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This week has been Creative Arts Week at Sunninghill. Classes around the school have been busy preparing backdrops and props for our production of Moana, with Mrs Saines and their form teachers. Mrs Saines has worked tirelessly on the set for Moana this term, and it is going to look wonderful. My thanks also to all our parent, grandparent and teacher helpers who have been working with costumes, choreography, sound, lighting and set design – a production like this requires so much help behind the scenes and we are grateful to you all!

With just one week to go until Moana – rehearsals are in full swing and the children are having a brilliant time. A performance of this nature, that involves the whole school, is an incredible experience for our children and will build their confidence so much.

On the subject of performing arts, yesterday was our wonderful senior informal concert. This half term we have seen 3 concerts, the senior formal concert, and the junior and senior informal concerts. All of these concerts are designed to give the children performing experience in a small, warm and supportive environment. The children were absolutely superb in all these 3 concerts and performed with great poise and confidence. My thanks once again to our superb music department and our fabulous VMT teachers who work so hard with so many children at Sunninghill.

Last Friday night saw the return of our PTFA school disco – an incredibly exciting event that the children from Nursery to Form 8 absolutely loved. Some fantastic and some questionable dance moves – but great fun all round! Thank you to all of our PTFA who organised such a great event, and thank you to our other parent volunteers who came and supported each of the different discos – we couldn’t have done it without you!

This week saw the last in our Academic Series, this week a talk from Mr Stazicker and Mrs Smith on Humanities at Sunninghill.

Thank you once again to all the staff who have prepared and presented these talks, and to all our parents who were able to come along and support these events. We really hope you have enjoyed this Academic Series, and that they have been informative and helpful to you in understanding our curriculum and assessments and given you tools to support your child at home.

Mr Salsibury and Mr Stazicker went to RNAS Yeovilton yesterday with Form 8 who were participating in the regional finals of Flying Start. This is a STEM initiative organised by The Royal Navy and Leonardo Yeovil. Pupils worked in teams to learn about aeronautic engineering and had to build a glider that flew as straight and as far as possible. There were many teams from Dorset and Somerset taking part and I believe that we were the only school to be able to take their entire year group; most have to restrict numbers to those who are members of their school’s STEM club.

Although not the overall winners this year, the judges mentioned how well they all participated in the various sections of the competition.

On Tuesday we were absolutely delighted to welcome our buddies from the Glencairn House care home to Sunninghill. It was an absolutely lovely afternoon tea and it was fantastic that our Form 4 parents were able to meet our buddies. I received a lovely letter of thanks from Glencairn House this morning, and was so touched by their lovely words that I wanted to share some of these with you:

      ‘I have expressed our admiration for Sunninghill pupils before, and their enthusiasm and kindness were once again on display for all to see…Some of the attendees were more engaged and animated than we have see them before, and we have the wonderful Sunninghill children to thank for that…The children have injected joy and enthusiasm into the life of the home on every visit and we thank you all most sincerely.’

That letter has made me incredibly proud, so thank you to Form 4.

Today is home clothes day to raise money for Weldmar Hospice. Thank you to everyone who has kindly donated to such a worthy cause. Next Friday is Red Nose Day, and again the children can come into school wearing something red and bring in a donation. As we have two performances of Moana that day we will not be doing a cake sale on this occasion. Charity is really important to us at Sunninghill, so we really do appreciate all your generosity this term.

Finally, I would like to wish 3 of our Form 8’s, Mark, Alex and Lucy, the very best of luck in the quarter finals of the Rotary Debating Competition being held in Cheddar tomorrow. I have just heard them rehearse and I am blown away by their eloquence, confidence and passion for their subject on animal farming.

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I hope to see some of you at the parent and child tennis at 10.30am tomorrow morning!

Best wishes

David

David Newberry

Author David Newberry

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