As One Cumnor Newsletter Autumn 2022 by Cumnor House Sussex

WeekGreen AccoladesSporting A Jubilant Jubilee Macbeth Sports Day CUMNOR NEWSLETTER SUMMER TERM 2022 Nursery Pre-Prep&NewsInside editionthis

• Great sportsmanship was the order of the day as the Pre-Prep raced, relayed and dodged obstacles with characteristic aplomb. Huge congratulations to all who took part and well done Black House for securing the coveted House relay event. As is traditional, parents also took to the field for their own relaywe thoroughly enjoyed cheering you on!

Blessed as we are with 65 glorious acres, the Summer Term is always a treat as we get out and about as much as possible.

Nursery & Pre-Prep

Mrs Freeman Head of Pre-Prep

Woodpeckers Day was a case in point; the heavens opened and soggy, but unbowed, we concocted fairy potions and built secret doors for these mystical woodland creatures, inspired by our work in literacy. Green Week allowed for more outdoor exploration that saw us singing, dancing and learning about the environment and what we could do to help. As ever, we ‘aimed high’ in the classroom too, pursuing our personal targets and keeping kindness in mind as we worked and played together to make the most of each and every opportunity. What a wonderful finale to a highly productive year. Next stop: holiday!

• Always one of the highlights of the Term, the Summer Concert was a joyful celebration in poetry and song, plus the best yoga display from our Nursery Butterflies.

These pages give a small snapshot of what has happened here at Cumnor; indeed, as Head, it always feels a little invidious to single any one thing out, because of the sheer volume of events and achievements that transpired. However, I have always maintained that the heart of Cumnor is its heart. We have at the centre of our motto, indeed at the centre of our values, the phrase ‘Be Kind’. Nowhere was this more evident than at our Jubilee Fayre and Ball. To see all of our children actively leading and engaging in fundraising activities, as well as the incredible generosity of our amazing parents, was truly humbling, and we are so thrilled to have raised over £65,000 for such worthy causes. Beyond that, and equally, if not more importantly, are the unseen acts of kindness that our children show day by day. The way they have welcomed Ukrainian children into our community, as well as helped those around them who might be struggling, has been truly heart-warming.

• Daddy, daddy cool! After a Covid break, our Father’s Day Breakfast and Wake & Shake was back with a bang; some super moves were in evidence!

02 03

Fergus Llewellyn Headmaster

a termly celebration of our achievementschildren’sand a spotlight on school life.

• For the 4th year running, Cumnor Nursery has received the Top 20 Award for the South East from daynurseries.co.uk reflecting the consistent 10/10 scores from parent reviews. We are beyond proud of our Nursery team and the wider school support staff who make Cumnor Nursery such a fabulous place for our young children to be.

As this academic year comes to a close, it is so encouraging to reflect on what has been such a busy and fulfilling final term.

• We had great fun space-hopping and hop-scotching our way across the Paddock lawn to raise money for our charities at the Pre-Prep Charity Hop. Well done to all involved who, on a very hot day, held fast to Cumnor’s spirit of perseverance and kindness.

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Perhaps it is the best thing of all to be celebrating.

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We were joined by Sussex Green Living’s ‘Bright New Futures Roadshow’, with workshops on biomimicry and inspirational ecology, as well as the importance of art and theatre to communicate change and connect with our incredible planet. Meanwhile, Years 4 and 5 took up their needles and learned to ‘make do and mend’ with Dolly Sustainable Clothing and Years 6 and 7 enjoyed trips to Waitrose supplier, Black Ven Farm, and the Ashdown Forest to investigate our local environment and sustainable food production.

Split into four groups, the children were driven from Cumnor after sunset to four different locations on the South Downs. Accompanied by staff and armed with a map, a compass, three biscuits, a Mars bar and some water, they set off in pursuit of the Alfriston Long Bridge 8km away, to be met with a rewarding hot Thischocolate!year,they had to contend with rain, angry farmers and a herd of cows, but they all made it back in good time and high spirits for a short night’s sleep at Cumnor, having arrived before sunrise.

Outdoors, the bees were just as fortunate as our greenfingered finalists created blooming pots and gardens that every sprightly winged and long-legged insect would want to visit.

- COMMENTS MRS FREEMAN Green Week was a celebration of our commitment to all things ‘green’ throughout the year and we want to make it bigger and better each year. Let’s keep up the good work!

Race the Sun

04 05 High

As we look forward to the Autumn Term, we are preparing to introduce two new tools that will further enhance our pastoral care; The Wellbeing Hub for parents, pupils and staff and AS Tracking, the groundbreaking adolescent mental health tracking tool.

Aiming

We celebrated Year 8’s fantastic Common Entrance results, as they enjoyed their final days here at Cumnor and prepare to head on to their chosen Senior Schools. We are really proud of them all and they were thoroughly deserving of a fun-filled Leavers’ Programme including the annual limo ride, colour run and Leavers’ Trip to the Isle of Wight.

ur annual Year 8 ‘Race the Sun’ adventure took place on Friday 24th June, amid lots of excitement, trepidation and rain!

PastoralOutstandingCare

A Spotlight on Green Week

The week culminated with our Sustainable Solutions Squad representing the school at the village fête, as guests of the Chelwood Gate & Danehill Climate Action Group. In order to make the most of this opportunity, they hand made jewellery from recycled materials, created illustrated seed bags and sold saplings recycled from our grounds, all to raise money for Save the Seas charity. A successful campaign and a showcase of commitment and engagement with this crucial and important issue.

This year’s Green Week saw the whole school engaged in a wide variety of activities centred on educating and informing children and the wider community about the wonderful opportunities for change, and new developments in sustainable living.

uge congratulations to James H, who was awarded an Academic Scholarship to Brighton this Term, and Skye K-B who won a Hurst Award. We would like to give credit too, to Amelie S who gained incredible results in her scholarship papers for Wellington, but who just missed out on an award.

Congratulations to the worthy winners of our Green Chef and Growing for Green competitions! We all benefitted from our Green Chef winners’ culinary talents as Kelly and her team prepared the winning recipes for the whole school to share including an asparagus quiche, foragers omelette, garden salad, Sussex beef stew and summer pudding. Look out for the digital cookbook coming soon!

We are delighted to have been recognised as ‘Highly Commended’ by the inaugural Muddy Stilettos School Awards for ‘Outstanding Pastoral Care’.

‘Wellness with Wolo’ is an ongoing project that the money you raised will fund for some time. We want to inspire people to habitually prioritise self-care, to ensure they are surviving, thriving and living their best lives. Your funds will also enable us to increase the frequency of our family events that have been instrumental in reducing loneliness and isolation of families on a cancer journey.

Our Jubilee Summer Fayre was a huge success for children, staff and parents alike! From face painting to hair braiding, silent discos to bouncy castles and pony rides to show stopper cakes, we all came together to celebrate the Jubilee and the strength of our community shone through. We can’t thank you all enough. The celebrations culminated in our inaugural Charity Ball where we welcomed over 200 parents and Old Cumnorians to the Cumnor marquee and danced the night away!

Lisa Westbury, Time4Children

We are truly grateful for the generosity from parents, and of course thank you to the staff for all the hard work that they put in to make these events happen. For us at DVLCC this will make a huge difference. We have seen an increase in the number of children that have needed our support since the end of Covid. Many of the families who attend the Charity were shielding at home for two years, unable to access services, having appointments either cancelled or postponed. We are very grateful and I know all the families who attend the services will be too.

Glenys Creese, Dame Vera Lynn Children’s Charity (DVLCC)

JUBILEE EDITION

Fler Wright, Wolo Foundation

A Jubilant Jubilee

Thank you to everyone at Cumnor for their time and generosity and for believing in our cause.

JUBILEE EDITION

Charity nominations for 2022/23 will open in September.

Your extremely generous donation will go directly towards our work providing free 1:1 support sessions to emotionally vulnerable children of primary school age in Mid Sussex. In these sessions children can share their worries, anxieties or fears, with a trained volunteer practitioner. As a tiny charity relying solely on fundraising and donations we simply cannot survive without this kind of support.

Don’t Worry, Be Hippie!

ummer Term has been a wonderful showcase of talent including our Voice Concert, the Summer Serenade which involved 120 children, five music groups and three choirs, and two Coffee Concerts, both involving 20 children and the Year 3 recorder group who performed admirably. The Music Department have also been integral to our Year 3 musical and Pre-Prep Summer Concert.

We are also delighted to report individual successes for William C, Madi B and Eva R who participated in the National Children’s Regional Orchestra, National Children’s Choir and Glyndebourne Youth Opera respectively. We await the outcome of

The Art Studio

Year 3 took to the stage with their production of ‘The Selfish Giant’, a musical based on the classic tale by Oscar Wilde, with an underlying message that life is better when we have friends in our gardens and in our lives.

The Music

Barn

We couldn’t be more proud of the energy, enthusiasm and hard work that the children bought to this production; they tried new things, raised their voices in song, and moved their bodies to music. A huge thank you to Mrs Harris who directed the play, Miss Wergan, Mrs Howe, Mrs Wicks and the wider team who supported this production with their monumental team work.

Our Year 8 Art Scholars Exhibition was a huge success and a fantastic opportunity to showcase and celebrate the incredible efforts in creating portfolios for interview. Outstanding results this year with six art scholarships and ‘highly commended’ places at Kings’ Canterbury, Roedean, Christ’s Hospital, Eastbourne College and Hurst.

Out and About!

Trips Day was a roaring success seeing our children enjoy an array of activities, from field sketches and pebble sculptures at Cuckmere Haven for Year 6, Drusilla’s for Year 4 and the Brighton Pavilion for Year 3. Year 7 had a memorable trip to Penshurst Place in Kent where they learnt bushcraft skills including camouflage, concealment and first aid. Thankfully the weather held up as the children also built their own shelters, some of which were slept in overnight!

on their families. For anyone interested in finding out more, please contact Olivia Henley, Foundation Manager at: ohenley@cumnor.co.uk – she’d be delighted to hear from you!

Congratulations to Anthony L, Obi A and Poppy B; this is their first published piece of work.

Sporting Accolades

• Boys’ cricket continues to go from strength to strength with excellent team performances from the 1st XI boys who enjoyed a run of matches in the National Cup and Sussex Cup.

Cumnor

• In tennis, our U11 team entered the Sussex tournament and both squads (boys and girls) showed great skills honed during their lessons. Our girls finished 4th overall in the ‘A’ competition and our Boys’ team won the ‘A’ team tournament outright. A great sign for years to come!

• After two years of no golf fixtures, we were so pleased to host matches on our course once again. We welcomed Brambletye and Great Walstead for a 3-way tournament which our senior golfers won!

• Girls’ football spills across all three Terms so our Colts girls enjoyed a tournament at Ardingly and Senior girls attended the first ISFA competition in London. We are delighted to see focus and interest in girls’ football growing across Prep schools.

The avid poets amongst a sea of bluebells, writing thoughtfully. Year 5 explored Woodpeckers and gathered inspiration for their nature Haikus.

eanwhile, Year 7 experienced Zulu culture through music and dance led by ‘Lucky Moyo’ a South African from the organisation ‘Music for Change’, supporting their studies about the rise of the Zulu Kingdom under their most famous leader, King Shaka.

Mind’s Eye

• We have seen continued success in equestrian, gaining 1st place in the 40cm class at the NSEA event held at Felbridge.

• We are delighted to have re-started Cumnor Sailing as an occupation this Term, with Toppers and Optimists taking to the water at Weir Wood Reservoir in Forest Row.

Year 5 enjoyed a ‘Middle Ages’ Day, hosted by a professional historical re-enactment company called ‘The Past Presents’. The interactive day was closely related to the children’s studies this year about life during the Middle Ages including asking pupils to create their own character and medieval name to make the experience as immersive as possible.

• The Prep Sports Day was a highlight for us all, returning for a glorious sunny day on the Athletics pitches.

The Cumnor Foundation

Creative Writing Week

n a glorious summer evening in late June, we welcomed some of our families who subscribe to The Cumnor Foundation Termly Giving Scheme, for drinks and canapés on the Terrace. It was an opportunity for us to thank them for their generosity, and give them the chance find out more about the Foundation and to meet some of our Foundation families, Family Mentors and Parent Ambassadors. Two rousing talks given by parents of Foundation Scholar families, helped convey the profound impact that the generosity of all those who support the Foundation has

• This year we hosted a number of swimming galas and we are delighted that five children represented the school in the swimming IAPS regional round. Congratulations to Sophie B who made it to the finals for U12 50m backstroke.

• Girls’ cricket continues to develop and this year saw us fully commit to girls’ hardball for the senior 1st team. Performance highlights include reaching the semi-finals of the IAPS U11 girl’s regional round and winning the U10A girls Hurst tournament.

We are delighted that three of our Year 8 scholars have had their articles selected for, and published in, this year’s King’s Canterbury ‘Mind’s Eye Prep’ magazine.

Back in Time

To celebrate the end of Year 3 and our fabulous weekly Woodpeckers sessions we headed down to the woods for a day of den building, open fire cooking, jewellery making and of course… campfire storytelling and singing!

The coffee machine! The beautiful grounds. Kelly’s cakes!

The ‘Classes of 2020 and 2021’ plus their parents –numbering a magnificent 250 – returned to Cumnor on Sunday 29th May for a barbecue lunch prepared by Kelly and her wonderful team. It was the perfect opportunity for everyone to reconnect with friends from their year group cohorts, since leaving Cumnor to join their many different senior schools. We will look forward welcoming them back to Cumnor for their 10-year reunions in 2030 and 2031!

A magical, muddy, welly-filled day… just how we like it here at Cumnor!

he DT lab was delighted to welcome Bloodhound Education for a Year 5 K’NEX Challenge Day this Term. Starting with an introduction to the Bloodhound Land Speed Record (LSR) team and an explanation on how the car was designed and built, the children were reminded of Newton’s law of motion and how they could apply this to their car designs. To get them thinking about the challenge, their warm up activity was to work in a team and build a balloon-powered car. The teams then moved on to design, build and prototype a car using K’Nex. The results were recorded and comparisons were made to the Bloodhound - our fastest car had the equivalent speed of 728 km/hthe Bloodhound LSR was 1228 km/h so we think our Year 5 children performed admirably!

e bid a fond farewell to Mrs Lambert, Mrs Mulcahy, Mrs Pullan, Mr Timmis, Mr Burgess, Mrs Wicks, Mr O’Grady, Mrs Elwes, Mr Emans and Mrs Mockridge as they head off on new adventures, be that retirement, relocations overseas or pastures new.

In hot pursuit, the go-kart team headed to Seaford College in May for this year’s Greenpower Goblin Racing Day, coming 2nd and 3rd in the Sprint event and 3rd in the Drag race. An amazing achievement and a great team effort!

Old Cumnorian Classes of 2020 & 2021

Many, many lovely and impressive children.The energy andeccentricity of the school. Sports Day! Supportive staff. My happy place! Sunny, beautiful, hardworking. Warm, creative and friendly. Kind, nurturing, beautiful.

Macbeth

Noisy, hectic, fun!

Year 3 Forest School Day

Thanks to some glorious summer evenings, we were delighted to be able to make the most of our beautiful outdoor theatre once again for the eagerly anticipated Year 8 production of Macbeth. Set during the 11th century in Scotland, Macbeth is wrought with obsession and voracity. After a meeting with three mysterious witches, who tell Macbeth of three compelling prophecies, the play follows his desire for power. With his officious wife, Lady Macbeth by his side, they plot to fulfil their murderous aspirations. Thank you to everyone who joined us for Year 8’s interpretation of one of William Shakespeare’s most famous plays, and of course to Nicki Martin, our Shakespeare Director.

Parting Shots

Let’s Go Racing

We wish each and every one the best of luck for the future. We asked them what they will miss about Cumnor and how they would sum the school up in three words!

www.cumnor.co.uk @cumnorhousesussex @cumnorhouse

Cumnor House Sussex London Road, Danehill, Haywards Heath, Sussex, RH17 7HT 01825 790 347 office@cumnor.co.uk