Cruckton Hall School
Cruckton · Shrewsbury · Shropshire · SY5 8PR · Tel 01743 860206 · Fax 01743 860941
14th
December 2001
Dear
Parents, Friends and Old boys
The final
week’s singing and laughter are still ringing out through the houses as we end the
Christmas term. A scrumptious dinner followed
by a moving Carol Service leading to a fun tea and party with Auld Lang Syne and a few
fireworks to bring the week to a close. Sad
farewells were said and a presentation was made to Mrs Hodnett, Mrs Thomas and Miss
Atkinson on Friday morning. They will be
greatly missed by the staff and boys with such a vast amount of knowledge leaving a huge
vacuum. We wish them good luck for the
future.
We have
also said goodbye after a brief stay to Mr Hobson and Mr Harrison. Miss Williams started this term as the new Home
Economics teacher. New staff will be arriving
next term with Mr Newell taking up the newly created Modern Languages and PSHE/Citizenship
position. He has a lot of experience and
should enhance the teaching side with this new specialised dimension. Mrs Moreton will be taking up another newly
created post as School Nurse. She is looking
forward to getting to know all of you parents and developing her medical/care role. Mr Wellings, Mr Warwick, Mr Downes, Mr
Namasivayam, Mr Dowell, Mr Pawlowski, Mrs Last and Miss Smith will be joining the care
side both in school and in the satellite houses. Mrs
Wood will also be joining us on the domestic side. They
are all very talented and committed people and we wish them a long and happy stay.
Simon
Smith from Ludlow, Russell Hearn from Coventry and Aaron Waters from Kent have joined the
school during this half term. All have
settled in well showing their skills in several areas.
Simon is multi talented in music and across the curriculum. Russell and Aaron are keen War gamers and
gastronomes!
The Stable
block renovation has now been completed and we are enjoying the full range of beautifully
decorated facilities as planned. Thanks must
go here to Mr Simmr Sandhu and Mr Keith Northridge for all of their efforts and patience
as they tried to meet all of our needs. Mr
Campion is now ensconced in his new History room, Miss Dodd in her Art & Craft room,
Miss Williams in the Home Economics room and Mrs Downes has begun work in the old Stables. We hope to develop this area into a Specialist
Support Centre and library. We shall identify
special and specific individual needs among the boys that require extra or specialised
help, this area will be resourced and made available for addressing these needs.
Our
building programme is on hold until next year giving Mr Brown’s maintenance team and
Mr Croucher time to recover and catch up. We
have a new and exciting project being formulated for the area behind the sports hall to
enhance a wide variety of recreational activities but more news on that next term.
Young Options College, Higford Hall have received their registration and are now fully open with
places available for both boys and girls. Mr
Andrew Large will be taking up the position of Principal in January and we wish him and
his staff every success. Following the major
fire in November, which consumed the main teaching building, a full-scale building
programme has begun to return the site to an improved former glory.
We have
finally got a new vicar in our parish and I was privileged to act as a
‘Welcomer’ at the Induction/Introduction service for The Reverend Michael
Whittock. Michael and his family have moved
down from Leeds to take on a rural lifestyle in South Shropshire. He has visited school several times now to meet
the boys and share his teachings with us in assembly.
What a
wonderful day the Christmas Bazaar proved to be. Thank
you all for your endless generosity. We
raised the massive total of £2025 in the afternoon and this was a record for the Bazaar. It has been eagerly divided between Christmas
present money for boys and family and trimmings to make sure they have a really good
Christmas week. Mrs Meyer and her teachers
felt the meeting with parents was a particularly useful part of the day and I hope
positive and productive for those of you attending. We
shall be running a similar programme in the summer and hope you will take this opportunity
to meet with your son’s teachers again to discuss the year’s report.
Enclosed
with this letter you should receive a diary of the remainder of the educational year with
the dates of the summer Open Day –put this in your diary NOW!. You will also receive the updated Educational
Plan, Care Plan and Health Plan for your child. Sadly
a second edition of the Cruckton
Chronicle was not
completed in time to go to press but plans are in place to run a termly news sheet - from
the horse’s mouth as they say - with a variety of interest topics. Perhaps parents, friends and oldboys might like to
contribute to the next edition and have their own column.
If so please send in your contributions to the editors: Richard Lees and Tom
Higginson who tried so hard to get a copy out before Christmas but were overtaken by the
festivities.
Several
staff have been on courses this term. Mrs
Doyle, Mrs Rayner, Ms Senior, Mrs Martin, Mr McEntee and Miss Dodd have all been away on
GCSE moderation or assessment training. Mrs
Meyer is going through the rigours of Ofsted Inspector training. She has nearly completed the training part and
now has several days of assessment and inspection as part of the next stage.
There have
been a variety of Education trips during the term. Mrs
Doyle took Years 10 and 11 to Preston Montford Field Studies Centre. Ms Senior has taken a variety of Geography field
study trips to Llanrhaeadr waterfall and the Rea Brook for river studies needed for GCSE
coursework. Ms Senior and Mr Thomas had the
onerous task of taking the Grade One boys from last half term to Red Ridge Adventure
Centre. Ashley Smith, Paul Hook, Anthony
Biggs, Martin Bates, Matthew Lester, Michael Walker and Tom Denton all tried various
activities including: go-karting, climbing and the zipwire.
Four boys
took retake GCSE examinations in November and we hope they did better than in the summer
and gain grade ‘C’ or above. They
will have the opportunity again in the summer but this requires fresh coursework and so is
not so popular with the boys who have usually moved on into higher education and feel
GCSE’s are below them.
Congratulations
to Chris Rowe from Warwick who left school last summer.
He has been selected to join the 2002 Operation Raleigh expedition to Chile next
year. We all wish him well and would ask if
any of you would like to offer him some sponsorship please get in touch with me early in
the new year.
The boys
and staff have raised over £250 for charities this year, which is pleasing. Matthew Mertens and Terry Scaife completed a
sponsored bike ride with Mr ‘Sidesaddle’ Thomas in aid of Breast Cancer
Awareness. They decided to cycle round lake
Vyrnwy as many times as possible in one day. As
dawn broke the intrepid trio set off with stout heart and loads of sandwiches on their
first circuit of 12 miles. In failing light,
tired and hungry they completed their fourth lap making 48 miles of cycling. A very successful day in wind, sun and heavy rain
they even managed to rescue an errant sheep that had become trapped. The overall mileage for the day was 144 miles
raising over £200 for their charity. We also
made the Sports Hall available for the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital Linac appeal to use for a
fundraising evening with a Bavarian Umpah band. The
boys under the guidance of Mrs Rayner and Mrs Mansell opened a French Café offering too
many pastries to tempt weary teachers on a cold breaktime.
The cause was again well supported with all proceeds going to charity. A Glad Rags day and Carols sung at the Hospice
complete our charity events.
Flute
lessons this year have been very successful, from 3 boys Miss Dodd is now inundated with
boys who want to learn and so has had to add one evening session to her lunchtime group. Mrs Dixon continues with her large group of
pianists and Mr Clarke and Mr Butterworth have their guitar group.
Mr McBride
and Mr Randell have awarded 12 JJB vouchers for the term to Steve Powell x2, Steve
Connolly, Matthew Mertens, Jovi Kerr, Chris Tedds, Richard Lees x2 from their incentive
scheme. The swimming lessons have provided
all 37 of the boys from their key stage 2 and 3 groups with a new challenge badge. These were from the beginners 25metre badge up to
the 800 metre award. Well done everyone.
Tregynon
School visited for an open 5-a-side tournament. Our
A team won led by Steve Powell while our B team led by Chris Tedds came second. We have more fixtures arranged for lower school
players to compete in a variety of sports. Mr
Randall’s Trampoline club has been very popular after school. Lee Peace, Steve Powell and Matthew Mertens have
all been entered for county competitions. Lee
came third in the County Championships and came 8th in the Midlands
Championship.
The
inter-house competitions were held throughout the term: Basketball, Soccer and finally the
Cruckton Factor. This event was won by Webb
house after a long day of physical and mental tests.
The individual Champions were Richard Lees senior and Steve Connolly junior. The House Champions for the Year were the newly
formed Webb house. They have dominated most
competitions throughout the year and are worthy winners.
Runners up were Clive with Hill and Darwin following.
Belvidere
House has continued with their excellent work and care.
They have built up their workshop and started all sorts of projects with bikes and
wood.
The Ivy
House boys have had a busy but productive term. Mrs
Kynaston and Mr Clark are very pleased with the end of term reports for the Year 12 boys. Darren Griffiths has been playing for Hanwood FC
each week and is now their regular first choice striker.
The staff held an open firework evening and barbeque. Miss Davies procured the sparklers and Mr Campion
happily showed everyone his skills with the charcoal.
A lovely evening was had by a large number of staff and visitors joining the boys.
The Barn
has remained a very quiet home, for which it was intended designed, with Mrs Middleton
running the unit with four very happy boys.
Miss
Davies, Mrs Evans, Mrs Large and Mrs Hetherton took the Elizabeth House boys: Tom Denton,
Tom Crowe, Alastair Horton, Dominic Stamper, Haydn Clarke, Rowan Crump and Matthew Lester
for a Narrow boat trip on the good ship ‘Hayley’along the Llangollen Canal.
Mr
Southall and Miss Bickford took: James Fairbanks, Henry Brittain, Steve Coleman, Dean
Brown, Tom Crowe, Martin Bates, Micky Walker and Jo Warner to London for a site seeing
tour and stayed overnight in Windsor Youth Hostel.
There have
also been a multitude of activities in the evenings and weekends: Safari Park, Ice
skating, Waterworld, Swimming, Cinema, Horse riding, Shopping, Walking, Bike riding, War
Hammer, Role play games and Exhibition, Games Workshop and Torch tig.
Finally
puppy news, Megan has grown and grown and is now quite a large dog. She is eight months old at Christmas and loves all
of the boys, although some are not so keen on her. Her
favourites are those boys who take her for a walk/run up the woods during lunch break,
particularly, Henry, Lee and Lloyd.
On behalf
of the staff and boys I wish you all a Happy Christmas a Prosperous New Year and a very
peaceful holiday. Remember the Spring term
begins on Monday 7th January 2002.
Yours
sincerely