The Chronicle

Dear Parents

God bless,

Rob Duigan

We are all looking forward to this year's Young Voices Concert taking place next Friday 27 January 2023 at Resorts World Arena.

If you have consented to seats at the event or coach tickets that you no longer require, please inform the School Office and return them back to us so we can redistribute them.

Our Stars of the Week this week are:

Congratulations to them all!

Lorraine Taylor, our long-serving, and highly respected Head’s PA at Crackley Hall, will be leaving at half-term. Lorraine has secured a similar role much closer to where she lives. If parents would like to contribute towards a leaving gift, please contact the school office. We will all miss Lorraine, but we wish her well as she continues life’s journey in her new role and thank her for all her wonderful work as part of the Crackley Hall team.

The School Council have started litter picking on a rota basis each Monday and Tuesday break times. A team went out for the first time on Tuesday and Mrs Burley, who co-ordinates the School Council, was so proud of how sensible they were. 

The School Council always prioritise environmental issues and this year is no exception. All of the School Councillors feel passionately about looking after our immediate environment, but this also extends into our community and the world at large. Last year, the School Council went on a litter pick around Kenilworth and Mrs Burley is sure that they will be venturing out and about again. Said Mrs Burley, "We are always very proud of how conscientious and sensible our children are and seeing Reception children right up to Year 6 working collaboratively and so happily together makes us very proud."

The School Council will continue to listen to their fellow students and to bring their ideas to our meetings, as well as trying to action as many of their fabulous ideas as possible. Well done, School Councillors!

The Nursery team are delighted to introduce you to Miss Lucy who has joined Little Crackers as a Nursery Practitioner. Lucy has been with us now for a week and has slotted straight in to our dedicated nursery team.

Lucy joined us from local nursery Bright Horizons in Kenilworth. She is really enjoying getting to know all our lovely Little Crackers and getting involved with all of their fantastic activities.

It's great to have you with us Lucy!

It was wonderful to welcome everyone to Stay ‘n’ Play’s Forest Fun this week. Although chilly it was a lovely crisp, bright winter morning just perfect for exploring amongst the trees. The children all had lots of fun discovering all the activities and getting stuck into the mud!

The session took place in Crackley Hall’s wood at the back of the school and was led by Mrs Clark, the school’s Forest School Practitioner. The children had a choice of a hands-on activity creating a forest collage, as well as plenty of free play, in the woods, in the mud kitchen, on the hammocks, the rope swings and the slide.

It was great to see everyone and we hope our Stay 'n' Players all enjoyed the fun. Don't forget our next visiting activity is on Wednesday 15 February when we welcome Move It Shake It Dance.

Princethorpe College has a new Headmaster, Mr Grove du Toit, and last week, as he settled into life at Princethorpe College, the Heads of School, Freya and Pratheesh, sat down with him to ask him questions submitted by pupils from across the school. 

The question-and-answer session was recorded and is being shared with Princethorpe's pupils on Teams, to help them all get to know more about their new Headmaster.

This week on the College's social media they have also been sharing his answers, to introduce the wider Princethorpe community to Mr du Toit.

If you would like to see the clips, you can find the full video on the College website here.

Our wonderful Forest School is looking for donations to enhance the time spent within the environment, we are looking for the below items please for imaginative play!

• Old towels
• Blankets
• Rope/string/twine/shoe laces
• Decking boards/scaffold planks (long/short)

Thank you for your support.

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

This week in art the children have started creating silhouettes of images linked to the First World War in a thematic link to Junior 6’s focus from the end of last term. They began by cutting out their soldiers, landscapes, or other silhouettes, from black card. Once they are completed, they will start layering crepe paper with PVA glue to build up the coloured background. The finished pieces of artwork will resemble a stained-glass window that will catch the light beautifully, and act as a reminder to all the astounding things we learned about the Great War last term. Junior 6 have worked so hard this week and we can’t wait to see the finished product!

This week in Science, Junior 5 have started their new topic: Amazing Changes. They have been curious whilst exploring which materials are reversible and irreversible, asking questions and discussing new ideas. This week they conducted a balloon experiment, using vinegar and bicarbonate of soda to see how far a balloon would inflate and whether adding more bicarbonate of soda would increase how far the balloon would inflate. The children were enthusiastic when watching the balloons inflate and to discover the answer to the investigation; that adding more bicarbonate of soda didn’t make a distinguishable difference but that when a larger amount of vinegar was added the inflation of the balloon increased.

This week Junior 4 have practised their touch-typing skills, getting ready for their much-awaited competition against Crescent School. They’ve been perfecting their Qwertyuiops and strengthening their finger speed, in preparation for typing as many words as possible in a small amount of time! As a warmup for this computer-based competition, the two schools have also met on the rugby pitch and netball court. It was lovely to see everyone competing with such a wonderful attitude and great sportsmanship. Keep up the great work, Junior 4!

This week Junior 3H have been investigating forces, in particular Push and Pull. The classroom was turned into a Tug of War contest as the pupils tried to pull their way to success. This topic has been a super way of learning about all sorts of Forces, including magnetic materials and the way in which North and South poles behave. In other areas, we have considered our favourite ‘bar modelling’ to assist with division – our bar models now beautifully drawn, with each ‘box’, ‘group’ or ‘shared between’ being represented with increasing precision. The class is never so quiet as when 20 children are focused and concentrating on accurate maths skills.

In a more noisy moment…..we have also been thinking about the dialogue between our two Egyptian characters, Amasis the Pharaoh and Rhodopis, our Egyptian Cinderella. All the children had great fun thinking about what the characters might say to each other. Hilarity ensued and the sound of happy laughter rang through the upstairs corridors! Bravo Junior 3H.

In Junior 2 this week we continued to study China; the children were creative and had lots of fun creating The Great Wall of China using Lego. We looked at Cherry Blossom trees in Art, and the children created beautiful paintings. In Maths, we investigated money and how many ways we can make amounts. We finished the week learning about Chinese New Year and making some vegetable spring rolls.

The weather this week seems to match our Science topic – Polar Places! This week we looked at where the Arctic is and how it is different to the Antarctic. We discovered there are no penguins in the north, but there are polar bears, arctic foxes, arctic rabbits and many more! We learnt lots of new facts about these animals, including that polar bears can smell food from over a mile away and that their fur isn’t white, it’s see-through - fascinating! We continued to develop our knowledge of the countries of the UK by learning the four capital cities that belong to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In History we finished our Viking longboats, as an example of a very early mode of transport that helped the Vikings to invade other countries and trade goods.

This week in Reception we have been finding out about Chinese New Year! We read the traditional story of how the animal zodiac years were created and loved finding out what year they were born in and if they showed the personality traits. We also used the Virtual Reality headsets to explore around China during the lantern festivals and wandered through a bamboo forest.

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

Nursery Newsletter Link

Reception explored what happens at a Baptism in RE this week and recognised that the Baptismal candle was a sign that Jesus is our light. We talked about why we need light and why it is important in our lives and we thought of ways in which Jesus can be like a light helping and guiding us. The children then acted out a Baptism and wrote a prayer about Jesus being our light - the light of the world.

Monday's Collective Worship this week was on the theme of Kindness.

Pupils looked at the messages within the Psalms, in the Old Testament, to find out what the Bible says about ‘Kindness’. Mr Vaughan sang, Psalm 23 ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd’ as the pupils entered the hall. Pupils in Junior 3V demonstrated how actions can be added to psalms to help us understand.

Mrs Jackson-Mayne asked the whole school to think of actions to help us remember the Psalm 5. It was fantastic to see the whole school saying the psalm aloud with the actions.

Pupils were set the following mission for the week:-

Say one kind thing to someone every day this week.

Hold a door open for someone this week.

Let someone go before you this week.

Say ‘Good Morning' to someone each day.

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

Weekly Mission

Please find information below:

Children's Liturgy

When we are sad or lonely, things can feel dark, but when someone does something nice for us, everything seems brighter again. This is the light. We consider how we can share this light with others.

Activity Sheet

Our U10 and U11 teams played Crescent School on Wednesday in friendly fixtures in netball and rugby. The netball teams travelled to Crescent to play away while Crackley Hall welcomed Crescent’s rugby teams to play rugby on the playing fields. Despite the cold start to the day the sunshine had warmed the fields and everyone enjoyed getting out in the winter sunshine to play. The games were fast and furious with plenty of great passes. It was a super effort by all, well done everyone. Enjoy these great action shots from the afternoon’s rugby games.

It was the turn of Junior 3 and 4 on Thursday to enjoy their fixtures against our fellow Foundation Prep School. Our U8 and U9 teams played Crescent School in friendly fixtures in netball and rugby. The netball teams travelled to Crescent School to play netball on their courts while the rugby teams played here at home. It was another cold day, but everyone soon warmed up once they began to play.

In the netball there was plenty of quick and accurate passing and lots of shots on goal. It was a super effort by all. We hope you enjoy these action shots from the netball.

Vigilant, witty, quick-minded and ingenious. These might be some of the words used to describe Lego Club, but they are actually words which could describe this year's Chinese Zodiac animal. Can you guess what it is? As we say farewell to the Year of the Tiger, Lego Club prepared to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit. Or more specifically, the Water Rabbit, starting from Sunday, 22 January. The Chinese New Year is the largest and most colourful event in Chinese culture and, with this in mind, we were awash with a vibrant collection of reds, pinks, blues and greens. We did dragon dances, festival parades, fireworks and we welcomed animals from previous Zodiac years who were keen to make an appearance, including the rat, ox, tiger, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, pig, and a couple of pandas. Happy Year of the Rabbit everyone!

During our STEAM club on Monday, Junior 6 focused on the ‘A’ in STEAM and created some magic pictures.

They had to follow the instructions carefully to stick the pieces of card and plastic in the right order so that a line drawing reveals itself in full colour when the picture is lifted up and out of the frame. A very successful and fun activity!!

Check out the flyer for details of upcoming PTA events.

• Save the Date for the Headmaster Quiz and Nibbles night on Friday 10 February at 7pm.
  
  
• Important - The PTA Pub night now has a new date and will not take place this Friday. It will take place at the Butchers Bistro at 7pm on the 3rd of March. Thank you to Kate Greevy for her kindness in supporting this change.
  
  
• 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.

Please follow us on social media to keep updated with our events!

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

The second hand uniform shop now offers boy black trousers, shorts and both female and male white school shirts (some brand new). As always if you may need anything please email uniform@pta.crackleyhall.co.uk.

Our next in person sale will take place on Friday 17 March before and after school. This will allow you to stock up on any summer kit your child may need prior to returning for the new summer term.

If your child’s class is experiencing a period day such as:

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

Please get in touch as we are now collecting preloved costumes to offer for these special days in school. 

Thank you for your support.

Please see this week’s job opportunities:

• Teacher of English – Princethorpe College
• Admissions and Marketing Administrator

Should you know anyone who might be interested in these posts, please do share this information with them.

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