Newsletter Week 6 Term 2

T2 W7: Friday 9 June 2023

Important Dates
All of June – PTA 30 Days of Prizes Raffle Drawn Daily
Thursday 15 June – Board of Trustees Meeting, 5:30 pm Staffroom
Friday 16 June – Everyone is 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 3
Friday 21 July – PTA Fundraiser – Matariki School Disco

IN THIS ISSUE:
Positive Behaviour for Learning
Parent Teacher Conferences – Early Pick Up
Spotlight on Year 3 & 4
Importance of Attending School
Mental Health Update
Grand Unveiling
Positive Parenting – After the Disaster – continued
PTA Update: 30 Days of Prizes Raffle
Enrolments at Sunnybrae
Reminders
Community Notices

The PB4L focus for Term 2 Week 8 will be on: 
Cooperation: Playgrounds and Fields – Demonstrate fair play, include others.

Parent Teacher Conferences & Goal Setting
21st and 22nd June 2023
We are holding our Sunnybrae Parent Teacher Conferences and Goal Setting on the 21st and 22nd of June. For these conferences, students are encouraged to come along. We believe it is important for the children to be part of these conversations, so they can reflect on their strengths, achievements and take ownership of their learning goals in the coming term. We hope that all of our Sunnybrae families and whanau will value this time to build home-school connections.

Bookings
Please book an appointment with your child’s teacher. You will be able to book a 10-minute interview. If you have more than one child, we recommend that you leave a 10-minute gap between appointments to allow yourself time to move between classrooms. 

Bookings are now open for both of these evenings and can be made electronically through www.schoolinterviews.co.nz using the School Event Code tjx43. If you need support to make a booking online, please see your child’s teacher. 

If you need a translator, please book a slot that coincides with the interview time that you have booked with your child’s teacher. 

Please be aware that children will need to be picked up at 12.30 pm on Wednesday the 21st of June. 

YMCA will be offering after-school care from 12.30 pm. Click here to book your child into YMCA.

As part of this inquiry, students have researched and found information about different animals that live in our oceans, lakes and rivers.
Students have worked on sorting, classifying and understanding what they have found out. We are excited to share some of the Information Reports they have written.

The Importance of Attending School Regularly

Thank you to all our parents/caregivers who are  ensuring their child/children attend school regularly. 
School attendance is the most crucial prerequisite for quality education – students cannot learn if they are not in school. Attendance is included as a key educational measure of wellbeing in the government’s Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy (DPMC, 2019), and Indicators Aotearoa New Zealand (Statistics NZ, 2019). Attendance is an important indicator of student wellbeing, engagement in learning, and connection to school in its own right. But attendance is also a key driver of learning outcomes. Previous research has established that there is a strong relationship between attendance and student attainment (Gottfried, 2010; Ministry of Education, 2019a).

Part 2 of 5
Mitey – Mental Health Education

Mana Ūkaipō

Children need to feel belonging and connection to the place where they live and learn and to the people in those places. By celebrating differences and knowing their knowledge and history is important and shared, children get the connection they need to thrive.

Mana Ūkaipō develops when children know:

• that they belong
• about where they live and go to school.
• their cultural knowledge and history are important and valued
• they feel connected to others

Children demonstrate Mana Ūkaipō when they: 

• Feel proud to go to their school. 
• Understand how their actions affect others. 
• Actively participate in school activities. 
• They can talk about their whakapapa, history, culture and language. 
• They can compare and contrast different points of view respectfully.
  Ref: Mitey, Sir John Kirwan Foundation

Fundraiser Bake Sale

In conjunction with the Grand Unveiling on Friday 16 June, the PTA are hosting a Fundraising Bake Sale from 3:00 pm. Please support our stalls by bringing along cash to purchase yummy treats or a freshly cooked sausage for afternoon tea. Cakes, Drinks and Iceblocks will be sold from the staffroom and you can purchase a freshly cooked sausage from the Hall Kitchen.

Baking Needed – Please Help!
If you would like to support our Bake Sale, please deliver on the day, cut cakes, decorated cupcakes, cookies or finger food that can be served at room temperature, to the office.
If you can help with setting up, selling food, cooking sausages and cleaning up duties on the day, please email office@sunnybrae.school.nz.
Time slots are available from 2:30 pm to 4:15 pm.

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 5 of a 7 part series…

MANAGING CHILDREN’S EMOTIONS FOLLOWING THE DISASTER
When children are distressed by a major event, it is important for parents to reassure them of their safety and be available to them to help them work through the crisis. It is helpful to:

•   Allow your child to be upset.
•   Ask your child to talk about why they are upset. It is important to put some time limits around these conversations. Maybe make a regular time each day to talk about it.
•   Make it clear that the danger is now over.
•   Show your children that you do not believe there is present danger.
•   Do not take over and feel you have to solve their problem or ease their feelings completely.

Encourage your child to use their individual strengths to cope. Children may feel helpless after a natural disaster. Often, it can be helpful to involve them in the clean-up efforts – this makes children feel useful and as though they have some control over the situation.
Re-establish as many of your family’s normal routines as possible. Even if you are living somewhere other than your own home, try to make life as normal as you can for your children. For instance, regular school and bedtime routines.
Give attention and reward for settled behaviour. Don’t use attention simply as a means of dealing with your children’s distress. 
Be honest. Stick to the facts of what actually happened. Don’t distort or magnify the events that the child experienced. 
Children coping with trauma can feel that they are reacting unnaturally. Assure them their feelings are normal reactions. 
Convey your confidence in children’s ability to manage their distress. Remind them of a time when they showed strength or determination to overcome an obstacle.
Point out that while your family and others suffered, you and the community are working on bringing things back to normal.
Make a scrapbook for younger children to draw pictures in or put down thoughts. Again, put some limits around these activities.

OTHER THINGS THAT CAN HELP

•   Take care of yourself so you can model positive coping for your children.
•   Monitor your children’s exposure to the media about the disaster. Although your children’s direct exposure to the actual event was outside of your control, you do have control over what they see in the media.
•   Have a family plan for natural disasters, with children having developmentally appropriate tasks. For example, get children to help make an emergency kit (e.g. battery operated radio, batteries, torch, candles, matches).
  Article to be continued in Week 8

PTA UPDATE:
Thank you …
Chris Subrtizky for your time donated to assemble the PTA BBQ.
It looks amazing and we can’t wait to use it next Friday at the Grand Unveiling.
If there is anyone wanting to be the first to cook sausages on it as part of the PTA Sausage Sizzle on the afternoon of Friday 16 June, please email us at … office@sunnybrae.school.nz.

30 Days of Prizes Raffle
The School Hall was full of excited children when we made the draws and announced the syndicate winners on Wednesday. 
The students who sold the most tickets are: Year 1 – Jesse Miller, Year 2 – Madeleine Walker, Year 3 & 4 – Tiffany Ligaliga, Year 5 & 6 – Elliot Farquhar.
The winner of the Lucky Dip draw for anyone who sold over 2 tickets is Eden Su.

Raffle winners this week are: Na Lin, Terry Hu, Seletute Tonga, Tung Tran, Deivet Desai, Rhys Fu and Albina Zorina.
Please check Facebook for up-to-date notifications of all the daily winners.

REMINDER:
Making Contact With Your Child’s Teacher
Your child’s teacher is your first point of contact should you have any questions.  Hopefully, by now, you’ll have had several opportunities to meet and connect with them. 
The best way to contact your child’s classroom teacher is through Seesaw or email.  Please let us know if you have not yet been able to connect via Seesaw, and we can get this sorted for you. The power of the partnership between parents and teachers is immeasurable. We also have a very strong Learning Leader Team should you need further advice. Do not hesitate to contact the Principal or one of our Deputy Principals should you have a question that is beyond the scope of your child’s classroom teacher or Learning Leader. Our aim is for you to feel supported as a parent/caregiver and a member of our Sunnybrae Family.

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/.