This half-term we are working hard to develop our oracy skills; we have been thinking about oracy carefully and have decided that good listening skills are a prerequisite to good speaking skills. We have also been considering the difference between hearing and listening. We now know that whilst hearing is a passive action that takes little effort, listening needs intention and engagement. We are trying hard to be aware of when we are hearing and when we are listening and make a conscious decision in appropriate circumstances to truly listen to what is being said to us.
Small group tuition classes have resumed this week along with Lexia club and Forest School have restarted. Year 4 have enjoyed their cricket sessions with Platform at South Norwood Lakes. These sessions will now move to the school grounds from next week. Enrichment timetables for the rest of the year for year 4 and 6 can be found here and years 3 and 5 here.
Holly Class Assembly
Holly class wowed us with their class assembly this morning focusing on goals for 2022 and top tips for a successful year. There was acting, singing and advice to live by. Holly class spoke with such confidence and maturity and sang a motivational song ‘Build Up’ for an inspirational start to the year – well done Holly class!. Special well done to Jack, who joined us from home to contribute to the assembly – he also offered some great advice about strategies to employ to stay absorbed in yor work. Great dedication, Jack! It was lovely to see so many parents join us also. A big thank you to Miss Pumphrey, Miss Francis and Ms Sabih for their help in creating such an inspiring assembly. If you would like to watch this assembly again, please log into your child’s class blog.
Spring Curriculum Newsletters
We have sent home our spring term curriculum newsletters today, containing lots of information about what your child will be learning this term. Upcoming diary dates can be found here. Please click these links to read them online and ask your child’s class teacher if you have any questions.
| Year 3 newsletter | Year 4 newsletter | Year 5 newsletter | Year 6 newsletter |
Rainbows
| Class Name | Rainbow 1 | Rainbow 2 |
| Holly | Olive – for coming back after the Christmas break with a great attitude to learning. | Daisy – for showing excellent leadership skills when helping to organise our class assembly |
| Cedar | Lily – for a great start back at school, absorbed in their learning and managing distractions well – a great role model for the class. | Kendra – an amazing start to school and for using her BLP skills to stay focused. You are also a great role model for the class! |
| Birch | Harun – for making links to produce a creative diary entry from Jemmy Button. | Khloe- for persevering when solving problems when looking at money & for an amazing start at Cypress. |
| Lime | Eve – for coming back to school and being absorbed in all tasks and completing them to a high standard | Cara – for giving 100% effort to tasks set and ensuring she is absorbed and focused last week. Well done! |
| Hawthorn | Jessica – Being a great team player during basketball and working hard to improve her skills. | Joe – for working independently during English. I am very proud of you! |
| Rowan | Scarlett – for her powerful writing on why the Romans invaded Britain. | Flora – for her consistently high levels of effort, kindness and participation in all that she does. |
| Hazel | Iqra – for consistently focusing in lessons and trying different strategies in become successful | Delilah – for sharing her point of view during class discussions and being a collaborative learner. |
| Willow | Alexander O – for making links between numbers in multi-step maths problems in order to solve them. | Greta – for showing an excellent understanding of forces in science and presenting her work clearly and concisely. |
| Sycamore | Billy – for showing great focus in our lessons and managing his distractions. | Evan – for showing great understanding of what makes a good talking partner, where he made links to distilling. |
| Beech | Jackson – for always showing excellent behaviours for learning. | Thalia – for coming back to school with a positive attitude towards her learning. |
| Oak | Rileigh-Jae for continuing to focus on her learning and not give up when she comes across an obstacle. | Isaac – for working really hard on managing his distractions and trying to be a positive role model in the class. |
Cypress Superstars
I am very proud of the start we have all made to this spring term. A special well done goes to Emily, Zara and Jasmin who created Frida Kahlo inspired self-portraits using symbolism and lots of colour! Well done also to Cara who has used her reasoning and problem solving skills to create her own maths questions! You’ve shown a very high level of understanding – very impressive. Taylan created a well written and beautifully presented letter in the role of Matthew Henson – his progress since September has been amazing – keep it up, Taylan!
L’Aja, Maya, Nikolai, Lucy and Nina have created very detailed and scary dragonheads for fit for a Viking longboat! Amelia and Amelie showed me their first aid skills learned in their Life Skills lesson and very skilfully created a sling from a jumper. We now know who to call if there is an emergency! Billy, Amaya, Amelie, Alana, Louis, Luca and Elizabeth came to the office to show me their poems about life under the sea. They had given careful consideration to word choice, grammar and form – well done! Amelie came to see me twice this week – her phonics work is fantastic. You are learning so quickly – keep persevering; it’s definitely paying off!
Well done to Tosca who is our Word Wizard this week, winning her rosette for using ‘tempestuous’ correctly in a sentence!
We hope everyone has a fantastic weekend and look forward to seeing everyone on Monday.
Mrs Carpenter & the Cypress Upper team
