Talofa Lava Parents / Caregivers / Sunnynook Whānau,

This week has been Samoan Language Week and our Samoan children came to school on Wednesday dressed to represent their culture and looked wonderful! I am sure they enjoyed sharing aspects of their culture with their classmates.

We have had an eventful few weeks at school. Our younger tamariki had some practical lessons and learnt a lot about those ‘sneaky driveways’ from Constable Louise.  The whole school was involved in Road Safety Week, and were provided with some valuable tips on how to keep safe.  

We have had tamariki participating in basketball events this week, and students have been out practising for our cross country which will be held next Wednesday, 5th June. We encourage parents to come and watch the cross-country as it is a fun event.  A programme for the day is included in this newsletter. In case of wet weather, this will be postponed, and a notice will be sent to you via Hero.  

Our Pink Shirt Day and Open Morning on Friday, 17th May was a big success with everyone and our children enjoyed showing caregivers what they have been doing in class.  Please look at the  photos from the day later in this newsletter.

Tomorrow, Friday, 31st May is Teacher Only Day (Ministry ACCORD Day) so school will NOT be open for instruction.

Monday, 3 June is King’s Birthday, and is a Public Holiday.  We hope you all enjoy the long weekend and look forward to seeing everyone back at school on Tuesday, 4th June.

Ngā mihi 

Virginia

At Assembly
Banner:
This class has produced an amazing collaborative piece of art work during Tuakana Teina (buddy class). They have some colourful t-shirts on the wall and koru art representing their family members. This term as part of their inquiry into change they are learning about trains and emergency vehicles and how these have changed over time. The winner of the banner for Week 4 is… Ruma 14!   

In week 5 the banner went to Ruma 3 for their statistics work surveying all sorts of interesting things, their growth mindset goals, writing with loads of adjectives describing memories and self-portraits depicting themselves on camp. There were some fabulous examples of science experiments on the wall. 

Yummy Apple:
R5 - Celzie
Thanks to Cam in Ruma 22 and two others who did not put their name on the form.

44 forms have been handed in so far - well done everyone!

Caught Being Good:
Ezra R20 - for being a kaitiaki
Eshaal Rm 7 - for being a kaitiaki

Dear Parents / Caregivers                            

We are excited to announce our school wide Cross Country Event for 2024. This will take place at school on Wednesday 5 June. If this needs to be postponed due to bad weather, our save-day will be on Friday, 7 June.

The children have been practising the course and are familiar with it. Certificates will be handed to the three top runners in each year group. You are all welcome to support us at this event. You do not need to sign in at the office.

Postponement decision:  8.30am for Year 3-4  / 10.30am for Year 5-6  / 1.00pm for Year 0/1-2. If the decision is made to postpone one or more of the races, parents will be notified via Hero and on the school website. 

Year 3-4  (9.00am – 10.30am) | Year 5-6  (11.00am – 12.30pm) | Year 0/1-2  (1.30pm – 3.00pm)

Please ensure students are ready to run in shorts and t-shirts. Students should also have warm clothing to put on afterwards.  Appropriate footwear and a water bottle is necessary. If they have sports clothes at home in their house colour we encourage them to wear those.

Parents who are watching the Year 0/1-2 group are welcome to take their child/children home after the prize-giving for this group event, once your child's class teacher is notified. 

YUMMY APPLES
Yummy apples will be provided to each child on completion of the Cross Country. A big thanks to Haylie Stewart for organising and Laura Billington for collecting them for the school.  

Pink Shirt Day 2024 was a huge success, reaching over 2,700 schools and kura across Aotearoa!

Sunnynook had a fabulous Friday celebrating Pink Shirt Day. In the Ngā Tōtara team, parents were even invited to join in the pink shirt day fun at open morning!! The rest of the school did a range of activities throughout the day. At lunchtime we practiced spreading kindness during our first ever house lunch eating. All the children got to sit with their house members encouraging them to form new relationships and spread kindness!

Here are a few photos from the day.

OPEN MORNING:
On Friday the 17th May we hosted our open morning.

During the open morning, the children in Room 11 did collage. They ripped up coloured paper into smaller pieces and glued them onto either a butterfly, t-shirt or leaf template. The other activity the children did was cut out hearts that were different sizes and glued them on top of one another.  

Our first lucky raffle winners were drawn on  17th May at Pink Day.

Congratulations to:
the Lam family (Orion, Rm 22) and the Gamboa family (Amanda, Rm 7).

Thank you to our sponsors who have contributed towards the raffle :  YMCA, Woolworths Sunnynook, Dean Greenwoods Swimming School

Upcoming Raffle:

We are excited to announce that we have another raffle coming up and this time, the prizes are for the children!

On our Cross Country Day, PTA members Laura Clark and Richard Emery will be selling raffle tickets under the shade structure. These will be $2 each.

There are 3 prizes to be won next week:

Prize 1:   2 x Tickets to 'Game Over'

Prize 2:   2 x GA tickets to 'Bounce'

Prize 3:   2 x GA tickets to 'Bounce'

Thank you Laura for making the time to support our school and sourcing these prizes for us.

Raffle Winners

After staff consultation, we have finalised our schoolwide student inquiry model which is a visual representation for our ākonga of one of our main pedagogies. This is an exciting step towards finalising our local curriculum. Through experience and research, we have deliberately chosen to adapt a simple 4 stage Inquiry model for students to work through. Whilst predominately used for ‘Inquiry’ which covers curriculum areas such Science, Social Studies, Aotearoa Histories, and STEM, this model can also be used cross-curricula in maths & literacy.

This model is currently being unpacked with our learners and is displayed in all classrooms for the ākonga to refer to. The Inquiry Cycle serves as a roadmap for our students, guiding them through the process of explore, wonder, discover and share. It's a model that encourages active learning, critical thinking, and hands-on exploration. By immersing themselves in the Inquiry Cycle, students develop essential skills such as (but not limited to) problem-solving, questioning, researching, communication, and collaboration. Inquiry learning allows for greater student agency for making decisions about their learning.

We are excited to have an Inquiry model rolled out schoolwide to provide continuity of language throughout the school. Alongside rolling out the model, we have provided teachers with professional development for further upskilling in this pedagogy. 

Ngā Totara are busy working on their Inquiry which explores the concept of change through the weather with their big question:  ‘How do we see the power of nature change the world we live in?’ 

Mrs Hosken set Ngā Totara a wero to answer her pātai that had her wondering:

Kia ora Ngā Totara, 

I have a wero  (challenge) for you all! 

Last night at my house there was lightning and booming thunder that sounded like it was right above me! Did you hear it?

Then as I was going to sleep I 'wonder'ed....

How is the sound of thunder made??

It could have been Tāwhirimātea but how does he make the noise???

Are any of you able to answer by pātai while you are working on your inquiry this term?

Luana from Ruma Whitu took up the challenge and found for Mrs Hosken that: The temperature of the air in the lightning channel may reach as high as 50,00 degrees fahrenheit, 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun.Immediately after the flash the air cools and contracts quick this rapid expansion and contraction creates the sound wave that we hear as thunder!

Thank you to all who supported our school on our 'Pizza Lunch' day yesterday. The children were very excited and loved having a warm treat on a cold day.

We will keep you updated as to how much we raised towards the continuation of the playground.

Special thanks to Richard Emery who volunteered to help us distribute the pizzas.

Please see the attached link for interesting information regarding attendance at school.

Managers here is the link if you would like to record results for publication in the newsletter: SPORTS RESULTS

Rippa Festival Days: 
6 teams over 2 days - the Save Day has come into effect  and the new day is Tuesday, 4 June. 

Players have been advised if they are in a team. Due to changes often occurring right up until the day, final teams and draw will be posted on the day.

This year we were able to take two teams to the Annual Super Cluster Basketball event.

Our teams displayed amazing Sunnynook values, playing four games across the day. Our Y6 team showed true grit playing two top teams in their pool and drew a nail biter in the last game placing 7=. Our Y5 team showed amazing team work to have a couple of good wins placing 5th. Thank you to coach Paul Golubovich and the wonderful supporters cheering the teams on.

Year 6 team: Aiden Billington, Caleb Petzer, Cameron McCracken, Charles Bao, Filip Golubovich, Jiwon Suh, Mia Nikolic Asangono, Philip Huang, Riley Cooper 

Year 5 Team: Alfred Chen,  Boo Misal, Leon Bettridge, Lewis Burbery-Richards, Nathan Moult, Roman Smith, Shuo Lu, Thomas Fish

Basketball tournament
By Alfred Chen Rm 6
  On Tuesday the 28th of May, two teams from Sunnynook Primary  represented our school in the basketball tournament at Eventfinder stadium. There were lots of schools such as Murrays Bay; Campbells Bay etc. There was one year six team and one year five team.  Both teams did everything they had to score and play defense - both teams lost and won. 

We left at 8:45am we all drove there with mixed feelings. When we got there, the stadium was packed and lots of schools were talking getting ready having a quick snack.  Soon at 9:30 it was time for our first game. Both teams were exhausted after all the games . After prize giving we all got our bags and left for school. Both teams played extremely well  - everybody played their hardest and no one was rude. This tournament helped both teams learn to pass, dribble better, and have better accuracy,  and also to use teamwork. Everybody should be proud of these students because it's rare for occasions like this.

More information about sports available can be found on the Sports page on Sunnynook School Website.

Any questions can be emailed to: sports@sunnynookschool.nz

We are currently seeking the support of parent volunteers to help supervise the crossing on Tonkin Drive on Monday and Tuesday mornings and Thursday and Friday afternoons.  Morning supervision is from 8:15 – 8:50am. Afternoon supervision is from 2.50pm-3.15pm.
 

Without parent volunteers we will be unable to supervise this crossing on a daily basis.

If you are available to volunteer, please email Mrs Bassett-Smith at rebeccahb@sunnynookschool.nz

Thank you! 

Hero School App
In 2024 our main form of communication with you - our school community, is via Hero. On the Hero app, the little bell icon at the top right of your screen shows whether you have any new notifications.  At times if the post is a longer one you may need to click ‘read more’ to view the whole message. We would appreciate it if you could also use Hero to report absences.

Any parents/caregivers who haven't yet signed up for the Hero App can do so by clicking on this link.

School Hours
Our school day is structured as follows:

Late - Students who arrive after 8:50 am need to report to the office via the student entrance for their late pass before going to class. It is important that your child arrives on time.

Absences - If your child is going to be absent from school, please inform the school office every day that your child is going to be absent by either phoning 410 6534 option 1, via the Hero app or via our website. If possible, please inform the school office before 9:00 am.