26 January 2024

26 January 2024

Dear Parents

The term seems to be flying along at an incredible pace as we rapidly approach the end of January. It has been another action-packed week across the school.

Year 11 and 13 Parents’ Evening
On Thursday evening we welcomed parents from Year 11 and 13 into school and greatly enjoyed discussing their progress and results following the recent mock examinations. This is a really important and exciting touch point in the school calendar. For our Year 13 pupils, experiencing their final Parents’ Evening, it is particularly momentous as they consider the reality of their onward journey and life beyond the doors of Cranford. For Year 11 pupils, the Parents’ Evening also affords discussion about A level choices, which is an equally exciting prospect as pupils begin to shape their future.

For both year groups, the Parents’ Evening allows teachers to carefully scaffold support and strategies to enable each child to fulfil and exceed their potential in the summer examination series. Thank you to all the parents who joined us. We hope you found the evening useful and as ever, please do get in touch with the subject teacher, Form Tutor or Head of Year if you have any additional queries.

Sport
It’s been a busy one in the sporting calendar this week, with fixtures across all year groups. Our U18 girls’ netballers had a brilliant game against Luckley House and our U11s enjoyed putting their netball skills to the test against St Joseph’s on the newly refurbished pitches.

We also enjoyed a highly competitive Junior Football tournament this week, hosting a total of 11 local teams! The tournament provided a wonderful opportunity to showcase teamwork and underlined the importance of a positive attitude and strong communication skills in achieving success! It was lovely to watch the children enjoying their matches and cheering on teammates. Spirits were high and all the pupils had great fun whilst playing some excellent matches. Well done to all involved.

Fitness Club
Since opening in September, our Gym has been well used as an extension to our other sports facilities. We are delighted with this popular enhancement to curriculum lessons and also to our extra-curricular provision. It provides a wonderful facility and supports staff in enhancing cardiovascular endurance and strength for our students. All pupils attending after school fitness clubs are now attending the gym. The Year 7 and 8 club is a teacher lead session, which allows the pupils to follow a variety of fitness-based activities from plyometrics, strength and conditioning and circuit-based work. It has been great to see many pupils subsequently have a go at creating their own fitness circuits, putting themselves and their peers through some gruelling workouts!

The Year 9-13 gym session is student lead, with pupils developing their own fitness programme based on their own goals, supported by the teachers. Many of the pupils have enjoyed using the weights to allow them to work on their strength and power which they are finding has gains in their main sports both in and out of school, including Hockey, Football and Rugby.

Cricket
As the Cricket season starts to creep onto the horizon pupils within Senior School have now made their sports choice for the Summer Term. If your child has chosen Cricket and would like to purchase the school cricket kit, please click this link to order. Please note, this is not compulsory and parents do not need to buy the whole kit. All orders need to be placed by 1 March for delivery before the season starts.

Year 12 and 13 History Trip
I am rather envious to report that our Year 12 and 13 History students attended a conference on the Tudors in central London on Tuesday. The conference featured a lecture on Henry VII and the foundation of the Tudor dynasty by Tracey Borman, the renowned Tudor historian and curator at the Historic Royal Palaces.

I was particularly pleased that students then participated in a series of lectures delivered Keith Milne, the Chief Examiner of AQA, working on improving essay and source interpretation skills on the Tudors. The students had a fantastic day and it was really profitable for them in expanding their Tudor knowledge and exam technique.

Have a lovely weekend.

With best wishes
Dr James Raymond
Head