Sunday Hero by Annaleese Jochems is a reflective fiction text that explores family relationships, memory, dignity, and quiet acts of courage through a Sunday afternoon shared between a child and their oma. As the pair search for a lost shed key, the story gently reveals Oma’s memory loss and the narrator’s growing awareness of how roles within families change over time. Through warm dialogue and shared moments, Oma tells stories about her father in the Netherlands, a horse trainer who stood up for workers’ and animals’ rights by insisting on rest and balance. These stories mirror the present-day moment, showing how values such as care, fairness, and respect are passed down through generations. Tender, humorous, and deeply human, the text supports students to understand heroism as something found in everyday relationships and small, meaningful actions. 

The text is ideal for integrated learning across literacy and health, supporting inquiry into family, ageing, memory, empathy, intergenerational relationships, and what it means to be a hero in everyday life.

This pack contains wide range of response activities including:

• A guided reading plan exploring key literacy elements including inference and deduction, language use, making connection and text organisation, along with key questioning to promote emotional intelligence, metacognition and compassionate inquiry. 
• An independent learning contract complete with explainer videos for activity clarity
  
• A wide range of response activities to support developing and embedding key literacy skills including sentence and word work, spelling, and cloze activities. 

Curriculum Phase: Phase 3

Year Level: Year 6

English (NZC Levels 3–4):
reading for meaning and critical thinking, analysing character voice and dialogue, exploring theme and symbolism, making connections between past and present, responding to emotional content

Health and Physical Education:
wellbeing, relationships, empathy, resilience, caring for others

Text type:
Fiction, reflective narrative, short story

Key words include:
family, grandparents, oma, memory, memory loss, ageing, relationships, ancestors, tūpuna, Netherlands, horses, labour rights, rest, balance, heroism, values, storytelling, intergenerational knowledge, empathy, care, dignity, everyday heroes, belonging