Cloister House News

8 February 2022 - Cloister

Welcome to the first Cloister House news update!

Cloister have had a wonderful and busy start to the Spring Term, working hard and taking part in a wide variety of activities throughout the week. This term, we have continued to enjoy our Toastie Tuesday evenings, and it is especially nice to see the House enjoy the social side of coming together to chat over a toastie in the evenings. On Thursdays, we have restarted our Dorm Quiz, which brings out the competitive side of the Heads of Dorm! Each dorm has the help of a LVI pupil and the highly sought after winning Dorm will be awarded a prize to share together at the end of term.

Outside of the House, Cloister pupils have participated in a wide variety of School events this term, including the Competitive Music Festival, where Catherine (LIV) and Gwen (LVI) were invited to the second round. We are looking forward to the School Musical in March, which will see a number of Cloister pupils take to the stage; they have been dedicated to the rehearsals each week and it will be wonderful to see their hard work pay dividends in the performances.

Cloister prides itself on being a supportive environment; our pupils know that the older girls are there to support them. The LVI pupils meet with a different year group each week for hot chocolate and a catch-up, and it is inspiring to see the relationships forged across the different year groups. We are lucky to have such welcoming and supportive pupils in Cloister, who always have time to help others.

Recently Amaya (UV), helped to set up a charity in collaboration with her Tennis coach (Tennis4theworld), which collects unwanted tennis equipment to send to Africa so that more children are able to play the sport. Amaya organised a bake sale to raise money for the charity, which raised over £220! The pupils of Cloister were an excellent support, producing delicious cakes over the Short Leave break that she could sell and helping her to run the stall on the day. We are so proud of Amaya’s achievement and her dedication to helping others, as well as the support of her House for her charity.

At the beginning of February, we celebrated the Lunar New Year with a House cooking evening. We learnt how to make dumplings and produced some exciting food that was enjoyed by the whole House. It was particularly helpful that Shannon (LVI) had made them before and could take a lead in feeding the House! This event has inspired our pupils, who want to share the different styles of cooking that they see in their homes, and we are planning different evenings of sharing food together in the coming weeks.

After Long Leave we are looking ahead to our House Dinner, and parents are invited to join us for an evening of relaxed dining and enjoyable conversation, where we will run a raffle to support both the School’s charities and Tennis4theworld. It is always a pleasure to be able to get together as a House and we look forward to being able to spend time together as a community, especially before an action-packed second half of term.