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Dear Parents,

The rather wet weather has not taken the shine off life in school this week and we have enjoyed watching all our pupils embrace a variety of lessons across the curriculum. We have also enjoyed watching our Reception children fly, as they have really thrown themselves into school life and it is lovely seeing them come to school each morning with big smiles!

Year 5 Choral Day

On Tuesday, Year 5 were joined by Cholsey and Whitchurch Primary schools for a special day of music, led by well-known composer and teacher, Lin Marsh. Lin’s inspirational teaching style and sense of energy is powerfully engaging, and she incited such enthusiasm from the choir of nearly 100 children! They enjoyed learning warm up vocal exercises before working on the songs they performed to parents later in the afternoon. It was hungry work, but thankfully Chef Paul and his team kept our young performers suitably energised. The end result – a fabulous concert that left the pupils and audience smiling from ear to ear! Lin’s message to the children and staff about the power of music to inspire and engage was a joy to share and be part of. I particularly enjoyed the community choir at the end of the afternoon as the children from the three schools worked together to such beautiful effect in sharing their short concert with parents. We often talk in school about the power of music to bring our community together – communal singing is one of those activities we can all participate in together across the whole school. We also talk about the close link between happiness and pupil progress and it was a joy to see so many happy pupils – challenging themselves, working together to achieve a common goal and quite simply having fun! Thank you to the many parents who joined us for this event – it is always a treat to be able to open our doors and share our daily community with our families.

Year 7 Open Classroom

This theme continued yesterday afternoon when we were so pleased to throw the doors open to our Senior School classrooms for our first Year 7 Open Classroom. We are exceptionally proud of how all our Year 7s are adjusting to the rigours of Senior School life, and equally delighted that we were able to share their day to day school experience with parents. Hopefully, walking around and being a fly on a wall for a snippet of the Year 7 lessons has provided parents with more of an idea of what goes on behind the scenes! We know how much it meant to your children for them to be able to show you their new routines and we hope you enjoyed stepping inside Cranford on a rather wet Thursday afternoon! We look forward to more Open Classroom events in Junior School later in the term – I very much hope to see you there!

Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme Coffee Morning

Many thanks to the families who joined us on Wednesday for the launch of the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme earlier in the week. This is always one of the most valuable opportunities provided to pupils between Year 9 and Sixth Form and it was lovely to have so many families in school to ask questions and understand next steps! I am particularly excited to see what the award scheme holds this year for the pupils taking part. I am always struck by the sheer variety of the volunteering undertaken by pupils involved in this programme & look forward to sharing details of their expeditions and adventures as these unfold later in the year.

Harvest Festival

Over the last two days, we have held Junior and Senior School Assemblies to celebrate Harvest. This is always a powerful moment of reflection in school, as we give thanks for all that we have, but also consider those that might be less fortunate. We had a brilliant response from all parents for our request for food donations and have sent these to Cholsey and Wallingford Food Banks. We know that these donations are invaluable in supporting the local community so thank you to all our Cranford parents for their generosity.

The end of September seems to have arrived with particular urgency and speed this year! This morning in assembly we reflected on the excellent start made by pupils across the school and how we can translate this into consistent success across the remainder of the term! I have no doubt that our pupils will accept this challenge with their usual warmth, curiosity and sense of fun!

I hope you are looking forward to a restful weekend and fingers crossed the rain does not follow us into next week!

With best wishes,

Dr James Raymond
Headmaster