3 November 2023
3 November 2023
Dear Parents
Welcome back! We have had an amazing first week of term, but I first wanted to thank the teaching staff who supported our Senior pupils on two fabulous overseas trips that took place during half-term.
New York Trip
Travelling to one of the world’s most exciting cities, our Senior pupils certainly made the most of their five-day trip. They visited the Empire State building, enjoyed a ferry trip to Staten Island and Brooklyn Bridge, immersed themselves in culture at MoMA, enjoyed spectacular views at the Vanderbilt, and of course sampled some of New York’s famously indulgent cuisine!
Sports tour to the Netherlands
At the end of half-term, the PE department took over 50 senior pupils to Valkenberg for the football and hockey tour. They all enjoyed some intense training sessions and competitive matches, but also took part in a brilliant trip to a water park, a bowling alley and a pancake house!
Junior Discovery Week
It has been a brilliant week back for all our Juniors who have enjoyed a sports-themed curriculum this week, which kicked off with a wonderful assembly from Mr Dellor who talked to the children about different types of sports and the Olympics.
Our Pre-School and Reception children have enjoyed a variety of sports, including a highly competitive House Pentathlon at the start of the week featuring long jump, high jump, basketball hoops, cycling and running! They all worked brilliantly in their teams and had great fun cheering each other on. They also enjoyed a fun coaching session with Coach Joe from Benson Football Club, the high energy that Mrs Maxwell always brings to her dance and fitness classes and also a fantastic golf session on Thursday with Mr Templer. Next week Reception and Pre-School will be putting their acrobatic skills to use as they enjoy gymnastics fun with Vision Gymnastics!
Year 1 and 2 have been just as busy. They have created obstacle courses that they enjoyed testing out, working brilliantly together in small groups. They have also really enjoyed designing some eye-catching posters to advertise their obstacle courses and created some wonderful clay medals for the winners!
Year 3 and 4 have enjoyed being sports journalists, gathering content for their own Sports Magazine. Their research included a review of Can Do Dojo - where the Sensie's put the children through their paces learning stick fighting, falls and grappling as part of a Jeet Can Do lesson (the marital art made by the legendary Bruce Lee!). On Wednesday the children interviewed an Australian hockey international - our very own Miss Nixon and asked probing questions about starting a career in hockey, what it takes to get to the top and how many injuries she has had! Sports magazines always contain a recipe or two and the children invented and made their own super smoothies on Thursday- full of vitamins to keep an athlete (or a Year 4) fighting fit!
Years 5 and 6 were treated to a range of fantastic trips, workshops and team building exercises. They travelled to Twickenham for a tour of the stadium, museum and took part in a 'design your own stadium' workshop. The next day, they learned about the technological advances from visiting Sports expert and author Matt Rogan, who explored advances ranging from stadium design, to sports equipment to nutrition. Then, they were also delighted to work with BBC commentator (and Cranford parent) Tim Dellor, whose creative introduction to the world of commentary included showing the Womens' Sculling final in the 2016 Summer Olympics. He brought a very special guest, Vicky Thornley, who won the Silver medal. The children took on roles within many different jobs that go behind every sportsperson's success. Finally, another great Olympian, Greg Serle, addressed the whole school before leading some team building exercises today.
Saturday - World of Sport
As if that wasn’t enough excitement, we have our annual Discovery morning tomorrow. We are looking forward to throwing our doors open to many visitors so they too can enjoy some of the amazing sports-related activities our pupils have had access to this week! We have everything from Robokeeper, to climbing walls, an ice-rink, BMX display teams, a skate park, surfing, coaching sessions led by Reading Football Club, GB hockey players and Oxford Saints American Football team, E-sports Fifa training, a Scalextric giant track, dance shows, music and food activities, T-shirt printing and so much more besides! It promises to be a lot of fun and we very much hope that families across the school will be able to join us for the morning! We look forward to seeing you there!
Have a good weekend.
Kind regards
Dr James Raymond
Head