19 September 2025

Dear Parents

Senior School Prize Giving 2025
Many thanks to everyone who made the journey into Oxford this week for Senior School Prize Giving. This is always a very special occasion and important opportunity to come together and celebrate the successes of the last twelve months, congratulate our graduating Year 11 and Year 13 students and look ahead to how we can make this a successful year at school. I was incredibly proud of our talented musicians, choirs and soloists who delivered a simply exceptional music programme with maturity and sophistication. I am sure everyone who was present will join me in congratulating them on performing with such musicality and emotion.  We thought you may enjoy seeing this short clip of the final musical item of the evening - truly extraordinary.  

During the evening we reflected on the values that sit so firmly at the heart of our community - the importance of resilience when faced with a challenge; kindness and generosity of spirit in the face of intolerance; the ability to disagree agreeably and remember the importance of listening to opposing views. We often talk in school about the power of everyday leadership, the idea that each member of our community is a leader.  We set the tone each day through our behaviours, manners, outlook and interactions - we can choose to bring sunshine or gloom into each room that we enter - at Cranford we choose the former. We choose to be happy and we choose to be positive.  Our school motto, Per Salicem Ad Alta (through the willow to the heights) encourages us to dare to dream, to work hard to reach our goals, to believe in ourselves, not following the crowd, but instead setting our own compass for the future. I know that together as a group of pupils, teachers and families we can make this the best year yet at Cranford. 

This morning in assembly, we heard all about the incredible Sixth Form World Challenge trip to Malaysia over the summer. It was exciting to hear about their adventures, the rich cultural experiences they shared as a group and the challenges they overcame as a team. The World Challenge expeditions really are a wonderful opportunity for pupils to develop resilience, teamwork and leadership skills. We also enjoyed hearing more about the next Sixth Form adventure, heading to Guatemala in 2027! If you want to learn more about this opportunity, please don't forget the forthcoming parent Coffee Morning on 30 September (current Year 10 – 12 families).

There is so much look forward to next week.  On Tuesday the annual Art Department exhibition will share the work of our GCSE and A-level students. Families are warmly invited to come along and spend some time touring the exhibition on Tuesday evening. We very much hope to see you there! The doors will open at 6:00pm and everyone is welcome! We are also looking forward to sharing this inspirational work with pupils across Junior and Senior School over the course of next week. 

On Thursday next week we have the first of our two Year 7 Open Classrooms. We are very much looking forward to opening the doors and welcoming families into school.  We have all been incredibly impressed with the brilliant start Year 7 have made to this academic year, and it will be lovely to see families in school and for you to catch a glimpse of Year 7 life!

Please do take a moment to view some of this week’s pictures. 

I hope you are all have a restful weekend and I’ll look forward to seeing you in school in near future. 

Best wishes

James Raymond

Head