Chronicle: 27 April 2018

Cranmore Chronicle 27 April 2018 Editor: Mrs S Trumble

The French Exchange Students have arrived!

In This Issue...

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The Headmaster

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Second Hand Shop

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Carnival of the Animals

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Young Writers

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French Exchange Visit

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Activate Camps

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Cranmore Nursery

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Rowing at Ghent

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Music News

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Cricket and Tennis

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Dear Parents Once again we are hosting our French Exchange Pupils. We know that they always participate fully in school life here and I am sure they will enjoy all that Cranmore offers.

We are delighted to welcome visitors today for our Open Morning. No doubt, they will learn a great deal about Cranmore’s distinctive features by chatting to our current pupils.

I am grateful to Father John for celebrating our special Mass for Families this week.

Let’s hope the weather is favourable for our cricket programme tomorrow.

Yours sincerely Michael Connolly

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Carnival of the Animals Themed Week With the new wonderful artwork installed in the Junior Department over the Easter Holidays, our term started with a Carnival of the Animals themed week.

On Tuesday for a super starter, all children toured the artwork and listened to the music. It really was a day full of awe and wonder. Then throughout the week lessons were linked to the Carnival of the Animals. Children wrote animal fact files, made animal Top Trump cards, wrote acrostic poems, made clay fossils, baked animal biscuits, danced to the music, used instruments to accompany the music, learnt the animal names in French and of course made some beautiful artwork of their own to display in our very own Art Gallery. On Friday, the Fantastic Finisher to the week was a visit by Animazing when all the children had a chance to touch a range of different animals and learn about them. You can see photos of all these activities on the following pages.

We hope you enjoyed the Art Gallery as much as the children enjoyed producing the artwork. Enormous thanks to Virginia McKenna from the Born Free Foundation (Grandmother of Ben in MP) for coming along to our gallery.

After learning about the wonderful work the Foundation does in helping animals, this charity was chosen for our themed week. As a result of your very generous donations, a grand total of ÂŁ392 was raised for the Born Free Foundation. Thank you!

We had a wonderful week but we know that with the stunning art adorning the walls in the Junior Department, we will continue to be inspired into the future.

Mrs Fiona Nicholson, Head of the Junior Department

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Animazing!

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As part of their Carnival of the Animals themed week, children produced some wonderful art, danced to the music of Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals, and made animal-shaped biscuits, amongst many other activities.

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The French Exchange 2018 For the next two weeks, we will be welcoming our 12 French Exchange students from Ombrosa school in Lyon and Vaugan.

We have the pleasure of welcoming back Alexandre, Maxime and Maxance (3rd year in a row for some of them!).

They have informed the others that the food is absolutely fantastic (“la nourriture est incroyable!”), the atmosphere in class is great for learning (“l’ambiance est géniale pour apprendre”) and it is always sunny in England… to quote a few!

After a grand arrival on Thursday evening (nous avons sorti le grand jeu!), they had a fantastic first day. Their challenges were to make sure they tucked their shirts in and learnt how to knot a tie (no uniform in France!)

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Summer has arrived in the Nursery garden!

We loved the warm sunny weather last week and made sure we spent time out in our lovely garden. We watched as the warmth of the sunshine made our cherry trees burst into blossom. Indoors the children have enjoyed re-creating their experiences with collage on both a large and small scale.

Nursery children took clipboards and tally-charts out into the grounds and discovered that there were lots of beautiful flowers. Each time they saw daffodils or tulips they drew a line to represent it. Later they were able to say what they had seen on their walk by looking at the information depicted on the chart.

We have all been really busy making sure the playrooms look wonderful for our visitors on Friday.

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Music News

The Cranmore Young Musician Competition The heats for this competition will take place in senior class music lessons in the week commencing Monday 14 May. Any senior pupils who play an instrument or take singing lessons are encouraged to take part in this competition. Participants are reminded to bring in their instrument and music for their performance. Those who enter will be rewarded with merits for their performance and some pupils will be selected to progress to the section finals which take place in late June.

Good luck to all who take part.

Mr Harris, Director of Music

Stop Press—Music Exam Results Grade 1 Louis Wilkinson - Piano - Distinction Grade 3 Jason Ho - Piano - Pass

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Prep Schools’ Choral Day On Tuesday 24 April a few members of our senior choirs attended a Prep Schools’ Choral Day at Charterhouse. Pupils had the opportunity to perform the Kyrie from Dvorak’s Mass in D major and Parry’s Hear my words, ye people alongside children from other prep schools and some of the Charterhouse choristers.

Singing music by Parry and Dvorak was always going to be wonderful and performing it in a glorious venue such as Charterhouse Chapel made the experience even more magical. Our pupils did Cranmore proud and they will remember this celebration of choral music for a long time.

I would like to thank Mr Harris for accompanying us to Charterhouse and the parents who came to support us.

Miss Fourie

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The Second Hand Shop Needs You! After 7 years of running the Second Hand Shop, we will be leaving Cranmore at the end of summer term.

It seems a long time ago when Sam was in Lowers and a similar letter to this was put into the Chronicle asking for someone else to take over.

Sorry I have held on to it for so long….I just didn’t want to give it up….but now it’s your chance to belong to and manage something quite special.

For those of you that use the shop, you will know what an important part of Cranmore life it is.

Do you want to be a part of this? Do you have one hour free after drop off on a Friday?

The time needed for weekly/monthly admin is minimal, with a few hours needed twice a year to collate all the information and write and send the commission cheques.

Only basic Excel skills are required (thankfully).

So, don’t be shy. This position is suitable for a ‘stay-at-home’ parent or someone working.

Please send me a text or email and we can talk about the post more fully.

Thanks!

Lorraine 07711 261 386 lmoynihan@btopenworld.com

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Rotary Young Writers Competition Fifth Former Jai and Third Former Hugo have found success in the Rotary Young Writers Competition, which drew entries from many of our pupils in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Forms. Jai was given a ‘Highly Commended’ award in the intermediate category in the local round and Hugo came runner-up in the junior category. Hugo has gone on to win the district round with his story and his entry will now go forward to the National Final. Congratulations to them both!

Mr M Chapman

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Rowing Success at Ghent International Regatta After a gap of several years Cranmore returned to race in Belgium. It was a wonderful experience for our crews to race crews of similar age from all over Europe, and even as far afield as China, on a multi-lane International course.

Understandably everyone was a bit nervous when they first saw the course and regatta site, but nerves soon gave way to excitement when we trained on the course.

On the first day, first off were Josh Little and Jai Arun in the J12 singles followed by Arjun in the J14 singles on the longer 1000 metre course. The morning finished with Neena Kang and Eleanor Lucas putting in a strong performance in the J14 women’s doubles. The afternoon saw Arjun Kang bow steer a coxless quad in the J14 quadruple sculls, the only British crew to go coxless and a first for Cranmore too. In another first for Cranmore our girls’ quadruple scull of Eleanor Lucas, Neena Kang, Manasa Arun and Ava Louisa Christiansen, coxed by Alex Mather, raced in the coxed quadruple sculls.

Sundays races saw our 3 J12 doubles of Alex Mather and George Christiansen, Jake Armitage and Jake Crehan Mills, Josh Little and Jai Arun compete in a packed field. Eleanor and Neena were next on the start for the women’s singles, closely followed by Arjun and Jett in the J14 doubles.

Saving the best until last a Cranmore / Danes Hill composite with Jett Dyason, Olivier Hinds and Arjun Kang won the bronze medal in J14 coxed quadruple sculls.

A huge thanks to all the parents who came to support us and of course Gentse Rowing Club who hosted us.

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Cranmore heads into Space Taking a day off from their training, the Cranmore rowing squad went to the European Space Centre in Lessines near Luxembourg. Many astronauts have trained here and we had the chance to experience the gyrochair and spinning chair to find out what weightlessness and zero gravity feels like. We then tried moon-walking, attached to giant springs to simulate 6% gravity and wearing virtual reality goggles - it makes doing the high jump easy!

The Centre has its own mini rocket launch pad where, having made 2 stage rockets, we were able to watch them launch and then separate before floating back to earth on a parachute.

We not only had great fun but also learnt about space and the challenges of space travel.

Mr B Martin

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Summer Sports!

U13 Tennis Match against Downsend

U10 Cricket against Downsend

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