 - 5.00pm to 7.30pm

Please share news of our Open Evening for prospective pupils.

Prospective pupils and their parents are warmly invited to Crackley Hall and Little Cracker's Open Evening on Thursday 4 May from 5.00pm.

Come and find out more about what a Crackley education can do for your child. This is a great opportunity for prospective families to get a feel for the school and to meet Mr Duigan, Headmaster, and speak to key members of staff.

To book your place, please click here.

For more information on admission to Crackley Hall School and Little Crackers Nursery please email Jenny Vaughan at admissions@crackleyhall.co.uk or call 01926 514410.

Wednesday 7 June - 6.30pm - 8.30pm

Princethorpe College's annual Summer Open Evening will take place on Wednesday 7 June from 6.30pm to 8.30pm. This is a perfect opportunity for prospective families looking for a place in September 2024 and beyond to visit the school, for children to take part in departmental activities and for parents to meet and chat to members of staff and pupils.

The Headmaster will also address visitors during the evening. Light refreshments will be available.

Please click here to book your place. 

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

In their current Science topic, Junior 6 are exploring light. We are thinking about how it travels, how shadows are created and how our eyes enable us to see. This week, the children made their own colour wheels. These showed us how white light is made up of the colours of the rainbow and how, when travelling fast enough, those colours merge to create white light. We also experimented with a selection of prisms to investigate how rainbows are created. In our last session, we delved into shadows in more detail and created our own shadow puppets. We focused on how we could change the silhouette and light source to change the clarity and shape of the shadow created.

This week Junior 5L have been learning about Holy Week and they revised the Easter story. The children also learnt about the different elements of the Easter Vigil. They thought about the Paschal (Easter) Candle which is a large, white candle lit during the Easter service. The candle is often decorated with symbols of Christ's resurrection, such as a cross or an image of the resurrected Christ. The Paschal candle represents Jesus' resurrection and triumph over death, and is a symbol of hope and new life. The children enjoyed creating their own Paschal Candles using paper, scissors, tape and colouring pencils.

Junior 4 continued with their second week of swimming at the Xcel Sport and Leisure Centre in Coventry. The Swim England Learn to Swim Framework is about developing confident and competent swimmers through fun and enjoyment, and the Learn to Swim Stages are at the heart of the Swim England Learn to Swim Programme. It is the most widely known part of swimming lessons for children and is the backbone of swimming lessons for primary school aged children. Each of the seven stages of the Swim England Learn to Swim Framework has a clear set of targets for the pupils to meet so they can get to the next stage.

This Programme not only teaches a child to swim using the four strokes – front crawl, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly. It also gives them several other skills, which when put together, give children the ability to do a range of other water-based sports. This gives the pupils confidence in their ability to swim. From this comes more enjoyment of swimming, a love for swimming and being in the water and the skills and motivation required to lead a healthy and active lifestyle through regular swimming which will continue into adult life.

This week Junior 3 have fully immersed themselves in their new topic on Ancient Greece, busily gathering ideas and planning phrases to describe the gruesome character of the Minotaur! Captivated by this mythical villain, pupils have scoured the thesaurus for exciting adjectives and adverbs. Armed with some wonderful new vocabulary, we are now engrossed in writing some fantastic descriptions. In our Art lessons, we have also begun to explore aspects of Greek art and architecture, with Junior 3H looking at Greek temples and Junior 3V exploring Ancient Greek pottery. We are really looking forward to the upcoming Coronation Celebrations and have been busy making preparations.

Junior 2 have had a productive week right across the board, but here are just a few examples. They have been working hard to understand finding quarters of amounts and we have been using concrete apparatus and pictorial methods. Many of us have been halving and then halving again to find the correct answer. In Art, we watched a video called Austin’s Butterfly. This showed us how our first draft does not have to be our final version and that we can adapt to improve and to build on our resilience when facing tasks we find tricky. Our English lessons have been about producing a good description of the man in The Tin Forest book. The children reviewed the use of prepositions, expanded noun phrases before applying it to writing their descriptions.

Junior 1 have been loving Science this week while learning about the life cycles of a frog and a bird. They also learnt that frogs and toads are similar, but frogs lay their eggs in a clump and toad’s eggs are laid in a long string! In History they began to look at toys that were played with in the past and discovered that most old toys were hand-made from natural materials. They also found out that the richer the family, the more toys you had. This linked in well with DT where everyone had a chance to make a pneumatic monster toy, that when a syringe is pushed in, the monster's mouth opens, revealing some scary looking teeth!! In English we continued with our book, Handa’s Surprise, but this time the children were creating their own version, with their own surprises!

In Reception this week, the children went on a walk through the woods on Kenilworth Common. We planned what we would need to take with us to keep us safe and to enjoy our adventure. The children stopped to play ‘Pooh Sticks’ in the stream and we enjoyed a snack before exploring in the woods. We had a wonderful time!

Please click here for this week's newsletter 

Mrs McAloon led Monday's school Mission assembly and asked the pupils if they had ever experienced a wonderful surprise. Answers ranged from getting a new puppy, to spotting the Easter bunny. This element of surprise was linked with what happened during Holy Week. Mrs McAloon shared the bible story of the surprise Mary Magdalene, a follower of Jesus, had when she saw that Jesus was no longer in the tomb and her feeling of joy when she realised that Jesus was with her. We were reminded of being filled with similar joy on Easter Sunday and how we can all feel renewed by the resurrection of Jesus and the hope which this can bring. Mrs McAloon talked about the cross in the foyer of the school whereby pupils think of a their own prayer and attach this to the cross using tissue paper. As we begin a new term, we reflected on how each of us can spread the hope of the Good News through living out the themes of the Crackley Compass.

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

Weekly Mission

Please find information below:

Children's Liturgy

Jesus tells us that He has come so that we may have life in all its fullness.  But what does it mean to live life to the full?

Activity Sheet

Have you ever wished you could live in your own castle or palace like King Charles III?  Well this week in Lego Club we decided to make several castle residences. We had towers galore and spectacular dragons flying a little too close for comfort as they battled on dry land with the knights who were trying to guard their chateaus. Drawbridges were raised for added protection, and moats were widened to stop any fearsome villains venturing inside. Beaming with ideas, we decided to have a secret code to lower our drawbridges to welcome visitors with a riddle to answer first. Why did the king leave his castle to go to the dentist?  Answers on a postcard please!! Looking for somewhere to relax and chill, we even made a treehouse for our beloved animals to take in the tranquillity of their surroundings without any dragon interruptions….ahh bliss!

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

Princethorpe College

• Registrar
• Teacher of Spanish

Crackley Hall

• RE Co-ordinator 

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