4 October 2019
The school has resounded to many different accents and vocabulary as we celebrated a fantastic Languages Week in Senior School.
As we all know, it’s never too early to start learning languages and this remains a focus for the whole school, with even our youngest pupils over in Nursery enjoying their first French lessons this term!
Back in Senior School, as well as a superbly contested International Cake Competition, pupils also enjoyed Slovakian and Russian taster lessons, visited our French Boulangerie and pitted their wits against each other in a tricky International Languages Quiz. Did you know that some 840 languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea alone? I must confess it was news to me! I look forward to the culmination of this special week later this afternoon as our four Houses vie to produce the best language-focused performance. My thanks go to all the staff of our Modern Foreign Languages department who have worked so hard to put together this exciting and inspiring programme.
More love of language could be found in our Senior Library yesterday lunchtime as we marked National Poetry Day with another epic Poetry Slam. The courage of our pupils in standing up to perform self-penned poems in front of their peers was matched by the generosity of the audience in applauding their efforts, both of which made me extremely proud.
Further highlights of my week came as I attended fantastic assemblies by Year 4 on the Ancient Egyptians (packed with enough fascinating facts to keep even this avid historian happy!) and Year 10 on the topic on the topic of mental health and wellbeing. Their maturity and sensitivity in tackling this difficult but important subject was truly impressive.
Finally, I look forward to welcoming many of you to school tomorrow as we open our doors to prospective and current families at our Whole School Open Morning, between 9.30am and 12.00pm. Please do join us to explore the next exciting stages of your child’s education here at Cranford House.
Best wishes
Dr James Raymond