This week we have spent time thinking about how resourceful we are in the classroom. We listened to an excerpt from Matilda by Roald Dahl in Monday’s assembly and thought about how resourceful she was and the benefits that the skill afforded her. We are trying to apply lessons from Matilda and Wallace and Gromit (last week) to our own lives to help us to be more resourceful and in turn, more successful in our endeavours. This week in Collective Worship children have been thinking about ‘service’, what this means and how many people contribute to our well-being and benefit our lives. We know that it is important to show gratitude to family, our teachers, doctors, nurses and many others for all that they do to make our experiences positive ones.
Today we have been feeling extra festive with our Christmas jumpers on in aid of Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day. Thank you to all who have brought in money to support this fantastic charity. We will update you with a school donation total once all contributions have been counted. We also enjoyed our Christmas lunch today. There was festive music playing, Christmas crackers being pulled and lots of Christmas food devoured! Thanks to our lovely kitchen staff who prepared and served the children so efficiently today.
Thank you to all families who had donated so generously to our Salvation Army Christmas Appeal. Ms Sorenson delivered a great many presents to our local branch, which will now be distributed to children who need extra cheer this Christmas. We appreciate and are very proud of the continuous generosity of our Cypress Community.
Year 5 Christmas Performance
We were wowed by Year 5’s Christmas performance on Wednesday. They helped us remember the true meaning of Christmas, with a Christmas Carol inspired story. They sang Christmas classics, such as ‘O Holy Night’ as well as some modern festive songs, such as ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ They ended the show with a Christmas sing-a-long to get everyone into the Christmas spirit. We are very proud of you all – you spoke with clarity and confidence and the acting was fantastic! It was also lovely to see so many parents and carers in attendance! Well done also to the adults involved in making the production so special: Miss Pumphrey, Miss Patel, Mrs Yeboah, Ms Thomas and Mrs Simadree.
See our gallery of photos below!
Cypress Superstars
Well done to Alana and Kaiana, who have won medals in gymnastic competitions last weekend. We are very proud of you! Jess, Abbey and Ela came to see me to perform their emotive poetry. I was impressed by their vocabulary choices and strong imagery created through their word choices. Well done girls! A big well done to all of our Rainbow winners this week!
PTFA update
A HUGE thanks to our amazing PTFA for raising a whopping £2,400 at the Winter Fair! Raffle letters have gone home this week and we’ve also had children partying at discos, all raising even more funds for Cypress children. Thank you everyone who has been supporting the PTFA – you’re wonderful and we all appreciate everything you do.
There is a concert at St John’s, Upper Norwood today, featuring our very own Cypress violinists playing side by side with the brilliant London Mozart Players: https://www.londonmozartplayers.com/whatson-event/christmas-at-crystal-palace/. The LMP have kindly set up a discount for the friends and families of Cypress performers. The 20% discount is now active using the code LMPXMAS20.
Support for families
- There is a FREE Christmas holiday club available for children in receipt of Free School Meals (FSM). Please look at the attached leaflet here and contact Playzone to book a place.
- There is a FREE holiday club running at All Saints School over Christmas for children in receipt of Free School Meals (FSM). Click here to find out more.
- Croydon Council are launching a new initiative to support families with children aged 0-7. Click here to find out more about the HENRY Programme.
Cypress Farewell
Mr Opara, our Year 6 Oak Class teacher, will be leaving Cypress due to an unexpected change in personal circumstances. He has become an integral part of our Cypress family and we will miss him dearly. Mrs Kim-Simons, an experienced teacher, will be working with Oak class for the remainder of the year.
Mrs Rose, Y3 teacher for Cedar class will also be leaving Cypress to pursue her desire to teach English to secondary pupils. We will miss Mrs Rose greatly and wish her all the best. We are also very excited to welcome to Cypress, Miss Hassan, a confident and enthusiastic teacher who has previously taught at the Lower School She is very excited to be working with Cedar for the remainder of the year.
I know you would like to join us in wishing Mr Opara and Mrs Rose all the best in their future endeavours. We at Cypress Upper wish to extend our thanks to them for their hard work and dedication to their role.
Next week…
Children will be enjoying their class parties next Friday. Please donate party food for the occasion if you can! On Monday we have Year 3 and 4 Christmas discos and on Wednesday next week, we have discos for Year 5 and 6. Do make sure you’ve purchased your ticket from the PTFA website.
We hope you have a restful weekend. See you on Monday!
Mrs Carpenter and the Cypress Upper team
