Bradfield College were fortunate enough to select the one day of sunshine in between incessant rain, on which to hold this year’s Golf Tournament.  The college’s golf course was looking good, the course beautifully prepared for a wonderful afternoon of golf.

It is a challenging 9 hole golf course, requiring a good level of golf and we were not disappointed.  All of the boys enjoyed the event, playing with a high level of maturely and confidence.

There were good performances by all, with notable achievements from Oscar Fuentes who achieved third place in the individual Under 11 section and with Josh Howard extremely close behind their combined score resulted in second place in the Under 11’s team section.

What happens at Open Morning?

• Guests are invited to arrive at 9.15am for coffee
• The Headmaster’s address to families will take place at 9.30am
• Following the address group guided tours of the school will commence
• An opportunity to talk to admissions staff and teaching staff is available after the tours

Crèche facility

Children are welcomed to attend our Open Morning with parents. A crèche facility is available for younger children.

As the team prepared to take the plunge down 13 floors, the equivalent of 32 double decker buses, they were encouraged by families, friends and children from Crosfields.

The team raised £3,000 for The British Red Cross.

Instigating the challenge was Mrs Gould, our very own School Nurse. She says “The British Red Cross carries out some tremendous work locally and the abseil was an exciting, yet terrifying opportunity for the teaching and support staff at Crosfields to show their support for its work.  The team thoroughly enjoyed the experience and is overwhelmed by the generosity of supporters. We’re looking forward to the next challenge!”

Fergus Fox

Romily Hayward

Josh Allen , Mikhail Adetunji and Taylor Alexander Dancing to the Can-Can!

It was the Crosfields Chamber Choir that was awarded the Walker Trophy for winning the Young People’s Class, singers of Year 9 and under.

Richard Adams, Director of Music at Crosfields comments “Winning the Walker Trophy was an outstanding achievement.  The award is intended for singer’s year 9 and under, so with our choir primarily made up of Year 6 pupils, this made the achievement even greater.  The distinction rating was well justified for their performances of Spell to Bring Lost Creatures Home by Bob Chilcott and Wings by Carl Strommen. They performed exceptionally well.”

Adrien Vitart, age 10 and one of Crosfields most esteemed musicians wowed his adjudicator so much that he received the Durant Cup, for the most promising instrumentalist aged under 16 and an outstanding award medal for his violin playing in the under 16 string solo and a gold in the Graded 6-7 class.

Both the Chamber Choir and Adrien have both been invited to perform at the Finale Concert at Bearwood College on Sunday 25th March.

Reception children were given an exciting opportunity last week when they hatched their very own spring chicks.  The children eagerly waited as each of the 10 eggs hatched and were left amazed as the chicks emerged from their shells.

The Children spent time learning all about the chicks and helped to care for them and on Friday, they waved goodbye to the chicks as they were taken to a smallholding to free range into adults.

A record number of teams attended, 52 in total, consisting of 32 boys teams and 20 girls teams.  The U8’s and U9’s were spread across 13 pitches within Crosfields’ 40 acres of grounds, for an exhilarating show of tag rugby. The children displayed some great tagging techniques and ball handling skills and spectators were treated to some very exciting rugby.

London Irish Rugby Football Club and “Digger”, the Club mascot, once again lent their support to the event.

Andrew Harris, President of Berkshire County Rugby Football Union, presented each team with a rugby ball donated by Crosfields School and every child received a certificate confirming that they had taken part.

Participating schools were:

Beechwood Primary School (Woodley), Birch Copse Primary School (Tilehurst), Bradfield C of E Primary School, Burghfield St Mary’s C of E Primary Schools, Churchend Primary School (Tilehurst), Colleton, Primary School (Twyford), Coombes Junior School (Arborfield), Crosfields School (Shinfield), Downsway Primary School (Tilehurst), Earley St Peters Primary School , Farley Hill Primary School, Fox Hill Primary School (Bracknell), Harmans Water Primary School (Bracknell), Hawkedon Primary School (Lower Earley), Long Lane Primary School (Tilehurst), Mortimer St Mary’s Junior School, Oaklands Junior School (Crowthorne), Oakley C of E Junior School (Basingstoke), Pangbourne Primary School, Rivermead Primary School (Woodley), St Annes RC Primary School (Caversham), St Mary’s School (Henley), Sacred Heart Primary School (Henley), Shiplake C of E Primary School, Sonning Common Primary School, Whitegrove Primary School (Bracknell), Whiteknights Primary School (Reading).

Director of Sports, Gareth Edwards commented,

‘Our annual Tag-Rugby tournament is just one way that Crosfields promotes the participation of sport.  We encourage all children to enjoy sports and to try hard at their own level, whatever it may be! The enthusiasm shown by all of the children this afternoon has been outstanding and we have seen some very exciting rugby on show in both the boys and girls competitions.”

Jonathan Wansey, Crosfields’ Headmaster, commented:

“The atmosphere at this afternoon’s tournament has been superb, and to see so many children enjoying their rugby is wonderful. Thank you to Crosfields sports department who have organised a terrific event and to London Irish whose support has contributed greatly to this day.”

This sporting festival is one of three events hosted annually by us for local primary school children – football in the autumn, and rugby and cross country in the Spring term.  The aim is for children to take advantage of Crosfields’ extensive sports pitches and ground of over 40 acres and enjoy an afternoon of competitive sport.  The cross country event will be held this year on 27^th March.

Each school prepared a solo item beforehand and three songs were performed as a massed choir. Our pupils sang ‘Orrible Little Blue Eyes by Betty Roe with character, energy and confidence and it was clear that they were enjoying themselves.

In the concert they also sang Food Glorious Food, Simple Gifts which was accompanied by Abbey’s Concert Band and finally Morning Prayer from Hansel and Gretel which was performed with their Chamber Orchestra. A highly enjoyable day.

Anton Crayton’s Manasseh String Quartet took the audience on a musical journey starting with Haydn and ending with Prokofiev. The four string players dazzled us with their virtuoso skills and kept their young audience entertained and engaged throughout.

One lucky member of the audience was asked to dress up as Haydn, complete with wig and cloak. An inspiring afternoon which showed what can be achieved through teamwork, effort, and determination.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) has launched ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’, a short 50′s style trailer that aims to get parents and carers thinking about their children’s online lives. Crosfields School will be marking Safer Internet Day as part of a week of activity surrounding Internet Safety: pupils across the school will be exploring issues relating to their online lives throughout the week, while national events will take place on Safer Internet Day itself on 7th February.

Towards the end of the week, Crosfields Parents’ Association have arranged for James Schlackman, the school’s IT Network Manager, to give a talk to parents on the wide range of technologies children use on the Internet, how this can affect their safety and well-being, and what parents can do to help.

The talk will be held on Thursday 9th February in Acorns Hall, starting at 7.30pm. Parents planning to attend are asked to reply to the school office using the below slip as soon as possible, or contact cpa@crosfields.com with any enquiries.

Safer Internet Flyer & Reply Slip

The year group and their families baked a wide variety of delicious cakes for the sale, which went flying off the cake sale tables at break time. The Junior School and Senior School enjoyed visiting the sale and a grand total of £164 was raised. The money will help the charity to increase participation in sports for both disabled adults and children.  Well done to Year 6 on this initiative.

• Hassan (Year 1) with Sheila Mitchell (Willow)
• Neha (Year 2) with Louise Jenkins (Maple)
• Jacob (Year 1) with Helen Edwards (Beech)
• Tabitha (Reception) with Jan Marr (Ash)

Each child entered a design and the four winning entries were made into beautiful, handcrafted mascots by 4 talented sewers; Sheila Mitchell , Louise Jenkins, Helen Edwards and Jan Marr.

The ladies spent hours making the mascots, ensuring that every last detail of the childrens’ designs were reflected in the toys.

The mascots have already been seen at the side lines of matches this term, cheering on their houses.

The group needed 14,000 pennants and ours are all going to be a part of this total. The children are very excited by the prospect of their pennants being used and being included in an Olympic display.

Year 2 were excited to be going to the Pantomime in Camberley to see the magical tale of Cinderella, staring Louisa Lytton.

The children visited Pizza Express in Reading as part of their science topic on healthy eating. At the restaurant the group were given a lesson in how to make the dough and to choose healthy options for their toppings.

There was much excitement as the children watched the chef twirling the dough in the air before rolling up their sleeves and kneading and pushing their own bases. The children tried a variety of different toppings including unfamiliar vegetables such as artichokes and capers. After they were cooked, each pizza was presented in a Pizza Express box for the little chefs to take home.

With wonderful acting and heartwarming songs from various groups, such as the cats and the sailers the audience had a very enjoyable afternoon. The scenery and costumes, which were produced by the staff, were sensational. Congratulations to the children, Miss Holleyoake and the teachers on this wonderful production.

The choirs combined to sing Benjamin Britten’s atmospheric Ceremony of Carols accompanied by a harp and Alan Bullard’s jovial A Feast for Christmas.

It was an outstanding concert with both choirs performing to an exceptionally high standard. They created music of great beauty, expression and power and our choir was an absolute credit to the school.

The girls were unfortunate to encounter the eventual winners in their first match. However, the team learned from the meeting and improved with each game. The third game against Hawley Place was very exciting with Annabelle Sykes scoring the winning goal just 1 second before the bell sounded for full time. 10 goals in 12 minutes was an excellent return in the final game of the pool.

All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable and very rewarding afternoon for the girls who all worked incredibly hard.

The most recent event was held at Chiltern Edge School in December. Congratulations to Fergus Fox from Year 6 who came 6th on the day and 4th overall in the series. Year 5 girls Grace Atkinson, Kealey Meldrum and Eleanor Blois Brooke also performed very well.

At the November meeting, held in South Oxon Primary Schools, Crosfields Year 5 boys gained third place (team): James Rennie 5th, Oscar Fuentes 15th, Thomas Quinn 25th.

Many congratulations to everyone who competed.