Ni hao Parents / Caregivers / Sunnynook Whānau,

We are now in week 3, and it has been wonderful to see our tamariki settled back into school after the holidays.  There will be opportunities for your child to join in activities and sports teams at school, so please encourage them to listen to the notices at school and get involved as this helps them to make friends while having fun at school.

  

This year is the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese Lunar New Year and we we wish everyone who celebrates the Lunar New Year a wonderful year ahead.  In the Chinese culture, the Lunar New Year is celebrated for around a week with special events held every day with friends and family. Our children have been participating in various activities in the junior school to celebrate this event.  

Our Kapa Haka group put on a fabulous performance at our recent whakatau to welcome our new families and students, and it has been lovely to see more of our children signing up to be part of Kapa Haka.  

The whakatau was followed by the official opening of our new junior playground.  The playground has certainly been very well-used across the school, and it has put smiles on a lot of faces (including my own!). Please see the photos of the playground opening and whakatau later in this newsletter.

Team Newsletters for Term 1 have been published on our website - please follow the link to view these and see what is happening in your child's team this term.
 

The first PTA (Parent Teacher Association) meeting is being held at school on Tuesday, 27th March at 7.00pm and new members are always welcome.  

Next week our Year 5/6 students are off on camp. There is much excitement in Ngā Kauri as they prepare for camp, organising their cabin groups, timetabling their activities and practising skits!  They will be leaving Monday morning with gear trailers parked in the drop off zone until at least 8.30am. With many parents dropping off our senior students and their gear we recommend that you walk your children to school Monday 19th February or use one of our many other gates.

They will be returning Wednesday 21st February in the afternoon where again our Year 5/6 parents will be collecting children and their gear so please arrange to avoid our Lyford Cresent drop off and parking that afternoon.

Thank-you for supporting our Ngā Kauri team and keeping everyone safe.

  

Ngā mihi 

Virginia

At Assembly
Banner:
This week the banner went to R22 for their colourful Picasso inspired self-portraits. 

Principal's Certificates:
Congratulations to the students receiving the Principal's Certificate at Assembly. These were awarded for demonstrating atawhai/kindness.

Last Wednesday we held a whakatau to welcome our new kaiako, ākonga and their whānau to our kura. A whakatau is a form of welcome ceremony similar to a pōwhiri, but less formal. 

This welcome is underpinned by the tikanga (values and principles) of mannakitanga and whakawhanungatanga two of our school values.

This was the first time our kapa haka rōpū performed for the year without our 2023 year 6 leaders and they did an amazing job stepping up to lead.

Honour Tutakiau-Mahoni performed a beautiful karanga to call our manuhiri on, ka rawe Honour we were very proud of you. 

Ngā mihi nui Whaea Roberta, one of our parents who taught Honour the karanga then followed her to welcome our new whānau. We are very lucky to have such an amazing community.

Our new families expressed their gratitude and feel very welcome at our amazing kura.

It was with great excitement that we opened our new playground on Wednesday 7th February. 

This is the culmination of a year long project undertaken by our 2023 Year 6 extension mathematicians led by Mrs Hosken. The children worked with playground designers to learn about all of the aspects to consider in a playground such as fall zones and safety through ensuring that the equipment has a wide range so as to develop in children safe risk-taking, strength, balance and gross motor skills amongst other things. Children from across the school were surveyed as to what they would like in a new playground. We were able to get ‘a spinny thing’ (which is proving very popular!) and ‘some tall things’! After designing the playground, some of the group attended the Board of Trustees meeting in the evening to convince them that they had worked to budget and that the project should get approved. As the final step, the children went to the factory to see the playground being built and each screwed a part of the climbing wall on. 

It was with great excitement at our opening that the children watched Mrs Montague go down the slide! Following her were the children who came with their families on the 23rd December to our working bee. 

Thank-you to our Board of Trustees Chair Jason Alexander who joined us to welcome our new families and to open our playground. 

Kia ora everyone,

With these hot Summer days we have been having, we thought it would be a great idea to hold a fundraiser selling ice-blocks on Friday when school finishes at 3pm.  Money raised will be put towards the playgrounds.

The ice-blocks will be sold outside the Tech Room. They are $2 each. Please bring cash.

Ice-blocks will be gluten and dairy free.

At Sunnynook Primary School we strive to support our whānau and community to establish strong values in our children. We look forward to working together with you to instil these wonderful values in our tamariki.

Values = Manaakitanga, Kaitiakitanga, and Whanaungatanga  (wider concepts which encompass:  Respect, Responsibility and Kindness)
Capabilities = Self-Management, Collaboration and Thinking

Ngā Kōwhai celebrated the Chinese New Year on Friday with a special PRIME Time.  We participated in lots of fun activities including lantern making, creating dragon masks and singing songs.  We learned lots about the Chinese New Year.

Term One sport is underway and there is a lot of behind the scenes work with the first of our Summer sports teams starting next week.

Our Yummy Apple sticker gear has arrived today - our gutter boards are already getting used at lunch…. keep collecting those stickers!

Good luck to SONICS and HEAT, our year 1-2, and THUNDER and LIGHTNING, our year 3-4 teams, starting Semester One afterschool leagues next week.

If your child is Year 4-6 and an experienced tennis player and would like to trial for our Sunnynook Primary School Tennis team, please sign up using the Google form that will be online on our website under Sports tomorrow. Read through the information on the form as there are some important points to note before you sign up!

Information regarding Term Two after school Netball team leagues and registration for Term Two will be coming out soon.  Please check into the sports page for updates.

Netball North Harbour(NNH) has some umpiring courses coming up that could be of interest to our netball community.  These are open for registration now.  All information can be found on NNH website www.netballnorthharbour.co.nz

Please be aware that the pedestrian crossing in Tonkin Drive is currently unmanned.  Students will undergo training this week and a notice will be placed on Hero when the pedestrian crossing will be supervised.  In the meantime, please help your child to cross the road safely.

We are currently seeking the support of parent/community volunteers to help supervise the crossing
on Tonkin Drive before and after school. Your child does not have to be a road patrol monitor.
 
You will be required to assist the students in setting up and putting away the equipment and also monitor their confidence and capabilities.
Morning supervision is from: 8.20-8.45am
Afternoon supervision is from: 2:50 – 3:15pm.
Without parent volunteers we will be unable to supervise the crossing.

If you are available to volunteer, please email Rebeccah Bassett-Smith on
rebeccahb@sunnynookschool.nz. You will be provided with road patrol training.

We are concerned for the safety of our tamariki coming to school.  Please talk to your child about road safety.  As a caregiver, if you notice any suspicious activity on the way to school, please contact the police:

If your tamariki are walking/biking/scootering to or from school can you please go over with them how to do this safely. On our school website you will see forms to complete.

PLEASE ONLY CROSS AT THE CROSSING!

With this lovely weather the temperatures can be quite warm.  
Our school policy advises:

When the temperature is very hot (e.g. heatwave), we:

Please make sure your child comes prepared to school for this weather.  They will need to bring their named hat and drink bottles (water only) to stay hydrated.  Please also make sure they have sunscreen. 

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.

Hero School App
In 2024 our main form of communication with you - our school community, will be 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.

Hat Orders
Our school is a SunSmart school and hat-wearing is compulsory for Term 1 and Term 4.  A reminder to place your hat orders as soon as possible. You can place your orders with Argyle Uniforms here or purchase one from the school office for $14.50.