On Tuesday 21st March, students and staff filled The Sandpit Theatre to hear about the experiences of Holocaust survivor Ivan Shaw MBE. He shared how he was five years old when his Jewish parents were arrested by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. Ivan was taken to a prison cell by the Gestapo and he was meant to be transported to Auschwitz but an aunt rescued him. During his speech, he reminded the audience of the importance of tolerance. His memorable talk finished with Ivan answering a question from a student asking for life advice. He shared that life is full of ups and downs and that we should learn from the downs and enjoy the ups.

On Wednesday some of our Year 11 students enjoyed visiting Oaklands College.  They were able to visit their curriculum areas of interest, watch a presentation about college life and a go on a campus tour. The photo shows a group visiting the Animal Care team.  If you would like to find out more about Oaklands, please visit their website here.

WMT Chartered Accountants

Sixth Formers interested in becoming accountants may like to attend an open evening at WMT Chartered Accountants: The evening is a chance for students to network with the team (and each other!), learn more about  career opportunities offer and get career insights into the work that firms like this do. This event might appeal to students interested in business or finance, as well accounting.

• Date: Tuesday 4th April 2023
• Time:  5:30pm to 7:00pm
• Location: Verulam Point, Station Way, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL1 5HE, next door to St Albans City Rail Station
• Attendees should RSVP to: careers@wmtllp.com .

Sandringham school will be hosting their third Charity Rugby Match to support the work of Youth Talk in St. Albans. At 7.30pm on Wednesday 19th April at OAs Rugby Club, we will be joining staff, students, parents and alumni to celebrate our shared passion for rugby whilst also raising money for a very important local cause, Youth Talk. This mental health charity, has been providing 13 - 25 year olds in the St Albans District with free, confidential one-to-one counselling support for 25 years and does some amazing work. Young people are facing a mental health crisis - more young people than ever before are struggling with their mental health and right now, 100 young people are waiting for Youth Talk's help.

The charity have secured a new, larger home in central St Albans. We want to help them raise much needed funds to see them in through the front door. Their new home will provide them with the space to offer more than double the amount of counselling to more young people. Young people are our future, your donation and support today will have a real and lasting impact. You can donate here. Thank you for your support. 

As you may or may not be aware, Kooth online counselling service for children and young people in Hertfordshire is coming to an end on 31 March. There will however, be a new service provider launching on 1st April, The Sandbox, which is a free, NHS funded service to support children and young perople in Herts with their mental health and wellbeing offers: access to internet enabled Cognitive Behavioural therapy, one to one support from professional therapist by texts, phone, online chat or video calls. The Sandbox has:

• A website which is open 24/7
• Therapy sessions: 7am-10pm Mondays-Fridays and 10am-10pm Saturdays and Sundays
• Live Chat: 10am-8pm Mondays-Fridays

Signing up is easy and doesn’t require a referral from a professional. You can visit The Sandbox website or click here

In DT, students have the chance to work on a huge variety of creative modules, using lots of different media and machinery. Year 9 have been taking part in a Pewter Casting project with some fantastic results! 

Well done to Newton who take the lead this week with over 13,000 house points in total. Special mentions also go to Rose McK in 7N with 12 house points this week and Hepworth for winning the staff badminton and house points overall with 516 points. Well done also to Alessia Z 8H for winning the KS3 STEM photography competition and Mia R 8H for her second place finish.

Upcoming events:

• House basketball week (W/C 27th March)

Well done to Ava L in 8F who designed and created the LRC's latest Dystopian Fiction display. Ava worked incredibly hard, choosing books and sourcing pictures and captions to create such a fantastic, eye-catching display. Dystopian fiction is a popular genre in the LRC and Ava's display has already drawn attention from students looking for their next read. Thank you also to Rachel C in 8F who provided assistance. Do pop up to the LRC to see our friendly librarians if you would like some reading for over the Easter holidays!

Last Friday, Fo$S hosted their annual Quiz Night at Sandringham School. It was a huge success, raising £2248 in profit. This money will go towards items which enrich the learning for our students so we really appreciate all of their hard work. Thank you to all of the parents who attended and to Nick Grubb for hosting a fun night. Look out for more Fo$S events in future editions of the Sandprint.

You can be part of a record breaking crowd at St Albans City ground this weekend. Children under 12 go free with a paying adult. Tickets are available here

Well done to everyone who entered previously and got the answer right! This week's puzzle is shown above. For every entry you will receive 1 house point, if you answer correctly you will win 2 housepoints and if you are the fastest person to answer the puzzle correctly then you will win 5 house points!  To enter, simply scan the QR code and fill out the google form.  Good luck! Why not play at home and see who is the quickest to get the answer?

Episode 5 of our Sandringham based podcast, Sandcast, is out now! In this episode Ryan and Mr Cracknell catch up with Ms Taylor- Paul (Director of the @AlbanTSH) and Alice T-P (Year 12) to discuss their time together at Sandringham School and their ambitions for the future. Have a listen where you get all of your usual podcasts!

We have the following support staff vacancies at our fantastic school. Please see here for more details.

• Learning Supervisor
• Assistant Data Manager
• Computing Hub Regional Administrator
• D&T Technician

We had a brilliant turnout for the Staff House Badminton on Monday. Around 30 staff were involved in what was a high quality competition. There are clearly some hidden talents amongst the Sandringham staff and the results were are as follows:

• 1st - Hepworth
• 2nd - Shakespeare
• 3rd - Fawcett & Turing
• 5th - Austen & Johnson
• 7th - Newton

A number of Sandringham students are accepted on to apprenticeship programmes annually. This week, two Year 13 students have successfully been offered degree apprenticeships with PWC. Abdullah will be studying and working in digital technology and Ali will be studying and working in accountancy. These four year programmes are extremely competitive and both students went through several rounds of online tests, interviews and assessment centre. We are extremely proud of them. The students worked with our Apprenticeship Champion, Mrs Boost, who gave advice and support during the application process.  Well done Abdullah and Ali.

This week’s whole school theme is SMSC - Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural Education. SMSC development is the overarching umbrella that encompasses personal development across the whole curriculum. The spiritual development of pupils is shown by their ability to be reflective about their own beliefs (religious or otherwise) and perspective on life. The moral development of pupils is shown by their ability to recognise the difference between right and wrong and to readily apply this understanding in their own lives, recognise legal boundaries and, in so doing, respect the civil and criminal law of England. The social development of pupils is shown by their use of a range of social skills in different contexts, for example working and socialising with other pupils, including those from different religious, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. The cultural development of pupils is shown by their understanding and appreciation of the wide range of cultural influences that have shaped their own heritage and that of others. Students received an excellent assembly from SMSC coordinator, Ms Coy, that outlined how students build their SMSC in curricular, extra-curricular and super-curricular activities. 

Our Spanish Exchange are having a fantastic time in Seville visiting the EuropaSchool Sevilla. You can follow all of the highlights for all their trips and other events (inclusing the upcoming Year 8 trips) in MFL on Twitter @SandringhamMFL . Thank you to all the staff involved in making these trips such a success.

Year 7 have planted 105 trees between them this week in their Geography lessons. This is all part of the continued drive to make Sandringham more sustainable and improve biodiversity on site. The trees were provided free of charge by the Woodland Trust and are all colourful trees such as cherry, dogwood and cherry. The students have been studying the natural world this term in geography and this has been a great practical experience to help them to understand possible actions that we can take to protect the natural world and mitigate against climate change. The students were keen to get stuck in and did an excellent job, despite a bit of rain in some of the sessions!

This week, we feature the amazing Eliza P for our student spotlight. Eliza P 7J has borrowed one hundred books from the LRC since starting at Sandringham in September. And she mentioned that there are other books she has read from home too! Miss Critchley in the LRC says of her "Eliza is a confident and voracious reader and it has been lovely to see her enjoying so many books whilst challenging herself to a few classics. Eliza is also the first Year 7 student to achieve her Diamond reading award. Well done!" 

If you would like to nominate someone for the student spotlight, please email Melissa.holian@sandringham.herts.sch.uk with any details and/or photos.

FRENCH: Le mot de la semaine: Penchant

GERMAN: Das Wort der Woche: Faible

SPANISH: La palabra de la semana: Afición

Thinking Question

•  What can learning a language teach us about a culture or the heritage of a country?

Amy's just found out she isn't going to the same high school as everyone else. Add to that her annoying younger brothers, Pops' worsening dementia and Cassie, her supposed best friend, being meaner than ever. But then Amy discovers Jay, the kind, quiet boy from school who lives over the road from her grandparents and realises that friendship isn't always about who talks the most and the loudest, who does the most exciting things. Sometimes a friend is just someone to talk to, someone who listens. 

Lois says 'This is a really fun book about family and friendship. I like how the main character helps out her grandparents when she has to spend the summer with them even though she has to miss out on seeing her friends.'

P is for… penchant [noun]

Definition: A strong or habitual liking for something or tendency to do something.

Example: He has a penchant for adopting stray dogs.

Synonyms: affection, propensity, weakness

Antonyms: antipathy, disinclination, dislike

Etymology: From the French ‘pencher’ meaning to  lean.

As mentioned in the Headlines, the Y11 boys took the District title after victory over St. Columba’s College with goals from Jonah, Ben, Tomer, Noah and Finn. Well played boys and congratulations on another trophy.

Our Year 7, 8,9 and 10 boys all played KWS last Saturday with mixed results. The Year 7's narrowly lost 1-0 in a closely fought match. Well done to every player this year, with a lot of success in the National, county and district competitions! The Year 8 football team fared better ending with a good win 7-1. The boys have been a pleasure to coach the season. The Year 9 team also managed a good win 2-0 in tough conditions. Well done to all who have represented the team this year. And finally, our Year 10 boys finished their football season with a defeat to a strong KWS side. Back to the drawing board for Year 11 and hopefullynext season produces some silverware which the boys deserve.

The Y10 boys beat St. Columba’s College in an exciting and very competitive final 74-68 to retain the County title. Well played boys, you did yourselves and your school proud this evening. Some outstanding defence and intensity won that game for you.

On Monday, the U13 hockey team finished their season on a real high, playing Dame Alice Owens in their first 11 – a – side match. The team were well drilled for their attacking and defensive short corners and roles of their position which helped them to maintain their shape throughout the game. Each player was focused in their effort and they really gelled well as a team. Both teams played some excellent hockey and chances created and excellent goals scored at both ends. The final result was 3-2 to Dame Alice but overall, it was a thoroughly enjoyable game with goalkeeper Rose player of the match and the team already looking forward to next season.

As mentioned the U16 girls Netball Performance Squad team did amazing well to get to the finals of the Sisters N Sport National Plate which took place on Wednesday. Despite being up in the first and second quarters ( 9-7 Q1, 19-16 Q2 ) we went down 24-28 in the third quarter and never recovered, ending the match. 29-38. Well done to the whole amazing squad though! It's been a great season. 

In other news as well, our u19 Performance Squad ended the season on a high! Difficult conditions meant it wasn't the best netball but they beat Presdales 20-19 in the County Cup final! We are extremely proud of this squad for their effort and performances this season! POM - Sib M

Our Seniors Girls, Annabel H, Beckie C and Lily T, Inter Girl, Zoe H and Junior Girl, Georgia T all ran at theEnglish Schools Cross Country on Saturday. Well done to Annabel who came 71st and wjp came Lily 77th helping Herts to finish 2nd county in England overall. An amazing season and amazing racing girls! 

This extraordinary I Spy game is nothing like the one you might remember from long car drives with your dad though.  Instead, it's a magical adventure full of fun, giggles and all your favourite sing along song including Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes, Sing a Rainbow, The Ants Go Marching and BINGO.

I Spy with My Little Eye is based on the popular children's book by author Steven Lee and was created alongside education and child development experts to be great for kids’ minds. So, it's not just wonderful entertainment for your little ones but good for them too!

After sell-out shows from as far afield as Dubai, Dublin and Derby the cast of the wonderful People's Theatre Company are bringing I Spy with My Little Eye to The SandPit Theatre!