This week at Cypress Lower School we marked World Mental Health Day, learning about ways we could support our emotional health and wellbeing. We considered all the different things we can do to have a positive effect on our mental health, such as spending time with people we love, being active, looking after our physical health, being kind and helpful to others and making time for hobbies we enjoy. Lots of children received Rainbow certificates today in assembly – well done for your achievements! Well done to Bertie in Year 1 for using the word ‘festival’ in an amazing sentence. Our next Word of the Week is ‘roar’. Please encourage your children to write a sentence with this word and pop it into the Golden Box for a chance to win a rosette.
At Cypress Upper we have been thinking about resilience and what that looks like in the classroom. We heard the story of gold-winning sprinter Asha Philip and how she has shown resilience when she was challenged after sustaining an injury. She offered some golden nuggets of advice. Two of our Year 6 children also shared their story of resilience during a recent Computing session they found particularly difficult but overcame the hurdles of learning using the ‘golden nuggets’ used by Asha Philip. We thought carefully about how we could apply these lessons when working inside and outside of the classroom. Our theme for collective worship was perseverance. We know that we must persevere to show resilience!
Click here to see additional photos of our week at Upper School.
Harvest Festival
This week we have learnt about Harvest festival celebrating the food that we grow, eat and enjoy. Please donate to our Harvest collection in the school office if you can, which will be sent to The Salvation Army over half term to support vulnerable local families. Turquoise class led a fantastic Harvest assembly for their parents and the rest of Year 2. We were all so impressed with their excellent, confident speaking and singing abilities – well done! Thank you to Mrs Guerry, Miss Mitchell and Miss Nicholson for their hard work.
The Upper School were wowed by Year 4’s Harvest Performance. The children showed off their acting and singing skills, speaking with clarity and confidence. They delivered a powerful Harvest message – we must be grateful for what we have; there are many in the world who have less than us and where possible we should help others who need support. Thank you to all of the parents who donated food during this time. Your donations will be given to the Salvation Army in Crystal Palace for distribution to local families most in need. Many thanks to the Year 4 team: Ms Stewart, Mr Shipley, Miss Barker, Miss Francis and Ms Sa Walmsley for helping the children to put together such a fantastic performance.
Cypress Superstars
Well done to Nursery and Reception, who had a visit this week from a dental nurse. The children listened and participated incredibly well as they learnt about oral hygiene, looking after our teeth and the importance of making healthy food choices. Tyler in Violet class has been working really hard to become a more independent learner and has produced some excellent work in maths this week. Joceyln and Matipa from Indigo class produced some excellent work when they were learning about Harvest festival this week. We are proud of George in Turquoise class for his informative writing based on his visit to Hampton Court Palace last week. Phoebe-Rose and Luca have been tackling some problem solving in Year 1 maths and were both able to clearly explain their thoughts. Well done to all of our Cypress Lower School superstars this week!
Well done this week to Elsie, who achieved her Grade 3 Lamda qualification in Communication! What confidence, Elsie! We might have a future politician or motivational speaker at Cypress! Fred came to the office to celebrate his fantastic Maths. We spoke about challenge and perseverance and he shared the steps he took to reach success. He managed his distractions, had a positive mindest and persevered, noticing every step in the process which helped him complete the maths challenge successfully! Well done Fred. Lucy and Filip came to see me for additional work on their history topic, ‘The Romans’! Filip made the Pantheon entirely out of paper and Lucy had sketched a detailed picture of a fully armoured Roman soldier. Keep up the home learning! Joe visited me to show his amazing maths work completed independently using his resilience strategies! Great job, Joe. Ali came by to see me today because he has made great progress with his phonics and now knows all of his phonics sounds! His dedication to reading has paid off – he read to me with great confidence; I am very proud of you, Ali. Leah, Dalanda and Thomas came to see me to converse in Spanish. They had learnt words for different areas of the school and spoke with confidence and Spanish flair! Taylor and Mark have been working independently to order instructions – very impressive, boys! Emerson has also been focused and managing distrations in maths and completed his tricky calculations with ease – well done for using your learning strategies to be successful, Emerson!
Black History Month & Diversity Week
As an actively anti-racist school and Trust, we will be supporting the educational charity, Show Racism the Red Card’s annual Wear Red Day, which will be taking place on Friday 21st October 2022 – please read our letter here. We will be having special assemblies, an author visit and there will be lots of learning in class focused around achievements of significant Black people in history.
The Upper School had a visit from Alim Kamara on Wednesday – he gave us some powerful messages! He reminded us to love the person we are and the skin we are in! We know that we are awesome; we are powerful and we are beautiful! He is a wonderful storyteller. During this visit, he told us the story of the Determined Donkey. From this tale we learned that if we are met with challenge, we just need to apply determination and courage and we will succeed in our endeavours! Year 4 enjoyed a storytelling workshop with Alim also. What a wonderful way to spend a Wednesday! Please see the gallery below and our additional gallery for pictures.
Parent MAC ballot
We have had two nominations for Parent MACs and our ballot will close on Wednesday 19th October at 3.30pm. Please return your ballot slips to the school offices or post boxes. Letters and ballot slips were sent home earlier this week with children but you can find a copy here.
Thank you for such positive feedback and support during Parents’ Evenings this week. If you’ve not had the chance to meet your child’s class teacher yet, please arrange to do so before half term. We hope that everyone has a lovely weekend!
Mrs Carpenter, Mrs Sorensen and the Cypress team
