Sunrise & Sundorne News: November 2010

The final printed Christmas Cards

Back from the printers and ready for Mr Pettengell to send out!

The 6 winners are off to Oxford Pitt Rivers Museum on Thursday so long as the roads are clear. Find out about Pitt Rivers here.

Sundorne School dance.

This is the dance club run by Miss Frederick, our dance teacher at Sundorne School. It runs from 3pm until 4pm. We have two helpers who come in to help us with our performances or teach us a dance.

This is Katie helping Lucy go through her dance which she will be performing on her own in 'Sundorne's got talent', a talent show being held at the school.

This is the dance studio where everybody practices dances during lessons and after school.

This is year a 8 dance group these people are practicing for our talent show which our dance teacher Miss Fredrick organised.

These are some GCSE dancers performing their dance to the rest of the dance group.

This is Katie and Chloe practicing their dance which they will perform in the talent show and for the local senior citizens which the school has invited for Christmas lunch.

This is Year 8 dancers practicing in the mirror for timing and precision.

This is the new Year Seven students who have settled in well at the after school dance club and are making lots of progress.

By Katie Mckean + Chloe Turner

Life Skills

In our Year 8 Life Skills lessons we have been learning about Human rights and thinking about the rights which some people Burma do not have.

We have followed the story of Aung San Suu Kai and done some research about her life and beliefs.

We have watched news reports about her release. It is great news.

We have got a speaker from Amnesty International coming into to school to talk to us about human rights and Burma.

Our Music Department

This is choir practising for the senoir citizens party.

This is Georgia playing the piano.

These are some of the posters that Mrs Williams has in her room.

This is Leandro practising the keyboard .

This is Mrs Williams our choir teacher.

Our School - Sundorne School & Sports College

Callum Savage from Year 9 wrote:

I am going to show you around some of our school.

This is the premar play, this is where we can play football and we sometimes do P.E in this area.

There are two football pitches and four netball pitches.

This is a closer view of the premier play it is very big so we can run round and do exercise.

This is the social are this is where we can sit and chat to our friends if it is raining or we don't want to go outside.

This is the art block where we do art. There are two classrooms and a clay room.

This is Mr Pettengell, our Head Teacher. He is the a very important man and responsible for Sundorne's success.

This is Mrs Garrett. She is a language teacher. She teaches us Spanish and French.

This is Mrs Garret's classroom where we sit and do all our work.

This is our school mini-bus. This takes us to our football games and other sport events and trips.

This is our back field. This is where we do Sports Day and sometimes do P.E. We are only allowed on this field in summer at break times because it gets wet and muddy which will end up in the school and make the school look dirty.

This is our Drama Studio where we do Drama which is like acting. This fits into our English lessons.

This is one of our three computer rooms as you can see we are very lucky to have such good computers.

I hope you enjoyed learning about our School.

Well done to the winner's!

With such tough competition Mr Pettengell has decided on a joint win between Beth Ryan and Jemma Jones.

Very well done you to!

The cards will now be photographed and prepared ready to send off for printing!

All six finalist's need to collect a permission slip for the trip to Oxford from Mrs Thompson.

The Final 6 Christmas Cards

These are the final 6 chosen Christmas Cards!

Mr Pettengell our Headteacher is picking the overall winner this afternoon ready for the image to be sent for printing.

Cameron Evans 7B

Patrick Woodhouse 7C

Beth Ryan 8G

Jemma Jones 8H

Chloe Francis 9G

Kelly Smith 9H

ICT Open evening

These are some photos of the Sundorne ICT department at open evening. We gave a demonstration of both the PC computers and the Apple Mac Suite, where future students were introduced to the power of I Mac computers including green screening where students became TV stars and became weather presenters

The money got there! News from Sunrise School

Received this e mail from Estelle after her visit to Sunrise School in Mai La Oo camp.

Estelle took the money we raised from the Long Myud Hike and handed it over to the headmaster.

Have a read, it's amazing to think we really are helping these students, even in a small way!

Dear Gillie,

I have a lot to tell you and many photos to send you.

I have just arrived back in Mae Sariang from MLO refugee camp. I will take the bus to Chiang Mai this afternoon.
While I was in the camp, I talked with the NGSO (student association at Yaung Nii Oo school).

I explained every activities that you are doing, showed the blog and discussed how to best use the money you raised for the Christmas dinner.

First of all, the students are very happy to start a friendship with Sundorne students. They would like to get pictures of Sundorne school and activities to make a wall display for all students to see. They have prepared some photos already and wrote some letters which I will send you.

When we discussed the Christmas dinner, they asked if they could use it for food on other days. They said they eat 2 meals per day. They have meat/fish twice a week but the other days they only have rice, fish paste and green vegetables.

They would like to use some of the money to supplement their regular fish paste/vegetables with something else. Fish paste is a kind of salty dip or sauce made with fermented fish, water and chili. You put it on the rice to make it tasty. The vegetables are steamed or uncooked and they can be dipped in the sauce or eaten along with the rice. It is tasty and meals would not be complete without it, however by itself, it is not enough.

I can't imagine eating this breakfast lunch and dinner 5 days a week. So I told the students that they could decide how to use the money as long as they made a budget to manage it. I suggested they then propose the budget to the head master. I encouraged them to take responsibility for their schools, even if it is in a small way.

I explained about the Christmas boxes and suggested students think about something light to send back. They asked if instead of postcard they could send traditional presents, to which I agreed. I explained that it is important to try to communicate as much as possible with Sundorne and that Studio Xang can help liaising. Getting info in and out of the camp is not easy and takes time!

Then I talked to the Headmaster. Originally I wanted to talk to him first then the students but he got a bout of malaria when we arrived so I could only talk to him yesterday.

So I explained everything again. Salai had already talked to him and the teachers and they have decided that they want to give the students a good Christmas this year because they couldn't do anything last year.

They have made a Christmas working group with teachers. I suggested NGSO student representative be included in the working group. Their plans for the Christmas festival is a sport competition (football for Girls/Boys, volley ball-G/B, badminton-G/B, Takrow-B,and Toh Si Toe G). I will search for pics of these last 2 games so you get an idea.

They want to have a good meal and a stage show with songs and dances. Oh and also Christ,as carols which are very big in the Karen christian community. The festival is planned for the 23 and 24th of dec. It sounds great.

Then I told one NGSO student everything I discussed with headmaster. He's the NGSO general secretary and one of my volunteers and a confident kid.

So I want to send you all the pics and letters and receipts. I'll send you statements of your deposit and the receipts after deposit in the school account.

Now the bad news is that on Wednesday night our Maesot office got burglared and they stole all our IT equipment. 2 computers, printer-scanner, camera and the guitar. Half of this we had just bought for Picture Pal! Its a big set back. No hope in getting the stuff back, it's all crossed the border by now. And no insurance. All our information is gone. We have to look for a new office. So it will be a little while before we can send more picture pal work. I will go there on the 2nd of December and will keep you posted.

Best Wishes Estelle

Lots of information here to consider.

I will load up the images as soon as I get them.

We are trying to get registered to send Christmas boxes but I do not know if we are going to make it in time.

And what to do to about the Picture Pal project ? - any one got any old digital camera or lap top we can send over to replace the ones that have been pinched?

We won't be able to communicate with our students in Maesot till this gets sorted out.

Time to start judging!

On Monday decisions will be made on our winners - we have had loads of entries.

Our science ear defender investigation

We conducted an investigation to find out which set of ear defenders were the best. We decided we would test 6 diffrent pairs of ear defenders, by seeing which eardefenders blocked out the sound closest to the sound source.We would measure this by using the trundle wheel to measure in meters how far back the person wearing the eardefenders had moved from the sound.

We got into 6 groups of 3 to 4 people and we conducted our investingation.

After conducting the investigation, we found out that the investigation was not reliable because all the results from each group were different. This could of been for many different reasons such as:

Most people have different hearing
People struck the triangle at different strengths
Each group did not have the same person doing the same job through out the investigation

Hope you enjoyed reading this !!!

Written by Charlotte Player, Paisley Soanes, Christian Pensa and Miss Fisher.

Sorry no photos, we couldn't get them to upload :-(