On Wednesday the corridors all around school were filled with the squeals of delight as a rather unexpected flurry of snow descended on Sunninghill – thoughtfully just around breaktime! The children had a fabulous time in the snow, pelting Mr Newberry and Mr Stazicker with snowballs, before it all sadly melted away by afternoon break!
This Sunday is the Lunar New Year, and Form 1 had a fantastic day yesterday learning all about it! They learnt how people in and from all over South East Asia celebrate with decorations, food, gifts, dragon dances and prayers. They tried writing Chinese characters on red envelopes (which contained a special chocolate coin for good wishes and luck for the new year ahead), decorated dragons and tried some Chinese cuisine! Lucky Form 6 were treated to specially themed Krispy Kreme donuts, courtesy of Ren Ren and his family!
On Tuesday we were absolutely delighted to attend the Rotary Young Writers Awards held at Waterstones in Dorchester. The Competition was open to local Dorset schools and children from Form 3 to Form 8 submitted their entries, with the theme of ‘Peace’. Of these entrants, 16 children were invited to attend the awards ceremony, with fantastic results. In the Intermediate category, Will (A) came first, Kitty came second and Izzy came third. In the Junior Category Sunninghill did brilliantly again with Henry coming first and Joni in second place. All our 16 finalists received commendations. Sunninghill received the Rotary Young Writers cup for the 3rd year running, which now has pride of place in our cabinet. An absolutely incredible result and a testament to the teaching of literacy at Sunninghill and the value we place on creativity.
On the subject of academics, please remember to book your place on the next of our Academic Series on Monday 23rd January. Mrs Evans will be taking you through how we teach science at Sunninghill and I do believe Form 3 will be helping her with her presentation! If you would like to attend please contact reception to book your child into late stay.
We have also just heard that Sunninghill moved from 43rd in the world to 13th in the world for their Spellzone this week! Go Sunninghill – keep up the great work!
Finally I’d like to hand over the conclusion of this weeks blog to our fantastic PTFA:
I’m stealing a space in this week’s blog to let you know a bit more about the Sunninghill PTFA and hopefully entice you into getting more involved in 2023. More than likely you have already helped us out in one way or another; be that flipping burgers at the summer fayre, hiding golf tees for the Easter bunny or decorating the school in preparation for Santa’s visit to name just a few of the jobs we call on parents to help with… so thanks for that!
We tend to meet once every half term over a glass of wine and a bowl of crisps in the drawing room at Sunninghill to plan upcoming events, share out the jobs involved and discuss any new funding requests or fundraising ideas. We are all very friendly and laid back, everyone is welcome and no one is asked to do anything they are not keen to do. There is also no obligation to come to these meetings – we know it’s often tricky with childcare – so we keep in touch with many of our active members via email and Whatsapp.
We have a fairly regular calendar of activities, some of which are intended as fundraising and school social occasions such as the summer and Christmas fayres and the quiz night for example; and some purely for the kids. We also raise money via the second-hand uniform shop, running a bar at various school events and the gratefully received subs.
With regard to the monies we raise, as well as ensuring Santa and the Easter bunny visit Sunninghill each year, we consider requests from the pupil-led school council plus department heads for new equipment that will benefit everyone at Sunninghill but might not be covered by the school’s own budget. In the past this has included the introduction of iPads to classrooms, diving blocks for the swimming pool and the bike sheds. Last term we installed a new slide in the low ropes area, and we are happy to announce the return of the school disco in March.
If you’d like to be kept in the loop with information about meetings, what has been agreed and shout outs when we need people to help with specific events, please get in touch with myself or Suzie (our Secretary) and we will be so happy to add you to our contact list. You are welcome to help as much or as little as you like.
Thank you… I will endeavour to make a more regular contribution to this blog in the future and keep you updated on PTFA events and spending.
Carol Krosnar
carolkrosnar@btinternet.com 07766 753732
Have a lovely weekend!
Best wishes
David
