Term 2 Week 5: Friday 31 May 2024

Important Dates 2024
Monday 3 June – King’s Birthday – School closed
Wednesday 5 June – PTA Meeting, 7:00 pm in the staffroom
Wednesday 12 June – Year 5 & 6 Camp
Thursday 20 June – BoT Meeting, 5:30 pm in the Staffroom
Friday 21 June – Jammies for June Charity Event
Wednesday 26 June – Parent Teacher Conferences, 1:30 pm – 6:30 pm Wednesday 26 June – Sunnybrae SCHOOL CLOSES AT 12:30 pm
Thursday 27 June – Matariki Breakfast, 6:30 am in the staffroom. All welcome
Thursday 27 June – Parent Teacher Conferences, 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm

IN THIS ISSUE:
Spotlight on Year 5 & 6
Road Safety Week
Mental Health Education
Samoan Language Week
Whole School Production
Attendance
Community Notices

The PB4L focus for next week will be on:
Respect: Playgrounds and Fields – Follow the staff or peer mediators instructions and talk to a peer mediator or Duty Teacher when I need help.

Spotlight on Year 5 & 6
Cluster Sports Day
On Monday, Rooms 16 to 20 enjoyed participating in our Cluster Sports Day. This is when we join with our cluster schools (Willow Park, Northcote Primary and St Marys) to have a fun day of sport. The aim of the day was to try a sport that the students had never played before and be involved in that sport, plus learn about sportsmanship. Everyone had a fabulous day despite the weather, and it was great to see all the students showing our RICE values and fantastic sportsmanship with each other and the students from other schools.

Student Recounts:

Rippa Rugby
My shoes were so wet I had to put them in front of the fire for the night. My legs felt like they would collapse. – Deacon
Try after try as the time flew by. My shoes were so soaking wet that I had to wear different shoes the next day. My feet felt like they were in a mud bath. – CJ
The grass was so slippery it felt like dish soap. It felt like we were standing in an icy sprinkler. The rips sounded like the releasing of a gas tank. – Marcus
Playing in the rain made us feel like drenched rats. Versing 4 different schools. – Melania
It was hard to rip of the tags. – Hera

Netball
My shoes were so heavy and wet, you couldn’t really call them shoes! – Conor
The netball courts looked like a tsunami had hit them! – Sudeeksha
We chanted the Sunnybrae Sports Cheer on the way back. My favourite part of the chant is, “We are young the teachers are old!” – Jannah
The rain was so heavy that I almost froze! – Eden
My feet were killing me but that didn’t stop me from playing well. I found out my talent was Goalkeeping. – Sudeeksha

Badminton
In Pickleball, it was pure chaos. Pairs were picking up any ball they could get their hands on and smacking it everywhere. – Annika
In Badminton, Yutong taught me how to serve,hit and hold the racket. – Aglaia
In Squash, Matthew taught me how to hit the ball and hold the racket. – William L.
Squash was very fun hitting the squash ball to the wall which I am never allowed to do at home. – Dinura

Hockey
Hockey stayed at Sunnybrae school and we didn’t get wet as we played in covered turf. We didn’t walk to the place because it was at our school.

Soccer
Before we got to the football field we started to walk to Glenfield and before we knew it we were there even though it took about 15 minutes.

Road Safety Week
The Year 1 & Year 2 team were very excited to have a visit from Becca who works for Road Safety NZ and Fulton Hogan. She talked with us about Road Safety, and we discovered who our Road Safety Heroes are. Did you know that we ALL are road safety heroes when we follow the road rules, wear our seat belts, slow down around road works and look both ways before crossing the road?

Our classes split up, and one half got to listen to a great story about a Road Safety Hero and have some great discussions about the story. While this was happening, the other half of the group went out to the covered turf to explore a Road Safety Fulton Hogan truck and also learned all about ‘Stop/Go’ signs. We even got to have a turn at controlling the signs. Then, we swapped so everyone had a turn at doing all the activities.

A huge thank you to Becca and Road Safety NZ for donating the storybook they read to us. We now have a copy in our school library.

Mitey 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 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

Samoan Language Week
The 2024 theme for Samoan Language Week is Tautua i le alofa, manuia le lumana’i – Serve in love for a blessed future.
The Pasifika Cultural Group enjoyed hosting a whole school collaborative art project at lunchtime on Tuesday. Teachers incorporated ideas from this year’s theme into their classroom programmes.

On Thursday, our Samoan students gathered for a photo together with teacher Mrs Catrina Scott, celebrating how proud they are to be Samoan.

Whole School Production
We are thrilled to announce that we will be having a school production in Term 3 involving all of our Sunnybrae students.

The show is called Music Through the Ages, and it was written by Mr Nicko Vella, our music specialist teacher. All classes will be performing a dance, and Year 5 and 6 students will have an opportunity to audition for lead roles. The audition process is already underway.

Performance Dates:
Friday 16th August – Rooms 1, 3, 4, 10, 13, 15, 17, 19
Friday 24th August – Rooms 5, 8, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20
at Westlake Girls School Hall

Circle these dates on your calendar. Invite all your family, friends and neighours. We are all super excited about this event! More details will be provided by your child’s teacher as the term progresses. Tickets will go on sale in Term 3. Stay tuned.

Attendance
Regular attendance is defined as 90% attendance during a term – the equivalent of missing less than five days of school in a standard 10 week term. Regular (90%) attendance over the full year would be the equivalent of missing less than 20 days of school throughout the year.

Interesting fact
In 2023, almost 445, 000 students in NZ (52%) missed more than 20 days of school. If a student misses 20 days of school every year, by the end of Year 12 they will have missed more than a years’ worth of schooling.

ref : Attendance Information sheet 2024 Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga (Ministry of Education)

Naming your child’s school items
Please ensure all items that come to school are clearly named. This includes
clothing, drink bottles, lunchboxes, shoes, school bags and swimwear. We do our very best to get the named items back to your children as soon as possible. We appreciate your cooperation.

Kind regards
Lorene Hurd, Principal
SUNNYBRAE NORMAL SCHOOL

REMINDER:
Please note that all children are to be collected from school by 3.00 pm. 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 School Hall.