7 March 2025
Dear Parents
It has been a glorious Spring-like week and such a treat to see everyone outside and enjoying the sunshine across the school. There have been so many highlights across the last few days, not least welcoming parents from across the school to events and activities. A huge thank you to everyone who was able to join us for the coffee morning and open classroom events with Years 1-4 across Tuesday and Wednesday. It is always such a treat for the pupils to be able to show off their work and their classroom to their families and we really enjoy opening the doors to welcome in parents. Thank you so much for all the time you take to support these events in a busy week. We also had Year 8 parents evening, which was buzzing, and it was wonderful to see so many of you there, thank you to all for coming along.
Trips and residentials form such an important part of pupils lives as they progress through school - they provide an incredible opportunity to challenge themselves, to explore new cultures and environments and to build memories with their friends. On Tuesday morning, we also enjoyed an exciting pre-trip meeting with parents for our forthcoming senior Cricket tour to the Desert Springs resort in Spain. Our Senior cricketers will enjoy the opportunity for pre-season training in a professional environment as they jet off during the final week of term. We will look forward with anticipation to hearing just how they get on! Not to be left out, our Senior Footballers and Hockey players are also heading out to Spain later this year for the October half term sports tour!
Cross Country
We had an exciting sporting event at Thorngrove this week. Our exceptional cross-country runners took part in a demanding Cross Country relay event. The teams did Cranford proud, really putting their all into it with the U9 Girls securing an impressive second place, U13 Boys a brilliant podium position of third and the U13 Girls bounded into first place. Congratulations to all who took part!
House Pancake Race
This long-standing tradition is always lots of fun and a real treat to see the whole school gathered together on the Astro for a House event. There was lots of cheering and house spirit, some truly impressive speed walking, pancake flipping and house colours on display! I hope you managed to catch a glimpse of the annual house pancake race on our social media earlier this week. Well done to everyone involved and particularly to St Christopher (Green) on an impressive win!
World Book Day
Yesterday morning we were faced by an incredible array of colour as pupils across the school embraced world book day with their usual enthusiasm! I hope you can spend a few minutes flicking through the photographs from the day here. This year we enjoyed a particularly creative array of costumes and book choices! I'm always fascinated to hear about what our pupils are reading, to discuss their favourite authors and book series and share their passion for stories and literature! I particularly enjoyed hearing our Junior Heads of School share their thoughts on the power of reading with Junior school and attending the ever-impressive Junior school costume parade!
Today, Year 6 adventured out in the Spring Sunshine to Gilbert White's House, a famous botanist. They put their Topic learning about the Terra Nova expedition into action as they explored the route taken by Captain Scott and his team; viewed some equipment that was taken by the team to Antarctica and ventured outdoors to experience what it is like to be an explorer. So much fun had by all!
Please take a moment to look through our week in pictures here! I hope you are looking forward to a wonderful weekend - fingers crossed this weather stays with us for the rest of term!
With best wishes
Dr James Raymond
Head