CYPRESS: It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

It has been a very busy week at Cypress with lots of Christmas performances and plenty of hard work taking place! We have been thinking about kindness and how kindness not only makes others feel good but often comes back to us in abundance! We heard the story of Androcles and the Lion and also thought about the different roles we take when an incident occurs. We know that we should challenge unwanted, unkind behaviours and we were given many strategies to do this. We are working hard to choose to act with kindness in all situations!

This week the children in Reception completed two fabulous perfromances of their ‘Wriggly Nativity’.  The children amazed us with their singing, acting and confidence.  We are so proud of the children and all that they have achieved.  Thank you to the teachers for all their hard work preparing the children for their performance and to all our parents and carers who came along to support their child.  To see more, read the article here.

We are very proud of your youngest children who put on two performances of Christmas and songs for their parents and carers on Wednesday.  Well done to all of the children who took part.  You did so well!  Thank you to parents and carers who were able to join us on this special occasion.

In line with our new behaviour policy, each classroom has a ‘recognition board’ where we celebrate children’s successes and achievements.  Each week, we (Ms Binks and Mrs Carpenter) also have children coming to us to share their work and achievements and we love sharing this in our weekly news story.

At the Lower School, Oliver from Orange Class visited the office with some wonderful independent writing about his class visit to the church. He had included some tricky words and used his sound buttons to help him.  Kaden in Blue Class came to show me some fantastic spelling he had completed using his phonics to help him.  Well done we are really proud of you!

At the Upper School Taylor wowed us with an interactive scene that he had created with 2Simple on Purple Mash. Well done Taylor! Lily had created a steam train with her grandparents – it even had steam billowing out of the steam exhaust and chimney! Great work, Lily! Joe created a very skilled drawing of  Viking warrior. He also debunked a long held myth around Viking horned helmets. Apparently, there is no evidence that Vikings really wore horned helmets. Joe explained that horns would make the helmet less likely to protect the wearer. The myth may have developed frrom romanticised paintings from later years.

On Tuesday evening, many children from our school took part in a concert at St John’s church. The event was organised by the PTFA and was well attended by our Cypress community. The Cypress choir sang Christmas songs, there were readings from pupils and children learning guitar, violin and piano also showcased their skills. A merry time was had by all. Big thanks to Mel Ellison and the PTFA, who dedicated their time to organise such a fun, festive community event.

The school council would like to thank everybody who donated to the Salvation Army Christmas present appeal. Thanks to your generosity, we were able to deliver a huge amount of brand new toys to the Salvation Army in Thornton Heath, which will be given to children who deserve a special present at Christmas.

Thank you and merry Christmas from the School Council.

The Year 5 children wowed us yesterday, with a sensational Christmas performance! Every line could be heard clearly and was delivered with confidence; the children showed great comedic timing too! As a nod to their Year 3 Easter perfomance, they sang ‘Blinded by your Grace’ by Stomzy and also delivered Christmas cheer by finishing with a carol and ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’. We all joined in for the encore – it was great fun! Well done to all our children – we are incredibly proud of you. Special thanks to Ms Pumphrey, Ms Yeboah and Miss Barker (who played the piano beautifully!) for supporting the children to deliver a wonderfully entertaining Christmas show.

This year’s Road Safety Week theme was ‘Let’s talk about SPEED’  Miss Fernandes ran a competition to draw your own road safety comic strip around this year’s theme. Lots of children entered and the quality of entries was exceptionally high. Certificates were given to all entrants and prizes for winners in each year group.

The winners of the competition are:

Y3 – Daniel & Ted

Y4 – Hazel & Beatrix

Y5- Joe & Lucy

Y6- Abbey & Flora

Well done to all children who entered! Please head to the gallery to see some of the winning entries.

Have a great weekend