Newsletter Week 6 Term 2

T2 W6: Friday 2 June 2023

Important Dates
All of June – PTA 30 Days of Prizes Raffle is drawn daily
Monday 5 June – King’s Birthday – Public Holiday
Thursday 15 June – Board of Trustees Meeting, 5:30 pm in the Staffroom
Friday 16 June – Everyone Welcome to our Grand Unveiling 1:45 pm – 4:00 pm
Wednesday 21 June – Early school closure at 12:30 pm for Parent Teacher Conferences

Wednesday 21 June – Parent Teacher Conferences, 1:20 pm – 7 pm //                Wednesday 21 June – PTA Meeting, 7 pm in the Staffroom
Thursday 22 June – Parent Teacher Conferences, 3:15 pm – 5:30 pm
Friday 30 June – End of Term 2
Monday 17 July – Start of Term 2
Friday 21 July – PTA Fundraiser – Matariki School Disco

IN THIS ISSUE:
Positive Behaviour for Learning
Samoan Language Week
Welcome Ms Melinda Clow
Spotlight on Year 1
Health Curriculum
Grand Unveiling
Positive Parenting – After the Disaster – continued
Attendance at Sunnybrae
PTA Update: BBQ Assembly, 30 Days of Prizes Raffle
Enrolments at Sunnybrae
School Arrival
Community Notices

The PB4L focus for Term 2 Week 7 will be on: 
Cooperation: Everywhere: Play safely and keep hands and feet to ourselves.

Samoan Language Week 
The theme for Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa – Samoa Language Week 2023 was ‘Mitamita i lau gagana, maua’a lou fa’asinomaga’ which means 
‘Be proud of your language and grounded in your identity’
Talofa lava. On Tuesday 30 May our Pasifika Cultural Group hosted a school wide lei making workshop at lunchtime to celebrate Samoan Language Week. Children from across the school worked together to make flowers which were threaded together to create a huge Sunnybrae lei. We look forward to proudly displaying it.

On Thursday, our Samoan students gathered for a photo together, celebrating how proud they are to be Samoan.

STAFF UPDATE:
Welcome Ms Melinda Clow

The Year 1’s have started a very exciting journey. We are implementing the Better Start Reading approach (BSLA) with our Year 1 teachers studying through the University of Canterbury and Mrs Helen Rennie-Younger being our facilitator. 
BSLA is a structured literacy approach that has been well-researched and involves systematic and explicit literacy teaching. It has a clear scope and sequence that builds upon tamariki knowledge of phonics, phonological awareness, morphology, oral language, and how to apply this knowledge to the reading and writing process.
This approach is culturally relevant to our New Zealand context, and it has a strong whānau involvement strategy. We want to focus on our student’s strengths and celebrate what they already can do. Each lesson has been planned in a way to set our tamariki up for success. The activities are fun and engaging for students.
We look forward to sharing our progress with the school community this year.

HEALTH CURRICULUM:

Parent/Caregiver Survey 2023

Personal Health and Physical Development

Thank you to the people who have completed the parent survey as part of the Health Review. We appreciate the time you took to complete this. At this stage over 120 responses have been received. If you haven’t completed this survey yet, please click on the following link. It will take just a few minutes. Your insights are important to us. 

Please CLICK HERE and complete this brief survey. It will take just a few minutes. 
Please complete this survey by Friday 9 June. 

If you have any questions please contact: Helen Rennie-Younger, Deputy Principal, Email: hrennie-younger@sunnybrae.school.nz (09) 443 5058

Part 1 of 5
Designed for NZ children, Mitey supports schools to deliver an evidence based approach to Mental Health Education for Years 1-8.

At its heart, Mitey is guided by the principles of the Mana Model. It is the foundation of our approach which recognises that children will thrive and improve their ability to gain knowledge and skills for positive mental health, if the five key forms of mana are acknowledged, affirmed and developed. For the following five weeks, we will share ideas/information about one of the five forms of mana -Mana Whānau, Mana Ūkaipō, Mana Motuhake, Mana Tū, Mana Tangatarua.  

Mana Whānau
Children need to believe they occupy a central and valued position in their whānau, including their school whānau, so they develop a sense of self and feel connected to others. Mana Whānau is critical and is the foundation for the development of the other four forms of mana.

Mana Whānau develops when children know:

• their family, peers, teachers and wider school community care about them. 
• they can contribute meaningfully to the world around them. 
• what their academic strengths and interests are. 
• that others recognise their innate mana. 

Children demonstrate Mana Whānau when they:

• have high expectations of themselves.
• feel safe and connected to others. 
• have healthy relationships with peers and teachers.
• ask for help and feedback when appropriate. 
• believe they make their family, school and others proud.

Ref: Mitey, Sir John Kirwan Foundation

Natural disasters can be frightening and distressing experiences for children, teenagers and adults. Extreme weather conditions are part of the natural landscape in many countries. These events can be overwhelming and terrifying when they happen. The loss caused by natural disasters can be significant – including the loss of a family member or friend, a pet, a home or belongings.

After a disaster, it is common for children of all ages and stages of development to become distressed. Parents’ own emotional reactions may be complicated by worrying about how their children are coping, what their children’s reactions mean, how serious they are, and how to manage children’s emotions and behaviour. The following information will help parents understand children’s reactions; know how to encourage children to naturally resolve their distress, and answer their children’s questions.

This is Part 4 of a 7 part series…

PARENT TRAPS
Being a parent is one of the hardest jobs there is. Parenting traps may delay children’s recovery. As you will see, a parenting trap is often simply ‘too much’ of something that can be helpful. Being protective towards our children at a time of crisis is essential to ensure their safety. However, being over-protective once the danger has passed can actually make things worse.

Children learn a lot about safety and potential dangers in their world from parents and other family members. 

Here are some traps to watch out for when helping children deal with disaster.

• Encouraging children to talk too much about their fears and worries. Too much attention to children’s fears and distress can be unhelpful and can encourage them to dwell on these feelings.
• Discouraging all talk about the event in the belief that this will help the family get back to normal.

This gives the message that either the parent is still too upset to talk about it and/or the child should not be having these post-disaster feelings.

• Being over-protective long after the danger has gone (e.g. wanting children to stay with you at all times) gives children the message that the danger still exists.

• Talking at length to your children about your own fears and distress. It’s OK to share your own feelings as well, but within limits. Do not introduce new things for children to worry about.

Children need to know that their parents are coping, otherwise, they find it hard to feel safe. Children need to learn from their parents that, while dangerous weather events can happen, the world is not always a dangerous place.  Article to be continued in Week 7

Attendance at Sunnybrae
Absence
In the event of your child being unable to attend school due to illness, please notify the Attendance Office on the morning of absence.  This can be done easily via the quick link on our school website www.sunnybrae.school.nz, on the school app (Kiwischools Connect) or by phoning the office on 443 5058 to leave a message. 

Holidays in term times
Should time away from school be required for reasons other than sickness then a formal letter of request should be addressed to the Principal. Please forward your dates and a reason that your child will be on leave from school to office@sunnybrae.school.nz.

Appointments
As classes are often outside of the classroom for break times, sports activities or library and assembly sessions, it can take some time to locate students when parents come to the office without notifying us in advance. If your child needs to be absent from school for a period of time during the day, please advise the classroom teacher before 9 am on the day, giving the reason for the absence, the time of departure and the estimated time of return to school. Any student leaving school must be collected from the school office and be signed out by a parent or guardian.  Upon return to school, the student must report back to the office and sign in before returning to class.

PTA UPDATE:
Handyperson for BBQ Assembly 
If there is anyone in our school community who would like to donate an hour or two of their time next week to assemble the PTA’s new BBQ, we would be very grateful. You would need to bring your own set of basic tools and a can-do attitude, during school hours. It is a standard 6 burner with a hood, so not too complicated. Please email office@sunnybrae.school.nz or call 443 5058 if you can help out. The project needs to be completed before Friday 9 June in time for our Grand Unveiling. 

30 Days of Prizes Raffle
A huge thank you to all our school community who participated in selling the raffle tickets. So far, we have raised over $6000 with your help.  This money is going towards purchasing new Basketball/Netball goalposts and soccer nets for the covered turf.  

It was an exciting moment in the office on Thursday morning with our Deputy Principal, Helen Rennie-Younger, drawing the first of the names.  The winners so far are: Day 1 Kristine Pantry & Day 2 Simon McLean.

Please check Facebook for up-to-date notifications of all the daily winners.

REMINDER:
School Arrival Time is 8:30 am
At Sunnybrae, we ask for children not to arrive at school before 8:30 am as teachers are often in meetings and preparing for the day in the classroom, and children are, therefore, unsupervised if they are here early.
We have a number of children arriving early each day. Please can you help us by either booking your child into YMCA Before School Care. The YMCA offer a wonderful programme for students. Please support our school and ensure students do not arrive before the 8:30 am bell.  

Kind regards
Lorene Hurd, Principal
SUNNYBRAE NORMAL SCHOOL

REMINDER:
Please note that all children are to be collected from school by 3.00pm. If you are unable to collect before this time, you may be interested in booking your child into the YMCA after-school club held in the hall.  

CLICK HERE TO BOOK 

COMMUNITY NOTICES:

Brain Play teaches science & technology classes to Kiwi kids aged 5 – 13, right across the country! We offer holiday programmes, online classes, in-person after-school classes, in-school classes, and free events for communities. Our topics include 3D printing, coding, animation, STEM experiments, LEGO & more. Free trials are also available for new students. This term we are in Stanmore Bay, Huapai, Parnell and Hobsonville (as well as online)! Check out our website to learn more about what’s on at Brain Play & book in today – https://www.brainplay.co.nz/.