The Chronicle

Dear Parents

Another week has flown by and we are well and truly into this very important term.  The school is a ‘hive of activity’ and the children and staff have been very busy throughout.  This morning’s assembly was, again, lovely with the announcement of this term’s prefects, the presenting of various awards as well as a few light-hearted moments of fun and laughter – nothing better!

I am sure that our new prefects will all do a very good job over the course of the term, until they hand over duties to an equally competent and enthusiastic group of their peers in the first week of January.  I look forward to seeing how they contribute to the life of our school in a responsible and thoughtful manner.

Well done to our Stars of the Week and all who, through their good efforts and achievements, were acknowledged at this morning’s assembly.  Congratulations to Venus House for winning this week’s inter-house competition for the second week running.

I was delighted with our outstanding sports results this week, particularly the rugby sides who won just about all their matches.  Well done to the boys and girls involved, as well as their coaches.

Princethorpe College’s Open day is this Sunday and I will be going over to help on the Crackley Hall stand.  Please do go along if you are able - I will look out for our Crackley families.

I am still stunned by how easily the All Blacks beat the Springboks last weekend – fortunately no-one at school has rubbed it in!

I hope that you are all able to enjoy a restful and happy weekend.

God bless,

Robert Duigan

We have a number of trips coming up over the next few weeks. Please see the relevant letters below.

J4 Visit to Kingswood Activity Centre 9.10.17

J2 MAD Museum & River Cruise 12.10.17

J3 Ancient Egyptian History Day 12.10.17

J6 Victorian Day 23.11.17 

J4 & J5 Young Voices in Concert Info Letter 26.01.18

J4 & J5 Young Voices T-Shirt Order Form 26.01.18

J4 & J5 Young Voices Ticket Order Form 26.01.18

Sunday 24 September - 2.00pm to 5.00pm - Reminder

A reminder that Princethorpe will be holding its annual Open Afternoon on Sunday 24 September from 2.00pm - 5.00pm. All are welcome to visit the College and for younger visitors, there will be many fun subject related activities organised by the departments.

The Headmaster will address visitors during the afternoon and refreshments will be available. 

For more information, please visit: www.princethorpe.co.uk/admissions/visit-the-school

We look forward to seeing you there!

Thursday 5 October - 10.00am to 3.00pm

Please do spread the word that Crackley Hall and Little Crackers Nursery are opening their doors for an Open Day on Thursday 5 October from 10.00am to 3.00pm.

This is an opportunity to look around the school and to meet staff and pupils on a normal working day. All are welcome, no need to book.

Those that can't make the Open Day but would like to look around the school, should call our Admissions Secretary, Mrs Angela Barnard on 01926 514444, we welcome visitors on most days.

For more information visit www.crackleyhall.co.uk

We have a number of trips coming up over the next few weeks. Please see the relevant letters below:

J4 Visit to Kingswood Activity Centre 9.10.17

J2 MAD Museum & River Cruise 12.10.17

J3 Ancient Egyptian History Day 12.10.17

J6 Victorian Day 23.11.17

Parents who require either permanent or occasional after care for the new Michaelmas term are requested to download and complete the attached booking form. This form should be handed into the front office on completion.

Our Stars of the Week this week are:

Question - how many players does a regular hockey match have? Well, when there is a world record to be had this intrepid quartet of Junior 5 students, comprising William Spashett, Joseph McCullough, Dylan Williams and Toby Lucas could answer 370 players.

Such a number might suggest that this wasn't your usual game with stick in hand, but more a supersized match played to capture the world record for the most hockey players simultaneously playing a game at one time. Happily, our boys who play hockey for Crackley and Warwick Hockey Club respectively came away unscathed and more than ready for an opposition of a smaller number.  

Mr Duigan was delighted to announce in Whole School assembly this morning, the first group of student prefects, who will commence their office immediately. Such positions of authority are awarded to our Year 6 students on a termly basis, an event that the remaining students from Mrs Horan's and Mrs Lammas' class will enjoy at the start of Lent term.

Ably assisted by Mr. Cottrill each pupil was given their badge of office and the opportunity (along with their Junior 6 cohort) to extend their service into our third and final term next year.

We trust these shiny new prefects will perfectly compliment the already smooth running of our lovely school and provide each individual prefect with a responsibilty that will allow them to develop into the leaders of tomorrow. 

On Tuesday pupils in Junior 3 visited St Francis to find out more about the Sacrament of Baptism. Armed with four baby dolls, pupils took on the roles of parents and godparents to find out about the ceremony. Father Kevin showed them the different oils and explained to the children why the church uses different signs and symbols during the service. The pupils gathered around the baptismal font excitedly to see the holy water and then four of the godparents took the baptismal candle, which is given to each child after the baptism, and lit it from the Easter Paschal candle to remind everyone that Jesus is there  to be their guiding light.

Alex Ainsworth  Junior 2

Alex was a worthy recipient of the RE Book of the Week as he was able to distinguish the differences between the Old and the New Testament. He knew that God was in the Old Testament and that it was written in Hebrew. He also clearly knew that Jesus performed miracles and told parables in the New Testament, and that it was written in Greek. Alex was also able to write key facts about the Bible.

Wednesday 27 September is the feast of St Vincent de Paul. He was a French Roman Catholic priest who dedicated himself to serving the poor. The Vincent de Paul Society was founded in his name and aims to help the less fortunate in our society. The Mini Vinnies is the junior group, of the St Vincent de Paul Society, for younger people aged between 8 and 11.  The Mini Vinnies are given an opportunity to begin their own Vincentian journey for life, where they can embrace the three key steps to ‘see’, ‘think’ and ‘do’!

Crackley Hall formed their own their own Mini Vinnies in 2016, volunteers from Junior 5 and Junior 6  have helped to lead activities to raise awareness and funds for our local and global community.

On Monday pupils from the Mini Vinnies will lead an assembly to explain to the school the work of the society and to remind them of the activites which they ran last year

U11 ‘A’ Girls Hockey vs Ratcliffe College 3 - 0 (win)

Match Report by Eva Plevin: In the match Megan scored an amazing three goals, chalking up her first hat trick of the season. Player of the Match is awarded to Abi Gillard for her outstanding all-round play.

U11 ‘B’ Girls Hockey vs Ratcliffe College 0 - 0 (draw)

U11 ‘C’ Girls Hockey vs Ratcliffe College 2 -1 (win)

Three local rivals provided stiff competition for our U11 Girls Hockey team as they ventured onto our Foundation partner's astro turf to take part in this year's Princethorpe College Hockey Festival.

This day is billed to be 'non-competitive', where the game itself should win, through the teaching of additional skills to nuture developing players. Such ambitions were easily met by the Princethorpe College coaching staff, who with real skill led their young charges through a format that included coaching sessions on skills, attack and defensive. 

As life might teach you, preparation and practice can only serve you well if used within the 'heat' of a competitive match. In the festival, each side pitted their wits and newly learnt talents against each other. The final whistle of Crackley's third game came and revealed all, our girls had two victories against Revel School and Our Ladies, and had secured a very creditable second place overall. Not even a rain storm at the concluding award ceremony could dampen the high spirits - for today, hockey and Crackley's girls were winners.

U9 ‘A’ Rugby festival vs Ratcliffe & Bablake

Match 1: U9 'A' vs Ratcliffe 25 - 5 (win)

Match 2: U9 'B' vs Bablake 20 - 25 (loss)

Player of the Match: Conor Horan

U9 ‘B’ Rugby festival vs Ratcliffe & Bablake

Match 1: U9 'A' vs Ratcliffe 25 - 10 (win)

Match 2: U9 'B' vs Bablake 25 - 20 (win)

Player of the Tournament: Harvey Hollier

U10 'A' Rugby Triangular vs Bilton Grange & Ratcliffe

Match 1: U10 'A' Rugby vs Ratcliffe 15 - 15 (draw)

Match 2: U10 'A' Rugby vs Bablake 10 - 20 (loss)

Player of the Tournament: Xzavier Hutchinson-Hayes

U10 'B' Rugby vs Ratcliffe 15 - 15 (draw)

Player of the Match: Ben Moore

U11 'A' Rugby vs Ratcliff College 25 - 0 (win)

U11 'B' Rugby vs Ratcliff College 30 - 10 (win)

Player of the Match - Benedek Kordas

Match Report by Isaac Leng: This was a very close and competitive match, where our defence held firm despite repeated attacks by Ratcliffe. We believe that with a bit more practice we might be able to beat them 6 - 2 next time.

U11 'A' Rugby vs Bilton Grange 15 - 10 (win) 

U11 'B' Rugby vs Bilton Grange 20 - 15 (win)

Player of the Match - Sidney Weir

Match Report by Isaac Leng: This was a closely contested match. We needed a little more work in defence, but still beat them in the end. Well done team!

J4 & J5 Mandarin Club on Tuesday is cancelled as Mrs Huang will not be available.

J5 & J6 Rugby Club is cancelled on Wednesday as staff will be attending fixtures.

This week we continued to enjoy plenty of pirate fun, but finally the princesses got to join in too! We read the story of the Princess and the Pea and played some lovely listening games to go with it. Taking turns to be the princess, each child lay down, on a mattress, on top of a pea and went to sleep… their friends then took turns to pass round the Queen’s keys, trying not to make a sound until the princess woke up and guessed who was hiding them! Everyone enjoyed the game, but it was very hard because Miss Lisa’s keys were too quiet… next time we must remember to borrow Mr Steve’s school keys – they jangle really loudly! 

As we come to the end of our pirate and princess fun we are starting to think about our next exciting learning theme, we will begin looking at everything ‘Autumny’ next week so that our Autumn display can be almost as good as the sparkly display in the Two Year Old room. We love looking at their happy hedgehogs, and after hearing about the hedgehogs living in Miss Maxine’s garden we want to find out all about them. 

We have a couple of requests: if you are out and about this weekend please bring something in for our Autumn display, and if you are having a clear out we would love any old CD’s of nursery rhymes, children’s songs and stories, thank you.

For further details of what's happening next week in Nursery please click here for the Weekly News. 

Leanne Jones of Drama Tots led Stay ‘n’ Players on a journey of make-believe when she visited the baby and toddler group on Wednesday 18 September.

This was a repeat visit from Leanne as part of a programme of activities at the weekly group and Stay ‘n’ Play was thrilled to welcome her back.  Involving all ages, Drama Tots blends imaginative play with music and movement to transport children on exciting adventures. Our Stay ‘n’ Players were transfixed thanks to Leanne’s enthusiasm and warmth.

Little Crackers Stay ‘n’ Play continues weekly in term-time and will feature a special autumn crafts session on Wednesday 8 November led by Gail and Mary and the rest of the team.

Stay ‘n’ Players are warmly invited to attend an exciting session in our Nursery from professional children’s singer and songwriter Nick Cope on Wednesday 27 September from 3.00pm to 3.30pm. 

Nick Cope is highly recommended by our Head of Music and the entertainer has spent most of the summer performing in his own show at the Edinburgh Festival.

This is an additional session to our usual morning Stay ‘n’ Play and has been arranged by our music department. The cost to attend the session is £3.50 which can be paid on the door. If you plan to attend, please bear in mind that the finish time is close to the collection time for the school and so you may wish to park farther away than usual.

Click here for a biography of Nick to tell you more about his work.

Friday 29 September from 8.00am

We will be taking part in the Macmillan World's Biggest Coffee Morning this year again. For those of you that have to get to work we will be offering a drive through tea and coffee service at morning drop off, or if you have a bit more time there will be tea and pastries on the patio area outside the school hall.

The children will also get an opportunity to buy cakes at break time at 50p each, so please send them in with some change. If you have a child in Reception J2, 4 or 6 you have hopefully received an email asking for six small cake/biscuit donations - no nuts please. Many thanks for your support.

Friday 6 October at 7.30pm

Tickets are now available for sale online using this link. You can enter as part of a team, or as a couple or individual as we can assign you a team - see the attached poster for further details. The sooner you buy your tickets, the easier it is for us to plan, so we do hope you can join us. It's always great fun and it would be really good if we could stop the teachers winning again this year!

We are creating our very own school cookbook and to help us along with this exciting project we would love every pupil to contribute their favourite tasty recipe. It could be a starter, a quick bite, a main course or a dessert. Parents are also welcome to contribute too. 

You can log onto a specially designed site and send us your recipe online. Just follow the onscreen instructions – it’s really quick and simple to use. Please click here to access the website and use the following access code: f26994ed17

The deadline for recipes is 1 November 2017, so if you haven’t submitted a recipe yet please do so. Once we have everyone’s recipe we will be sending them off to be printed. An example of the finished cookbook is shown. Hopefully your child bought home a chef's hat with all the details on before summer and all new pupils were given one this week too. You can add a photo along with the recipe, so it would be lovely to see your child posing with the hat on! There will then be plenty of opportunities to purchase copies of the recipe book in time for Christmas!

We look forward to receiving your recipes and thanks again for your support.    

Lily Carroll (J4H) has lost her black and gold tiger print glasses.

Georgina Pollock (J5V) has lost her named PE tracksuit top.

Evie Berger (J6L) has lost her named school blazer.