21^st July 2001

Dear Parents, Friends and Old boys

Well we are all safely back at base with a humungous pile of dirty washing and some tired and none too clean boys to get ready to send home. The year comes to a close with some long and thankful sighs. We have experienced so many changes up until Easter that a term of consolidation was desperately needed and this we managed to some degree. There have been some terrific highs but equally very low points. The traditional Cruckton year has seen some differences but we have kept as close as possible to the original script and seem to be finishing much the stronger as the new staff and boys gel into the routines and learn our standards and expectations. Many concerns still remain but the culture and ethos is strong and with the ever-strengthening staff the future looks good.

We say a sad farewell to Mr Thomas this week after eleven years as a houseparent. Over these years his knowledge, skill, experiences and a little droll humour have helped, guided and in no small way set an example to the boys that have had the privilege to be in his care. His memoirs are far too numerous to relate here but I hope they will all be told or written one day. He has decided to retire at the end of this term and we hope to give him a grand farewell on everyone’s behalf. Then I am trying to get him to sign back on to return next term on a ‘Bosman’ free transfer. We have also said goodbye to Mrs Goodwin and Mr Barrett who is setting off on his long held dream of a journey around the world. We have welcomed: Mr Middleton, Mr Luff, Mrs Drury, Mr Cooke and Mr John Davies onto the care staff this term and wish them a long and happy stay. We also wish the same to Mr McEntee, our new IT teacher and Mrs Downes, who has returned to us as a classroom assistant.

New boys this term have been: Rowan Crump from South Gloucester, Anthony Armstrong from Walsall, Thomas Denton from Cheshire, Bryan Maguire from Coventry and Ian Fellows and David Thompson from Telford. The leavers had a nice farewell assembly after a day at Alton Towers with Mr Carless, Mr Randell, Mr Campion, Mr Clark and Miss Miller. Eight boys have definitely moved on this term: Carl Bowles back to Wolverhampton; James Cannan to Ruskin Mill College, Gloucester; Adam Cooke to Solihull Sixth Form College; Taha Nasr back to Pakistan; Matt Dunn to Telford; Matt Joyce to TCAT or Ricoh on a modern apprenticeship; Chris Rowe to Warwick and Mark Westwood to Stourbridge Sixth Form College. We await decisions on three other boys. James Hocknull is at present on a reintegration trial at Willenhall Comprehensive we wish him well for next term and hope he makes it work.

The builders have moved in to enlarge Ivy House kitchen and to provide a dining room. The renovators have moved into the stable block to provide study and teaching areas, a new Home Economics room, a meeting room and further support rooms; hopefully all ready for use in September.

Following the successful opening of Roxby House in Lincolnshire, Young Options will be opening a new school in Shropshire. It will be known as Young Options College and will be sited at Higford Hall in East Shropshire. It will be opening in September 2001 and provide education and care for boys and girls with a variety of emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Key Stage 2 SAT’s went well with only two boys, Richard Gough and Michael Walker sitting the papers. Twelve boys sat the Key Stage 3 tests and all coped very well in most areas. A new test, ‘Year 7 Progress Test’ also began this year with seven boys taking the test in Maths and English. The results will be published in the end of term report with an explanation of the grades and what they are meant to represent. Seventeen boys sat their GCSE examinations, which were probably the most peaceful ever and have hopefully gone extremely well for all candidates. The whole of the examination and test programme was a credit to the staff involved and to the boys themselves. I am greatly indebted to the teaching staff and in particular to, Mrs Meyer, Mrs Martin and Mrs Evans for their efforts and the calm efficient way they conducted the programme. The two new classrooms in Ivy House proved useful as a quiet ‘oasis’ in which exam pupils could work without disturbance; this made it easier for the whole school to function.

The GCSE results will be available on Thursday 23^rd August. The postman has already arranged to drop the mail at 08:00 that day. We shall then mail and/or email them home to the boys.

We entertained Simon Weston as guest speaker for ‘Weston Spirit’ at the NASEN summer meeting in June. He gave us an interesting insight into his past and character followed by his vision and work with Weston Spirit. This is a charity set up all over the country to help and re-establish young people with problems. I felt honoured to meet him and we all enjoyed the cheese and wine supper, which followed. Thanks to Miss Davies, Mrs Kynaston, Mrs Bailey and everyone else who helped provide the spread and made the evening such a success.

The Reverend Michael Whittock visited school last week and enjoyed lunch with the boys and a tour of the school. The boys seem delighted to have a clergyman back as hopefully a regular visitor and we both look forward to some stimulating assemblies.

Thank you all for your generosity and to those of you who joined us for our summer fete. We raised a total of £1631 in the afternoon and this has been divided between the camping and work experience groups to spend on the boys and make sure they have a good holiday. It was a lovely afternoon and well worth the effort made by the staff and boys. Sometimes the small stalls and aspects of the afternoon seem trivial but from the fabulous Mystic Peg to the Raffle every part was crucial to the whole and made the afternoon very special to Cruckton.

The boys have been spread far and wide these past two weeks. Senior boys and year 10’s were back in school for their first work experience. Year 9’s were at Clwt y Bel, Deiniolen, above Llanberis for their adventure week of walking, rock climbing, mountain biking, orienteering and raft building. Years 7 and 8’s were at Shell Island to enjoy the coast and crabbing trips, similarly the juniors were near Aberystwyth.

Work experience has again given our boys a priceless opportunity to gain confidence and success in the adult world. Anthony Armstrong was working at Pizza Hut; Rob O’Connell has been painting at Mr Luff’s house and I understand that he worked hard. Our thanks go to Mr Luff who rescued Rob from what would have been a mixed week back at school. Neal Clews helped on Adventure Camp; Bryan Chermulas at Pete Jones Motorcycles; Ross Oyston was at the Co-op Superstore in Shrewsbury; Steve Powell working outside with the Countryside Volunteers; Chris Tedds in the financial world of Abbey National Plc, Merrick Holt spent the week at Toys ‘R’ Us and Stefan Gordon in his black ‘T’ shirt at Virgin Megastore. All of the boys entered into this cheerfully and showed a willingness to work hard. Like last year’s work experience, this has been one of the best and we are proud of the way in which our pupils have conducted themselves.

The teacher’s grade one boys; Terry Scaife, Tony Roberts, Jamie Fletcher, Chris Tedds and Ashley Smith were taken by Mr Senior and Miss Dodd for a wet treat to Waterworld. Juniors and 7’s went to Story Sacks with Mrs Dixon and Mrs Rayner. Mrs Doyle took year 8 on a Science trip to Merrington Green an SSSI. Miss Senior took 8’s on a Geography trip to the Secret Hills Discovery Centre, Craven Arms.

Enclosed with this letter you should receive a diary of the forthcoming educational year with the dates of the Christmas Bazaar and summer Open Day. A copy of the Cruckton Chronicle compiled by: Neal Clews, Chris Tedds, Richard Lees and Lloyd Davies. This is a first attempt but we shall hopefully be seeing a regular edition from September, as there are a host of keen chroniclers awaiting their opportunity to publish - due partly to the fact that they get time off lessons but also because the paper can be submitted as GCSE coursework. Parent/Carers should receive the annual individual photographs of their cherubs, I hope you like them. Thanks to the skill and perseverance of Mr Butterworth. The originals are stored on the computer disk so if you need any more or even plastic surgery on the original I am sure he would oblige. I know some of the boys tried to bribe him into highlighting their better features or removing the odd spot! Finally an annual school report will be enclosed for Parents/Carers, Education Authorities, Educational Psychologists, Social Workers and parents. Sorry friends and oldboys your days of school reports are over.

Our year 9 boys have just chosen their ‘Options’ for this coming September. It is not easy to please every boy and to give them all the subjects that they would like to do for GCSE. Like any school, we have to balance the Curriculum and steer towards success; we will be sending a letter out about this as soon as possible. Within the Key Stage 3 curriculum there are changes with the introduction of the government’s new strategies, or ‘Frameworks’ for the teaching of Maths and English. There were slight modifications, this year, for GCSE in some subjects and more changes to follow.

Flute lessons this year have been very successful. Paul Hook is making steady progress and is playing duets with Miss Dodd. Michael Walker is new to the flute this term and is making excellent progress increasing the amount of notes he knows all the time.

Mr McBride and Mr Randell in the PE department introduced an incentive scheme this term, awarding JJB vouchers for those boys making the best consistent effort regardless of their ability. It is good to see such a cross-section of the school achieving in PE. This term the following boys have been awarded vouchers: Steve Powell (2), Bryan Chermulas (2), Gareth Smallman (2), Nathan Williams (2), Terry Scaife, Liam Morris, Ashley Smith, Lloyd Davies, Jamie Fletcher, Paul Hook, Nick Pitt, Tony Roberts, Matt Mertens, Tom Hilton, Stephen Connolly and Tom Crowe.

The Schools for Health initiative under the guidance of Mrs Large has continued to be supported by all departments and more importantly the boys. We shall be examined during October for the award and hopefully the boys’ awareness and our all round health standards will continue to increase until then.

The inter-house cross-country was not able to take place on the normal course of Pontesford Hill due to the Foot and Mouth restrictions. This was a disappointment to a number of pupils because it is a challenging course even though it is only two and a half miles in length. However, we conducted a multi-terrain run local to the school. The winning house was Hill. Steven Powell was the first home for the seniors, with Nathan Williams taking the junior top spot for the first time. The inter-house athletics took place on a glorious sunny day with all the boys taking part in the field events in the morning, many had not been involved in a competition of this nature before. The four houses were only separated by one point as the afternoon track events began. On the front lawn Mr McBride had marked out a two-lane running track. A variety of runs were held varying in length from 80m to multi-lap relays. The events were carefully arranged so that all the boys took part in at least one event and contributed to their house score. The final event was a staff relay where I was asked to select three other runners to complete the team. On the first leg I sadly made no headway on Haydn Clarke but thankfully Mr Senior, Mr Clark and Mr Campion were able to able to show their prowess of superior speed over; Steve Powell, Lloyd Davies and Terry Scaife even though Mr Randell the starter imposed a number of (press-up) penalties on the staff as they ran. This almost allowed the boys to win but Mr Campion’s superior ‘width’ and speed kept Terry back from the finishing tape. Eventually Clive House won the competition under the guidance of Mr Senior. Hill and our newly created house Webb shared second place with Darwin house led by their evergreen coach Mr Carless came a close third.

Unit reports: Belvidere House have reported a good term and thoroughly enjoyed the twelve weeks. The front of the house has been altered to accommodate parking and plans are in hand to repair the patio. A social services spot check gave a good report. Neil, Lynne, Mick, Chris, Jules and Andy have really developed a nice atmosphere in the house and the boys really appreciate their residence, as they should. They would like to congratulate all the boys for their excellent behaviour and help this term.

It seems that Ivy House has been open a lot longer than two terms. It has now become recognised as the senior block and the boys in residence have all thoroughly enjoyed their stay both for the opportunity to study and relax in near perfect surroundings. Mrs Kyn and Mr Clark have been developing the independence programme for the boys that stay and also to keep a sensible check on social life and activities. There is no truth in the rumour that Mr Clark has been presented with the Naked Chef cookbook

Elizabeth House has been running for Junior boys instead of induction since half term and Mrs Evans and Mrs Hetherton are pleased with the results. The little ones have been more settled and enjoyed more activities they have chosen for themselves.

The Barn newly opened this term has proved to be the sanctuary it was designed. We have been using it for several different reasons but hope it will continue to consolidate under Ms Middleton the House Manager; more news in future letters.

The main house remains popular with the majority of boys due to the larger numbers and wider variety of activities. The weather this term has been good since the monsoon stopped and there have been the usual wide variety of activities both in and out of school. Horse riding has again been popular with Mr Southall and Miss Miller taking: Henry Brittain, Alastair Horton, Thomas Hilton, Thomas Crowe, Thomas Denton, Liam Morris and Anthony Biggs. All are riding independently and have been out on first hack last week. Mr Corbett and his roll play gamers have a new copy ‘Final Liberation’ and ‘Chaos Gate’.but ‘Warhammer 40K’ remains the favourite. The keenest boys went to the show at Halesowen in May they were Lloyd Davies, Michael Knight, Ross Oyston and Zac Powell.

The annual Wem Cricket match was again won by the school XI and dare I say without any cheating, just a great deal of generosity on the part of Wem CC. Many thanks once again to Mr Fleming and Ms Sue Sargent they put on their usual warm Wem welcome and managed to give the boys prizes and a really good evening. This was the first match since the death of Jim Lewis a long and honoured friend of Cruckton and our thanks to Sue his daughter who wants to continue in her father’s footsteps and keep the tradition going for future generations of our boys.

On behalf of the staff and boys have a very happy summer and a peaceful holiday. Remember the Autumn term begins on Monday 3^rd September 2001.

Yours sincerely

Paul Mayhew

Headmaster