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Dear Parents

We hope it was a welcome surprise on Monday morning to arrive at school and find that Christmas has officially landed at Cranford! We think it looks spectacularly festive and are looking forward to the multitude of Christmassy events that will soon be a prominent feature on the school calendar. Your children are working hard rehearsing, from the Pre-School Christmas Sing-Along, the Reception Nativity, the Key Stage 1 show and of course the Junior and Senior Carol Services at Dorchester. These events are such special occasions for our whole school community, and we promise you are in for a treat! We also look forward to the PTA Christmas Fair next Saturday, 30 November from noon, and hope to see many of you at these wonderful events in the run up to the end of term.

Junior Spelling Bee

The Junior School had a hotly contested spelling bee yesterday, which is always highly competitive and a great deal of fun. It was lovely to see children working together in teams for their houses to earn "bees" and the rivalry between houses seemed to increase over the duration of the competition; it was very exciting and rather nail biting! There were some incredibly tricky words to spell, giving teams quite a significant challenge. However, we were impressed with the collaboration between the teams, with children in all year groups helping each other out! Huge congratulations to Blue House for being the overall winners by the slimmest of margins.

Sporting success

It’s been a busy two weeks of sport, with some brilliant match play across football, hockey and rugby. Our U14 and U12 Footballers were triumphant against Bradfield, Sherfield and Reddam House, with the U15s narrowly losing to Bradfield. Last week, the U16 Boys had a tense match of rugby against Crosfields School, winning 40-12. The U14 and U16 Hockey teams won their matches, demonstrating exceptional skills and levels of teamwork and the U13 Football won 3-2 against Luckley House.

Finally, our U15 Hockey team had a brilliant day at the ISA Hockey Competition, winning the plate. Last week the U13 came 2nd Nationally in the cup competition narrowing losing on penalty flicks. Well done to everyone involved in all the teams that have competed so far this half-term! Congratulations to also to Lara (Y8) for making the Oxfordshire Cross Country team, Eve (Y11) for her success getting into the Oxfordshire County Rugby Team and Seb (Y10) who won Oxfordshire Bowler of the Year at the Oxfordshire Cricket Awards!

Children in Need

A big thank you to everyone who contributed to our Children in Need fundraising activities last week; we raised £1081 which is very gratefully received. Thank you.

Please see the week in pictures here.

With best wishes

Dr James Raymond
Head