The Chronicle

Dear Parents

I do hope that you have been able to avoid the wintery showers and stormy weather this week.  It is very clear to see that the surrounding fields and ford in Kenilworth have felt the effects of the rainfall this week.  Despite the wet weather, I am sure that the children have managed to exercise outside and burn off some energy.    I know that many of our Key Stage 2 children are participating in Mr Stedeford’s Key Stage 2 Fits a Knockout and mini leagues have now been created.  Don’t worry if you haven’t qualified yet as there is still time.  Your teachers will be let you know how to take part.  There will be a new challenge each week and these only take one minute of your time so everyone can take part.  There will be a grand final for each year group and I look forward to hearing the results, with possibly some photograph or video evidence too.

I would like to wish our Junior 6 children the very best of luck this weekend as many of them are sitting the Princethorpe Entrance Examination.  This year, it will be different to any other, as the examination is online but I know that they are prepared and supported by their families and teachers.  I spoke with the children online this week to personally wish them the very best and I have every faith in each one of them.  They are strong in character and have worked incredibly hard at school and remotely.  Boys and girls, I will be thinking of you all tomorrow, do your best because that is all that we ask of you.

In assembly this morning I was delighted to announce the following Stars of the Week: Katie, Sloane, Thomas, Savannah, Jude, Isaac, Blythe, Ralph, Amalia, Elsie, Henry, Niamh and Henry.  Your certificates will be on their way to you shortly so keep a look out in the post next week.

Bronze awards were awarded to Thea, Felix, Alfie and Francesca in Junior 1G for their kindness and consideration towards others.  Well done to you all for showing such kindness.

There has been more excellent work recognised this week with the following students receiving Da Vinci Awards: In Junior 4 Jia and Olivia received their award for Drama.  Also in Junior 4 Joseph, Arisha, Amelia and Penny received their awards for English.  In Junior 2 Daiya received an award for English. Daiya was the first Junior 2 pupil to receive full Da Vinci this year.  Such super work by all of you; congratulations!

Please do take a look through this week’s Chronicle as we have received many updates from your home learning experiences.

Girls and boys, keep working hard, keep smiling and keep being helpful at home.  I hope that you all have a lovely weekend.

God Bless

Mr Duigan

The Princethorpe College Entrance Examination takes place this weekend so we send our best wishes to all our J6 pupils. We know that your teachers have prepared you well and that each of you has also worked really hard in preparation. Remember to stay calm and focused and trust in what you have learnt. All of you are in our prayers; and although you might worry, remember to take strength from the Lord.

Our Stars of the Week this week are:

Congratulations to them all!

The Stratford Literary Festival have an annual Young Poets Competition for local children. Please click on the link below for more details:

Young Poets Competition 2021

Please click on the link below for more information:

How to Support Anxious Online Learners led by Tom Vodden, parent and educator

Date: Tuesday 26 January at 4pm

Aimed at: Parents and professionals from any country

How to book: Register here to attend or to receive a recording

Other topics: Browse all upcoming free webinars here

Mathletes of the week for Mrs Hardwick's class are Aaryan and Will

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Glen-Roots class is Alexander

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Holmes's class is Grace

Mathlete of the week for Mr Stedeford's group is Elsie

Mathletes of the week for Mrs VanZyl's group is Elsie and Molly

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Wildey's class is Lexi 

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Burley's group is Jack and Evie 

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Roberts's group is Alfred

Mathlete of the week for Mrs Lammas's group is Sid and last week's was Leo

Well done all! 

Please follow the link below to the Raring 2 go! Winter digital edition:

Winter Edition

Please follow the link below for a digital copy of Families Warwickshire Magazine.

Magazine

Junior 6 have been working exceptionally hard this week in preparation for their Princethorpe entrance exam this Saturday.

They have they explored four different passages from four different books and smashed their way through word problems, shapes, areas, coordinates and timetables. However, their exploration and learning hasn’t stopped there, as they have been exploring reflection of light in Science and have been creating experiments to prove that angles of incidence equal angles of reflection and that light can go round corners (if your mirrors are positioned just right!)

J5L - This week, the children have all been writing instructions on how to capture and nurture their Flanimal (a made-up creature), which was easier for those with pets (like Issey) as they already know to look after them! Many of our children have been out in nature – Willow found some willow trees (and a huge gorilla); Agnes has been picking her carrots; Harry G has been walking his gorgeous dog! Leonardo is really getting stuck into his learning, especially enjoying a Science practical, while Elsie G has been keeping up with her piano practice. 

J5R - Another week of hard work - superb! All the J5’s have carried out a dissolving investigation in Science, and both Marley and Carolina (budding Scientists) impressively put so much time and effort into this practical and the write-up. Joseph is enjoying himself between lessons by baking and crocheting - impressive! Isabella and Kyra have been showing their creative flair too, by producing a fabulous drawing and by making a wonderful model, respectively. Dillon has been eagerly working on a variety of Maths tasks, and it’s wonderful to see the array of talents that are being displayed each week.

In Science, Year 4 have been learning about how vibrations cause sounds and how sounds travel, as well as how sounds can change pitch and loudness.

This week the children worked in a hands-on way to explore pitch, and used their understanding of how high and low sounds are made to create their own instrument that could change pitch.

Year 4 are becoming incredible coders exploring Scratch before moving on to using other coding programmes. We have enjoyed watching their creations on Seesaw and love to hear children ask if they can do this again next week. 

This week, Junior 3 have been learning about magnetic force, rummaging around their houses to find various materials and then separating them into magnetic and non-magnetic groups.

Mischievousness has been the theme in English, with the children creating their very own bad folktale characters, practising their use of adverbs to describe actions.

Despite the challenges, each and every one of the children has demonstrated such a wonderful attitude towards their learning and we continue to be thoroughly impressed.

Another busy week of online learning for Junior 2H. Children have been working, walking and talking about life in lockdown, family weekends and mud!

We headed back to the Rainforest for a look at the different types of animals which live in the various layers and discussed the importance of taking lots of exercise during this strange time of life at home and in key worker class. In our ‘Materials’ topic in Science, we are thinking about how better to recycle our rubbish!

‘Sharing’ has been a feature of Maths this week as our ‘Division’ investigation continues and in English we have been thinking about poetry and snowy days. Busy, busy, busy…..

This week has been jam packed with fun and learning in equal measure.

Each morning, both classes have been working extremely hard to improve their reading and writing skills. In our phonics lessons, we have been learning lots of new alternatives to the phoneme sounds.

This week, we learnt that the letter a can also be ai, ay, ey, eigh and it can even include the split digraph a-e, which is when you put an e on the end of a word. Phew, what a lot to learn just for one sound! Our English lessons have been bursting with so many reading and writing activities. We have been honing our skills by completing a Monday morning comprehension activity, making sure we answer the questions in full sentences.

We have also read the well loved story ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ by Maurice Sendak. The children used their knowledge of adjectives to describe the character of Max. They also used adjectives for the different monsters and then went on to create their own.

Mrs Glen-Roots and Mrs Hardwick have been absolutely thrilled with the work they have seen on Seesaw this week.

What another jam-packed week it has been for the Reception children at home and in Key Worker School!

The week started with a ‘Roar!’ as we embarked on our intrepid tiger topic, which saw the children finding out fun facts, creating their own tiger art, reading ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’ by Judith Kerr and generally having a wild time!

We also had great fun exploring both weighing and measuring capacity in Maths and we even followed a recipe to make our own Play Doh.

Using pepper and hand soap, we investigated the effect that soap has on germs. Our super scientists discovered that soap repels the germs and gained a better understanding of its importance when washing our hands (which are squeaky clean now)!

Click on the link if you would like to follow the Daily Prayers

https://www.tentenresources.co.uk/prayers-for-home/456-07549743872355-43/

Click on the link to find out the Liturgy for this Sunday

https://www.tentenresources.co.uk/sunday-liturgy-for-families

Please click on the links below for this week's weekly missions;

Weekly Mission 1

Weekly Mission 2

Please find information below:

Children's Liturgy

Junior 3 have been exploring the theme of Creation. After discussing different ways that we can protect our earth, they decided to inform parents and children through letters and leaflets. Thank you Blythe, Thomas and Ted for your efforts - you really get the message across! 

Well done!

You can see Blythe and Ted's work in the gallery and Thomas' letter is below. 

Dear Crackley Hall Parents,

Today the world is being destroyed. Humans waste resources like paper, electricity, water and diesel. The earth is living just like us – would you like to be treated this way? I hope not. Why do people litter? Why don’t they put their rubbish in the bin or recycle it? Instead of using just one side, people should use both. Printing paper can become scrap paper by writing on the back of it. In Covid times, toilet paper is running out so people should use less. Paper can be upcycled: a cardboard toilet roll could become a pretend megaphone or a pretend microphone. Instead of turning lights on when you read, just use the sunlight. We can use dynamos to create light too. Computers should not be left on and heating should be turned down. If it’s summer, why use heating? Although 71% of the earth is water, clean water is rare. Don’t leave the tap running when you brush your teeth. Only put 280ml of water in the kettle for one tea. This saves electricity and water! When you’re washing up, don’t fill the bowl. Plants don’t need a huge amount of water so why put too much on them? If you want to go anywhere in your village, why use a car? If you want to get somewhere, all that’s going to do is get you to the petrol station! Instead a) get more exercise b) get fresh air c) use your legs and save diesel! If every one of you can make these little changes, it will make a chain reaction and the earth will be healed.

Yours sincerely,

Thomas Reddish

Please find more information below, this is a new PE/Games activity we will be starting from next week:

Limitless Skills Information

An ISAMS message from Mrs Vaughan will be sent over the weekend giving more details of how you can register on Monday.

This week we have had a lovely messy time, from painting with rollers on the floor (with winter sparkly paint), to scrimbling with shaving foam on the tables (practising our early writing skills)… it has been a whole lot of fun!  

Unfortunately Storm Christoph stopped us getting out as much as we would have liked but, today we had a break in the weather and made the most of it – putting on our wellies and digging for worms.

We have also had a couple of lovely emails from our friends who are staying at home, Ciara sang for us, Haris showed us his building and Ella has been exploring maths with her Mum, thank you. 

I would also like to thank all of our parents for supporting us through all the changes that have happened in order to keep everyone safe, we appreciate how difficult things can be for everyone right now, and what matters most, as always, is that all our children are still having a wonderful time and are happy both here and at home. 

Wishing you all a very happy weekend.

Newsletter 

We’ve all enjoyed being creative this week playing with shaving foam. Thanks to its squishy, fluffy texture it is great for sensory play, helping our little ones to explore their senses. It also encourages fine and gross motor skills, hand-eye coordination, cognitive and language development and much, much more. And best of all it’s often calming and always good, clean fun!

Our lovely Little Crackers squirted their foam, then swirled it with a stick and placed paper on top. After lifting the paper off, we scraped the foam away and were delighted to discover lots of marvellous marbled patterns!  There were lots of colour mixing conversations, and more than a little bit of old-fashioned awe and wonder.

We always enjoy our creative and imaginative play.

Friday 5 February - 6.30pm

Join us on Friday 5 February from 6.30pm from the comfort of your own home for Crackley Hall’s first family online Bingo.  

We encourage all Crackley Hall families and staff to come together for a fabulous night of entertainment! All ages are welcome to join in this evening, and we will also have some fun half-time entertainment.

Tickets are £5 per family to join (£1 of which will go towards a raffle at the end of the bingo). If that's not enough to tempt you, each family will be playing for your child’s house and a chance to increase their house points.

Please click here to sign up for tickets.

We hope this will be a night to remember and one your family will really enjoy!

We are always looking to welcome new members, so if the PTA is something you would like to be involved with, we would be very pleased for you to join us.

The committee get together once per half term and would really welcome some new faces, now more than ever. 

If you would like any further information or to be added to our email list, please contact Chanel Camilleri-Willis ccamilleriwillis@gmail.com

We would be delighted to hear from you.

We hope that you enjoyed watching your child's performance in their nativity.

If you would like to purchase the downloadable video, please follow this link to the PTA website where you will be able to select the nativity performance for your own personal download.

www.pta-events.co.uk/crackleyhall