The Chronicle

Dear Parents

There has been a distinct chill in the air this week as the weather turned more autumnal.  The drop in temperature will no doubt result in children catching common colds and potentially sickness bugs too. I would like to remind the school community that staff and pupils are required to remain absent from school for 48 hours after their last sickness episode and, if suffering from Covid symptoms, we respectfully ask that you complete a Covid test. Please inform the school office of any absence by leaving a message on the absence line, recording details of your child’s name, class and a brief description of why your child will not be attending school. This will help us monitor any trends of illnesses and keep parents informed of illness outbreaks.

Five of our pupils travelled to the Hemel Hempstead Snow Centre on Monday to participate in the ISA National Indoor Ski Championships. This is the first time in over 12 years that Crackley Hall have entered a team and I am delighted to report that our Junior 5 pupils performed exceptionally well which resulted in second place nationally. Well done to Sebastian, Darcey, Harry, Grace and Isabelle for taking part in this event and I hope that more students can compete in this event in the future.

The PTA have been busy again this week organising the Macmillan Coffee morning, as well as the AGM.  I attended the AGM on Wednesday evening where I was able to personally thank the key officers and other volunteers present for their continued support, without which we would not be able to host so many events and fund raise to the current extent. Last week’s Ceildih was enjoyed by many and provided an excellent opportunity for new families to meet. Thank you to everyone who either donated or bought a cake today and, when I have more details about the money raised for Macmillan Cancer Support, I will update you again. I am grateful to Dr Card and her outstanding executive committee for their support in leading and serving the PTA and ensuring that there is always an exciting event to look forward to. I hope that they can count on everyone’s continued support through another school year

Yesterday evening we hosted an open evening for families interested in enrolling for Nursery, Reception and Junior 3 in the new academic year. Families who visited enjoyed a tour of the school, met staff and learned more about the facilities and curriculum available. My thanks to the Princethorpe Marketing Team, and especially Mrs Jenny Vaughan, for arranging this successful evening and to Holroyd Howe for providing the super selection of refreshments and treats. I am grateful to the classroom a teaching staff who supported the event as well.

In the Key Stage 1 celebration assembly this morning I congratulated our Stars of the Week: Margot, Anas, Amaya, Matteo, Xanthe, Gabriella, Will, Ain, Grace, Sienna L, Sara, Amalia and Alice. Congratulations to each of you on your efforts this week. Henry (Junior 3) and Julia (Junior 6) performed exceptionally well, on the piano and singing, respectively. They were both outstanding and it was a joy to listen to them.

On Monday next week, Mr Compton, Mr Cottrill and Mrs Malcolm will host an online safety information meeting; all parents will be sent a copy of the presentation after the event which will provide useful information pertaining to children using the internet. Harvest Mass will take place on Wednesday 5 October and I look forward to welcoming Father Kevin into school.

Mrs Jackson-Mayne has started to make arrangements for our donation to the Leamington and Warwick Foodbank. The donations of food and hygiene products are to be collected in school and we are putting out a plea to all our families to support this cause, if able. Please keep a look out for communications as to when your child’s class will be asked to donate.

From 8:00pm this evening, families will be able to book appointments to attend the online pupil progress meetings with your child’s form teachers. The evenings will take place on 12 and 13 October and details of how to book your appointment using My School Portal, will be sent to you separately by Ms McAloon. Reception to Junior 5 will be assigned an appointment with the form teacher and parents of Junior 6 students will meet with their child’s English and Maths teachers ahead of the upcoming entrance examinations. If there is a need to discuss further details after these meetings, please contact your child’s form teacher directly.

I wish everyone a restful and happy weekend with your families.

God bless,

The menus for the remainder of the first half of the Michaelmas Term can be viewed using these links:

Week 5 (1st Half Term)

Week 6 (1st Half Term)

Dear Parents

Holiday club will be running every day during the two week October half-term, but with a brand-new look!

See attached for a jam-packed programme of some of our fun activities, and for the first time ever, some trips out of school (additional charges will apply). We hope to add some more exciting trips to our holiday clubs in the future.

New timings and prices will be as follows:

Daily rate (9:00am – 5:00pm, inc. hot lunch): £30.00 per child

Breakfast club (8:00am – 9:00am, inc. breakfast): £5.00 per child

Teatime club (5:00pm – 6:00pm, inc. hot tea): £5.00 per child

Due to adult/child ratios, early booking is advised as there will be a maximum number of children we are able to accommodate. Late booking will not always guarantee a place.

Ways to book: email holidayclub@crackleyhall.co.uk

Please note that bookings are not confirmed until you have received a booking confirmation email. All bookings will be added to your Lent term bill. We are able to accept childcare vouchers to pay for any holiday club items added to your termly bill.

Kind regards

The School Office

Please be advised that Gillman & Soame will be taking class, sibling and individual photographs on Tuesday 11 October. 

Children will need to wear their full school uniform, ideally winter uniform.

If your children are in any sports clubs, please bring their sports kit in a separate named bag, and they will be able to change later in the day.

The photographs will take place in the Hall and parents will be able to bring pre-school siblings in for the sibling photographs, however please contact the School Office regarding this.

Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the School Office.

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

From next 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 being then 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.

Our Stars of the Week this week are:

Congratulations to them all!

On Monday we celebrated European Day of Languages and during the week the children have loved taking part in lots of language themed activities.

In Reception the children ordered croissants from our classroom French café and enjoyed some croissant tasting! In Junior 1 and Junior 2, pupils looked at some European flags and designed their own. Junior 3 and Junior 4 children listened to songs from Disney films sung in the language of the country setting, then tried to work out the language and the country. Mandarin lessons may have given them an advantage when it came to identifying the Mulan track! Some Junior 5 and Junior 6 children took part in an idioms quiz, looking at idioms which exist in other languages and deciding what they might mean. A particular favourite was the Polish expression; ‘not my circus, not my monkeys’.

All in all it's been a fantastic week!

Congratulations to our Crackley Hall Junior 5 pupils who came second on Monday 26 September in the ISA National Indoor Ski Championships at Hemel Hempstead Snow Centre.

Sebastian, Darcey and Harry all performed well, with Grace and Isabelle coming 5th and 6th respectively, scoring a total of 11 points, which gave the team the second place finishing spot.

We were thrilled to add skiing to the already extensive list of curriculum and extra-curricular sports on offer at Crackley Hall.

Well done to all who took part!

Huge thanks to Crackley's PTA for organising Crackley Hall’s annual Macmillan Coffee fundraiser this morning, Friday 30 September.

At morning drop off parents responded generously to the PTA’s drive by collectors, while in school pupils were also able to purchase cakes. It was a great morning of fundraising for a very worthy cause.

Macmillan Cancer’s annual fundraiser raised over £11 million for the charity last year but that figure was substantially down on previous totals. So, every penny contributed today is vital.

Crackley Hall is very grateful to parents, pupils and staff for their support for this good cause. 

Crackley Hall School and Little Crackers Nursery opened its doors for our first Open Event of the year yesterday, Thursday 29 September.

The evening was dedicated to those interested in Nursery, Reception and Year 3 for September 2023. It was a great chance for prospective families to visit the school, listen to the headmaster speak, look around the school and nursery and to talk to our friendly staff team. Crackley Hall and Little Crackers staff were delighted to welcome the visiting families and help them get a feel for what makes Crackley feel like 'the next best place to home'.

Parents are reminded that the deadline for Early Bird applications for places in the Reception and Year 3 next year is Friday 14 October. Interest in places is high for Nursery and Reception, with limited places available in other years.

For more information about availability and the admissions process, please email Mrs Jenny Vaughan, Admissions and Marketing Secretary at admissions@crackleyhall.co.uk or call her on 01926 514410.

Many congratulations to Amy Broadbent who finally attended her Graduation Ceremony last week, having graduated in 2020 with a BA in Education Studies from Plymouth University

Amy is now a Teaching Assistant in Junior 5L and is also an Aftercare Assistant. 

A huge well done to Amy!

During Monday's school assembly Mr Duigan presented Crackley Hall's Senior Caretaker, Michael Luis, with his long-serving pewter inscribed watch for an impressive 22 years’ service in the RAF Reserves. The watch was donated by the Sergeants Mess at RAF Brize Norton. Mr Luis was also presented with his Queen's Platinum Jubilee Medal that was awarded in February 2022 whilst Mr Luis was still serving. These were both presented to him at a charity Golf event for Squadron members who had died whilst serving in the RAF Reserves. Huge congratulations were extended to Mr Luis from the whole school.

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

This week Junior 6 have been exploring the life and work of vibrant symbolist Gustav Klimt. After researching Klimt’s work, the children went onto focus primarily on one of his most famous works: The Tree of Life. Both classes began by exploring the patterns and colours in his work and researching his other images. They then went onto craft their own trees in response, using a variety of media. Some amazing work was produced – Ms Holmes was thrilled!

Junior 5L have been learning about the creation of life in Religious Education this week. They have been exploring the Chinese, Inuit, Hindu and Christian creation stories, creating comic strips to retell the Chinese and Christian stories from beginning to end. The children watched a video clip about each story and through discussion they determined seven steps to the stories that became the model for the comic strips. They also discovered some similarities and differences between the stories.

Junior 4 celebrated Roald Dahl by discussing some of the main characters in Matilda. The children learnt French words for some members of the family and did fabulous work using tricky adjectives to describe people. They also enjoyed time in the outdoor classroom, translating sentences and cracking the code to find a new word. Vous êtes fantastiques J4!

What a merveilleux week Junior 3 have had! We began the week greeting each other in as many different languages as we could in celebration of ‘European Day of Languages’, which was on Monday. We knew how to say ‘hello’ in French, Spanish, Italian, Yoruba, Mandarin, German and Swahili. Continuing on our linguistic journey, we have enjoyed many exciting lessons in our home language as we have got to grips with homophones and prepositions in our English lessons. We have practised using the trickiest of homophones: their, there and they’re, and know some clever tricks to help us remember which spelling to use. We also had a wonderful time learning about prepositions of place, as we took turns to position little lego men in a Stone Age camp setting. We are feeling confident that all our talk for writing will enable us to use this language next week when we move on to writing our own setting descriptions! In our French lessons we have been practising our French phonics and learning colours. We now know that postboxes in France are yellow and the national football team is known as ‘Les Bleus’. Great work- Allez J3!

Junior 2 have been exploring castles and learning how they worked. We have looked at the different types of castles and seen many different types. This week, we were lucky enough to make our very own castles. We even made our own shield where we used our imagination to make a crest of our own. We have also celebrated International Day where we made flags and used our creative skills to create our own flags.

This week Junior 1 have been learning about the sense of sight in Science. They were fascinated to hear all about how our eyes are so precious to us and what it would be like if we were unable to see. Everyone was interested to learn about Louis Braille and how he invented a system where we can use our fingertips to be able to read. The discussion then led on to how we now have the help of Guide Dogs for the Blind. Elliott in Junior 1G, brought in his certificate for his sponsored Guide Dog Betty, which the children loved hearing all about! What a wonderful opportunity for the children to bring their learning to life. Mrs Olden is really enjoying her music lessons with Junior 1 and she is so impressed with the progress they are making with their recorders. Well done everyone and we hope to hear you playing in Celebration Assembly before too long!

This week Reception have been learning all about their feelings and how to recognise how others are feeling. They have been using the story of The Colour Monster to help them. They have been learning about their senses, and enjoyed exploring the school grounds, seeing what they could smell, see, hear, touch and taste. They have also been applying their observational skills to help them with their self-portraits.

School Assembly

Mr Duigan led the Monday School Assembly and spoke about St of Thérèse of Lisieux and her teaching of The Little Way, which is a commitment to do small tasks with love every day.  We learnt how Thérèse was kind to her sisters and she always thought about the feelings of others. Thérèse made up her mind to try to do a good deed every day. She realised that just because she was little, it didn’t mean that her little actions couldn’t make a big difference. This was called her ‘little way’ and this little girl grew up to be Saint Thérèse’. Little Way Week is when we try to follow her example.

Collective Worship

Thank you to all the children who delivered Collective Worship this week. For the older pupils, the theme was ‘Love’. It was fun to see the children playing 'Pass the Parcel' to remind them to pass on kindness to others through the actions we do, to live out God’s Commandment of  ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’

Pupils from Junior 4 to Junior 6 presented their theme of ‘Forgiveness’ to the pupils in Reception to Junior 3. They used actions to help the younger ones learn the ‘I Confess’ prayer.

First Holy Communion

All pupils who are practising Catholics in Junior 3 should have received a letter about the Sacraments of Reconciliation and First Holy Communion next year. If any new pupils who are  practising Catholics in Junior 5 and 6 would also like to join us, please email the office to let Mrs Jackson-Mayne know.

Food Donations

During the week beginning Monday 3 October, we invite parents with pupils in Reception to send in tins or packets of food or hygiene products so that these can be donated to people in need in our local community. Please give your donations to the class teacher who will put them in a box in the classroom. On Friday 7 October the donations will be taken to the Kenilworth, Leamington and Warwick Food Banks to help communities in need. Items in desperate need are:

• Long Life UHT Milk
• Washing up Liquid
• Male & Female Deodorants
• Shower Gel
• Packets of Instant Mash
• Tinned Vegetables
• Jam
• Toothpaste

Thank you.

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

Weekly Mission

Please find information below:

Children's Liturgy

Activity Sheet

Our U11 Girls Football team took part in the ISA U11 Midlands Tournament today, Friday 30 September, hosted by Dixie Grammar.

They girls lost their opening game 2-1 with the winning goal slipping in just before the full-time whistle. Undeterred the girls then won their second game with a super 12-0 score line. In their third game they faced the hosts, Dixie Grammar, and held them to a 2-2 draw. They then won against Ruckleigh 2-0 and against Highclare A 7-0.

After all those matches we are pleased to report the girls finished in fifth place overall. Well done girls for your determination and team spirit. You did us proud.

This week in Lego Club we delved into the world of wildlife exploration in the jungle.  We uncovered a forest thick with trees and slippery leaves and created our very own animal and horse rescue centre – always handy when dealing with endangered species like elephants, pandas and giant otters.  Venturing further into the depths of the dark jungle habitat, we discovered a forest fire, only to be extinguished by a solar powered aeroplane’s water sprinkling system aided by a lady with giant arms scooping up any distressed animals to the safety of a ready-made river on the aeroplane! If the animals didn't all fit, we had a smart purple bus and a British racing green Lamborghini on standby for safekeeping. How we love our dramatic and creative play!

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

Please see the attached dates for your diary. We also have a Facebook page - Crackley Hall PTA, please join us to keep an eye upcoming events. 

Tuesday 4 October 2022 by 9.00am

Time to clean out your closet and donate. The PTA will be collecting all mens, ladies, children’s clothing, paired shoes, handbags, belts and accessories. 

We and Bag2School want to help promote reuse of clothes and shoes to benefit those who rely on second hand clothes as their sole option for good quality clothing. Together we can build a sustainable future by using our resources to further the circular economy. Your child will be coming home with a recycled bag and flyer towards the end of September with more details. 

We are unable to take uniform, workwear, pillows, duvets or pieces of fabrics. 

Please leave your bagged items in the designated car parking space, near the mini buses outside the Science Room, from Monday and by 9am on Tuesday 4 October. They will be stored overnight outside so please ensure they are placed in a sealed plastic bag.

The PTA would like to offer period costumes and Christmas jumpers to families when needed throughout the year, aiming to offer a cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternative to buying new!

As each year group will experience a period day at Crackley Hall, we are starting to build our collection of costumes/jumpers.

We are, therefore, looking for the following donations please:

• Christmas jumpers
• Nativity clothing
• Victorian Day clothing
• Tudor Day clothing
• Roman Day clothing
• Stone Age clothing

As always, we really appreciate your help to make this resale successful for the families at Crackley Hall. All clean clothing can be dropped off at the front porch where the Second Hand PTA uniform box is located.

The PTA successfully welcomed back many families last Friday at the Ceilidh and BBQ.

A fun night was had by both children and parents and we would like to extend our thanks for supporting the PTA,

We enjoyed meeting so many new parents last week at our first monthly coffee day. We hope to see you again on 11 October at 9.00am and as always we look forward to meeting new faces.

It's a great way to get meet new parents too. 

Thank you to everyone who has supported the PTA second hand uniform shop, either with donations or purchases. We are very grateful. 

As always, please continue to use the uniform@pta.crackleyhall.co.uk email to submit any requests you may need throughout the year (our stock is always changing with donations that come in).  We are volunteer run and aim to reply to your message within seven days. 

We are also always looking for donations of items your child has outgrown. Please drop these in the box labelled ‘PTA uniform’, located in the front porch of the school. 

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 hark for us all!

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

Crackley Hall PTA - Kenilworth needs your help!

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As always we can’t thank you enough for your support to the PTA. All funds go directly back to enhance your child’s experience at Crackley hall. 

Please use this link to select any of the above events/mugs.

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.

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

• The Princethorpe Foundation - Director of Finance
• Head of Learning Support and SENCO - Princethorpe College
• Little Crackers - Nursery Practitioner