With the devastating situation developing in Ukraine, you may be looking for ways to explain the situation to children or ways to support those in need. Our LRC team have highlighted a resource from a trusted news source, which may help with any questions that you are unsure on how to answer. This can be found here.

If you so wish, you can also make financial donations to organisations that have a presence on the borders using the links below:

• The British Red Cross has launched an appeal to help the Ukrainian Red Cross to provide food, medicine, clothing and shelter, as well as first aid training in bomb shelters.
• The UNHCR refugee agency is funding emergency shelters, repairs for homes damaged by shelling, emergency cash assistance, psychological support and warm clothing.
• UNICEF is helping to ensure families have clean water and food and that child health and protection services continue.
• The Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain is fundraising for medicine, food and other essentials.
• Save the Children is providing cash assistance, food and other support to refugees crossing into Romanian and Lithuania, as well as in Ukraine itself.

For those who still wish to make a physical donation we understand that Goods for Good are running a Ukraine Appeal and are seeking donations:

Goods for Good Ukraine Appeal

As mentioned in the Headlines, last night, our A Level Dance Performance Evening took place. Congratulations to all of our Year 13 Dance students on your performances- so much effort and talent! You can come along to watch the GCSE/BTEC peformances at 5pm on Tuesday 8th March in the Sandpit if you would like to support these students and you can follow all things Dance on Twitter @SandringhamDanc. A very big thank you to Miss Davies and Miss Wilson.

This week sees the launch of our Whole School Read. This year’s chosen text is ‘I am Malala’ by Malala Yousafzai. All students (and their families!) are encouraged to read the text and to join the conversation about the text, either with their peers, their teachers, their families or on Twitter @SandringhamRead. 

In our whole school assemblies this week, students considered the importance of their own education and why 130 million girls worldwide are not currently in education. ‘I am Malala’ explores Malala Yousafzai’s own experience of fighting for the right to have an education, and the consequences of her actions. The inspirational story follows Malala’s childhood in the Swat Valley in Pakistan, to Birmingham, England where she came for hospital treatment having been shot by the Taliban. 

To mark World Book Day yesterday and to launch our Whole School Read, all lessons began with a reading of a short extract from ‘I am Malala’ and a discussion of the text. Hopefully, all students are now inspired to read the whole text! There are plenty of copies available in the LRC, including a ‘short read’ edition and a ‘teen’ edition of the text. PDFcopies are also available on the Sandringham Reads Google Classroom (Class code: 5ukzdug), where students can also submit a short review of the book. Any student who reads the whole text and submits a review will be awarded the Whole School Read Achievement Award on epraise, so please encourage your child to participate. 

https://malala.org/malalas-story

Year 10 had a fantastic study skills focussed day with talks from Martin van der and subject specific revision sessions as they prepare for their GCSEs in 2023. They looked at memory techniques in English, such as using hashtag quotations, and how to make the most out of testing themselves in Science. Thank you to all the staff involved in this valuable day.

British Science Week takes place from 14th- 18th March and here at Sandringham School, we have an exciting array of activities and opportunities to think about Science in everyday life and reducing our carbon footprint. You can look the dedicated website here and a huge thank you to Mr Tattersal for co-ordinating the activities and all the other staff involved in highlighting these important issues. We are sure the students will gain a lot from it. 

Day 1: Meat Free Monday and a talk from Dr Phil Porter in the Sandpit Theatre looking at Biogeography of glacial environments, Ecosystems and Global Warming

Day 2: Tree maintenance, electricity generation on a bike and ending with the fabulous CHEMISTRY SHOW in the Sandpit Theatre

Day 3: Low Carbon Day including wearing pre-loved clothing for a Non Uniform Day (proceeds split between WWF and Red Nose Day) and aiming to reduce car use if possible by making lower-carbon travel arrangements

Day 4:Looking at Carbon Neutral saving data and among other things, a Climate Change Summit 2-4pm in the Hall

Day 5: Results of the House Competition and premier of the Winning Film

This term we are once again running Tycoon in Schools. Tycoon is a unique national enterprise competition for students, funded by the Peter Jones Foundation. Every participating team writes a business plan, is lent money, starts a business and trades, competing with other student companies. We are delighted to announce that four enterprising students in Year 8 have submitted a business plan and been rewarded with a loan for £140. They intend to use this to source environmentally friendly stationery products to sell around the school. Well done to Max B, Alex C, Isaac N and Joseph H

We look forward to seeing your products on sale in the near future.

A huge thank you to Mr Boak and all of the staff involved in the Year 11 Living life in the future day for ELD. This was an informative day for the year group involving sessions on CV writing & Unifrog, Living life in the adult world key skills, the wonderful world of wellbeing, advice on owning your finances, top travel tips and a lesson on nutrition in "Fuel for Life." At the end of the day, students were able to choose elected activities such as bench ball, football, mindful colouring or revision. With eight school weeks until Year 11 go on study leave, this was a great chance for them to enjoy so downtime from the talk of exams and spend time together as a year group. We hope that they found it useful. 

As we continue our updates about sustainability, this week, the focus is on food and waste.

Food

We have been working with our catering provider, Chartwells, to increase the range of vegetarian and vegan choices since September. The range of hot meals in these categories have increased and we have a ‘meat free Monday’ each week. We have also reduced the number of food deliveries from three per week, to two, to reduce emissions associated with this transport. We are currently looking at putting on an event for Sixth Form students this term to learn about cooking meals with a lower carbon footprint.

Waste

For some time, we have wanted to introduce a food waste collection to ensure that this is composted and does not go to landfill. We agreed with Chartwells that food waste would be collected for appropriate disposable and this started in December 2021, considerably reducing our waste to landfill. Waste collections overall have been reduced from three per week, to two and none of our furniture and related items now go into general waste, they are collected for specialist schemes/ recycling. We are working hard to eliminate polystyrene from the site; cups previously used are now replace with compostable alternatives, with a lot of encouragement to use ceramic cups again now that Covid-19 protocols are being relaxed. We hope to continue the replacement of all disposables as the situation continues to improve.

Year 7 had a great House Day for ELD. They worked on creating a new mascot, flags for their houses and took part in various sports events. They even had the chance to make healthy energy bars to fuel them for the day. ELD is a great chance for students to be off timetable for the day and spend time bonding with their peers and being creative (and sometimes quite competitive!) Many thanks to all the teachers involved in making the day a success. The students certainly looked like they were enjoying themselves! 

This week we feature 10 fabulous Year 9 students who have been working in Design and Technology. These students entered into this year’s V&A competition: ‘Innovate’ and were successful in being shortlisted final and narrowly missed places in the National Final.

Sophia D, Sofia A, Jessica T, Natalie I and Annabelle F were praised for their project designing blankets for the homeless where judges were complimentary of their investigative skills and their ability to problem solve. Fraser McK, Domic M, Robin R, Nathan W and Josh F worked hard with HDPE; melting it down to create sound proofing tiles. And again, the judges were impressed with the innovation and creativity the group showed.

All students received a beautiful certificate from the V&A and a postcard home from the D&T department. 

We are really pleased to welcome our new Careers Coordinator, Mrs Eady who has started work to support the careers programme in all Years 7 - 13. Mrs Eady is currently working on supporting the launch of the Year 10 work experience programme to ensure that all students have a suitable placement. If you would like to contact Mrs Eady with any queries about careers, she can be contacted on eadyc@mysandstorm.org. We are also always looking for volunteers to support our extensive programme, therefore if you are part of an organisation that can provide a placement for a student in future, or speak at a work experience event, please contact Mrs Eady to let her know.

Congratulations to Tabitha B, Ava L, Reuben M-K and Bethan P, whose mini stories have been chosen to be published in the Young Writers Twisted Tales Anthology. 

Students had the opportunity to explore character perspectives and write from the point of view of a villain. Are villain's always evil, or could they be misunderstood? What would they say if they could tell their side of the story? This is a great achievement so well done to all of them and a huge thank you to Ms Critchley for her support with them. 

Creative Writing club for Years 7 and 8 runs on a Wednesday lunch time in K block. New members are always welcome so do come along! 

Our lucky Year 9 spent ELD taking part in a Codebreakers day. They learnt all about Alan Turing and cracking the Enigma for the second world war. They then created their own Enigma machines using cans of pringles as well as other codebreaking related tasks. Each year group was then called to take part in an Escape Room in which they had to escape a spacecraft heading for a black hole before the time ran out. The day finally ended with a fun-filled inter-house treasure hunt. Based on participation across the whole day, the winners were 9J followed by 9F in second and 9S in third. All of these forms will be getting prizes but well done to everyone for taking part and a big thank you to Mr Weier for co-ordinating the day.

DSPL7 supports parents and carers in early years settings, schools and further education colleges by ensuring there is a range of provision and support services within the St Albans and Harpenden area for children and young people with additional needs. They have a fantastic range of courses to support parents which you can find a link to here

Princes to Kings

Zac P (Year 12) and brother Finn (former student) of the band Princes to Kings have a fundraiser concert coming up in April. All proceeds will be going to the Epilepsy Society which is a charity very close to their hearts. The event is taking place at the Camden Assembly and tickets can be purchased here

String Players Opportunity

There are spaces for Violin, viola, bass and cello players in both the County Youth Orchestra and the Hertfordshire School’s Symphony Orchestra. Students must be age 13 and up, and at least Grade 7 standard to benefit from this unique opportunity. String players are being urgently recruited for the upcoming HSSO and County Youth Orchestra Spring Courses which will be held at St Clement Danes School in Chorleywood from 5 – 8 April 2022.

Swing St Albans

The School Jazz band will be performing at the ‘Swing St Albans’ evening of Jazz on Tuesday 15th March at St Albans Music School based at Townsend School. The evening will feature county jazz groups and promises to be a great evening of music. Tickets can be purchased via https://www.hertsmusicservice.org.uk/sams-jazz 

The theme this week has been World Book Day.  2022 is the 25th anniversary of World Book Day, with the message for all children: you are a reader! To celebrate World Book Day, we launched our Whole School Read. This year’s chosen text is ‘I am Malala’ by Malala Yousafzai. All students (and their families!) are encouraged to read the text and to join the conversation about the text, either with their peers, their teachers, their families or on Twitter @SandringhamRead. You can read more about this text under the Sandringham Reads section in the Sandprint.

As we mentioned in the Sandprint last week, the free school meal allowance has now increased from £2.50 per pupil per day to £3.00 per pupil per day. This 50p increase means that   those on the FSM allowance can now purchase an item at break, or have a little more flexibility at lunch time.

All students in receipt of FSM will still also be able to purchase the meal deal which offers the best value for money.

If you have any questions regarding FSM please contact the admin address and we will get back to you. 

Year 8 had a fabulous ELD, fully immersing themselves in a day of Arts. Students spent the day making set piece in Visual Arts, learning how to work the lights and sound in Theatre Tech, working on their acting skills in Drama, creating some fantastic Dance routines and making a lot of noise on the drums in Music. This culminated in a FANTASTIC production of The Lion King at the end of the day. Very well done to Year 8 for your amazing enthusiasm- you smashed it!

We have several teaching and support staff vacancies to work at our fantastic school including:

Head of French

Receptionist and Administrative Assistant

Director of Learning: Sport and Co-curricular Activities

Teachers of Science, PE or Computer Science

Teacher of Design and Technology: Product Design

Head of Chemistry

For a full list of all of the positions available, please check here  

Online gaming is a huge aspect of the online lives of young people, but when they're talking it can sometimes sound like an alien language. Do you know your 'dub' from your 'nerf'? Are you 'cheugy'? Being able to pick up on some of the language used is really important. It can open up points of discussion with your child or allow you to spot behaviours which may not be age-appropriate or safe.Internet Matters have put together a great guide explaining this terminology. The guide is available as a PDF here

A quick look back at the amazing work of Year 9 who worked so hard considering all of the interruptions they had to the project.

FRENCH: Le mot de la semaine- se reproduire

GERMAN: Das Wort der Woche- sich wiederholen 

SPANISH- La palabra de la semana- volver a ocurrir

R is for recur [verb]

Thinking Questions

• In some languages we have reflexive verbs and in others we do not - why are languages so different? 

• What is it about the context of a language that can affect the language itself?

R is for recur [verb]

Definition: To occur again, as an event or experience; to return to the mind.

Example: In the natural world, some shapes and patterns recur time and time again.

Synonyms: Persist, Reappear

Antonyms: Halt, Stop

Etymology: From Latin ‘recurrere’  meaning to return. From the prefix ‘re’ meaning back or again and ‘currere’ meaning to run.

For more news, fixtures, team sheets and results don’t forget to follow us @SandringhamPE on Twitter and at www.sandringhamsport.co.uk

Well done to Luke C who came an amazing 16th place at the National XC last weekend. Superb running Luke!

The U16 girls netball team played on Tuesday against Sir John Lawes in the District Cup Final at home. After a long season that can still end in more silverware, the team came out 31-13 winners to seal the District Cup and be District Champions! A great performance from the team and well done to some of the fringe players stepping up to lead. OPM - Margot K & CPM - Lily E. The team  also played Haberdashers last Monday in the County League in what was another excellent display to get the win 44-22. OPM - Marelie R & CPM - Maddie B

A great win for the u14B netball team vs SRA this afternoon; final score 13-8 and great improvements throughout! OP - Freya W, CP - Honey S

The U14B Girls Netball team played Samuel Ryder away on Monday and in a close match saw themselves to victory 13-8. Well played girls.

A strong performance from the U13 boys football team this week, qualifying for the next round of the district cup with a 5-0 win against St Albans School

The U14 girls football team played their first round of the SIS National Cup at home on Tuesday. It was a solid performance from the team who professionally saw off St. Albans High School 6-0 to see them progress to the next round. Well played girls.  PP - Rebecca S and CP Rachel K

Last Friday, our U14 basketball went to Chelmsford to play Great Baddow in the last 32 of the England Basketball National Schools Cup. In what was a very tense and heated game. Harry G was superb contributing 40 points and leading the team to victory and a place in the last 16.

This week our girls basketball team also put in an outstanding performance vs Queens School; the game went to a thrilling overtime, where we, unfortunately, lost 37-36! PP Mimi and CPM Hannah G

The Y8 Basketball team were also in action on Wednesday in the District league and in a good performance that saw us dominate the rebounds we keep our unbeaten record in this competition in tact with a 33-5 victory.

This week saw Sandringham achieve another first. Our 2nd XI were playing in the ESFA U18B National Cup semi-final away at Gordon’s School on Wednesday. The team knew the importance of this game and what was a at stake. We had to be at our best in such a high profile competition at this crucial stage to make the showpiece final. The team were prepared after a journey round the M25 to Woking and started their warm up with the right mindset. Once the game started our nerves were soon calmed as Ashton L chased down a back pass to block the keeper’s clearance and roll the first goal in with his left foot to take a very early 1-0 lead. This is just what the team needed and allowed us to then dominate possession and dictate the pace of the game. Only a few minutes later Cian J took a quick free kick just in our own half and went diagonally long towards Mattie H who was bearing down on an already anxious keeper. As the centre back missed his headed clearance Mattie was able to squeeze between the other defender and goal keeper to loop a header in for a 2-0 lead. The rest of the first half saw us keep the ball without creating many chances. As we awaited the final whistle a couple of minutes saw the game change. In what should have been a routine throw in for us, the assistant and referee awarded it to Gordon’s before a long throw came into our box and as Max S went to head clear the referee deemed this illegal and awarded the home team a penalty. They converted this swiftly to put the game at 2-1 to us going into the break. We now felt the pressure and Gordon’s with a large home crowd were motivated to grab the next goal. The second half dragged on as both teams pushed for the all important 4th goal. A speculative 25 yard effort from the Gordon’s captain looked to be heading towards the top corner until Matt McCadeptly dived high and wide to tip it around the post in what was an outstanding save. After this even with some tense moments at both ends the final whistle came. We did it! A National football final for the school! It is a huge achievement and we await our date and venue for what should be a huge finale in what can hopefully be National success for the school. Well done boys!

Chuckle. In association with The Sandpit Theatre bring you the very best in live standup comedy.

Enjoy some of the biggest names in comedy along with our favourite handpicked artists.

Tonight’s lineup includes Sandringham School alumni Nick Helm (Live at the Apollo, 8 Out of 10 Cats) / Esther Manito (Live at the Apollo) / Ben Norris (Mock the Week, “. unbelievably brilliant” - Jason Manford) / Mark Row (A1: The Long Road to Edinburgh on Amazon Prime)

Please note the lineup maybe subject to change.

Tickets are on sale now for just £16.50 each

An evening filled with loud noises, flashing lights and lots of mess!  Hold onto your hats and come and enjoy this explosive showcase of science.

IT’S TERRY!

“…Unstable and deliciously unexpected” The Guardian

It’s Terry is a brand new knock about show Introduced by the world famous character performer ‘Richie Raganoo’ - who by his own omission, says Terry Alderton is the “weakest character he does. But his most successful!”

It’s Terry has narrative, it’s a throw it up and see where it lands kind of show. So those that Know, Know, and those who don’t…will!

Tickets - £17

Sandringham School presents their annual concert. This features all their choirs and instrumental clubs, including the ever-growing show choir, the famous jazz band and sinfonia orchestra.

Tickets £5/£4

It's back! The ever-popular Sandringham FO$S Pop Quiz Night is an event not to be missed!

There will be a bar available with wine, beer, prosecco, soft drinks, and all tickets include Fish and Chip supper with more options available on ticket purchase.

Teams must be no larger than 8.  Each row is a table of 8.  This has no allocation to where you will be sitting in the hall.

This event is for OVER 18’s ONLY

Tickets £12 + booking fee

We can’t wait to see you back through our doors and we have some exciting shows and films coming up for you this season!

All the latest performances are on our website, www.sandpittheatre.co.uk, and you can keep up to date with what’s going on by giving us a follow either on Instagram & Twitter or give us a like on Facebook, just search for The SandPit Theatre!

***

The box office is open from 11.30am – 3.30pm Monday, Wednesday & Friday. Alternatively, you can call us on 01727 799565 or visit www.sandpittheatre.co.uk