Thank you so much to all of our students and our outstanding Arts team who have worked so hard to ensure that Arts Week has been a celebration of creativity and working together to develop and share our skills. This year, the theme has been Let’s Create which celebrates the difference that we can make when we work together to connect, be creative and learn new skills. It is also designed to inspire participation in our Arts Award programme and enable our Arts Award students to grow their arts and leadership talents. All of our Arts team have come together to ensure an outstanding offer for young people, including hosting numerous professional workshops throughout the week. In addition, we have been so incredibly impressed with our Bronze Arts Award Leaders, who have led the week and ensured a variety of Arts workshops have been offered daily to inspire learners across the school. You can see more information and pictures of all of the fantastic events @SandringhamVisualArts. Our celebration events including our Summer Concert,  Euphoria Dance Show and Visual Arts exhibition have been a true celebration of our students efforts throughout the academic year and we would like to thank them so much for their inspiring approach. Finally, we know many of our students are looking forward to Music on Tour this weekend and a huge thank you to all of the music team for organising this opportunity for our musicians. We hope all of our students have enjoyed the week and we now look forward to seeing their participation in Fit for Life week which is coming up next week.

Thank you so much for the generous plant pot donations! We are now on the hunt for a few more items for the Whole School Show. 

• Faux flowers
• Trilby hats 
• Blazers/jackets

We’d be very grateful for anything you are able to donate. Please could you leave any of the items in the costume/prop collection box outside the Drama office. Thank you!

The Dance department has been buzzing with lots of activities and excitement for the Summer Dance show, Euphoria. It was a huge success. Thank you to all of our great dancers and to everyone who came to watch and support tham. Thank you also to all our dance practitioners for leading inspirational workshops, from commercial, University of Lincoln, Irish dancing. All the dancers involved in the dance show did an amazing job, and a massive thank you to Miss Wilson as she choreographs for her final show here at Sandringham. We hope that everyone had a great Arts Week!

We are really pleased to be hosting a book launch and Q&A with our author Librarian Emily Critchley on July 12th from 3.30pm in the LRC. She has just published her next novel, one Puzzling Afternoon, to rave reviews. At the event Emily will not only be talking about the book but also the process of being a writer and we would encourage all those in the Sandringham community interested in reading and being an author to attend. It would be great to see you at the event! Students and staff are welcome to attend and if any parents of children at the school would like to attend, please sign up in advance here.

It has been fantastic to hear more about the Year 10 students’ work experience placements.  Students were involved in a wide range of industries and organisations.  Here is a picture of Tom at his placement at Savills UK Ltd where he pleased to get the chance to work on site.

Student quotes:

• “I most enjoyed working on a real life project and going to a design meeting.”
• “I enjoyed having opportunities to lead parts of classes as well as interacting with the children and helping with their dances.”
• “I enjoyed being engaged in opportunities around the office environment and getting some insight into a work sector that could be a potential future career.”
• “I definitely enjoyed helping the children and throughout the week I helped them with different things including reading, rounders, running, maths and geography.”
• “I most enjoyed making machines.”

Organisation quotes:

• “It was a pleasure to have Kia, she is a lovely girl and worked hard. She represented Sandringham School wonderfully, you should be very proud of her.”
• “It was a pleasure having Denise and I must say I was impressed with the whole process, the Unifrog setup and communication and the phone call during the work placement, and now a lovely thank you message!”
• “My team and I were very impressed by Eugene and it shines through in the LinkedIn article that he wrote to summarise his one-week project.”

A report from Alexa H about her fantastic experience of the German Trip for E Week. (Photo below taken by Lennie B (8H.)

My friends and I went to Boppard in Germany last week, and it was honestly one of the most fun holidays I’ve ever been on. The coach ride was not so good, mostly because it was a lot longer than expected because we missed our first ferry but the trip was definitely worth the long journey. On the first day we drove to the village of Cochem to visit Cochem Castle, where we split into muster groups and were shown around by a tour guide. The castle was absolutely beautiful (just not as much as the gift shop) and full of history, so that was great. For an unforgettable view over the village and the Mosel Valley, we went on a cable car ride, and after that we headed to a swimming pool which had a waterslide and a massive diving board. We had some great divers on the trip and also some who were less experienced, but they were great cannonballers.

On the second day we took the coach to Cologne (called ‘Köln’ in German) to see the famous Cathedral. We learnt a bit about it on the coach, like how it was used by the RAF in WWII as a kind of checkpoint because the huge spires were so easy to spot from a plane. But before the cathedral, we went on a boat trip along the Rhine and also had a look around a Lindt chocolate museum, which was really interesting and also smelt amazing. The cathedral was magnificent and the inside had a really great atmosphere, with dark religious imagery and candles everywhere. After we’d had a look around we were allowed some free time for shopping and exploring the city centre, and almost everyone spent a LOT of their money on souvenirs that day. Me and my friends even bumped into Mr Keenleyside in H&M at one point.

The third day (the final full day) was when we went to Phantasialand, which is an incredible German theme park. There were roller coasters, water rides, carousels and many many gift shops. Everyone was buzzing on the coach back to the hotels - it was such a brilliant day! At the end of the day we had a disco and an awards ceremony, with prizes for things like ‘best international student’ but also ‘best poser’ and ‘biggest splash at the swimming pool’.

I couldn’t include everything we did on the trip or this article would be a mile long, but the trip was amazing, so thanks so much to Mrs Kincaid for organising it! I hope next year’s Year 8s enjoy it as much as we did.

Sandringham students competed in a national engineering competition on Thursday, having made it to the top 5 out of 178 schools. Alice G, Zainab S, Arhaan S, Rose O, William S and Siya M performed brilliantly, designing and building a prototype system for receiving drone deliveries. As well as competing, at the Aviation centre at Cranfield University, the students heard talks from professional engineers, took part in activities including flying a drone and learning about aeroplanes, and spent time with other Year 8 students from around the UK. This was organised by The Institution of Engineering and Technology. We are planning for two Sandringham teams to enter the competition again next year. Well done to everyone involved!

Arts Week started off with a fantastic Stage Combat Workshop for students in all year groups. Miles from Squire Stage Combat took the students through an impressive set of unarmed and armed combat moves which we worked on in pairs. The students really enjoyed being able to use the swords and once we added in believable facial expressions and vocals the studio was looking very much like scene from 'Game of Thrones'. 

The final performance was so exciting and the students loved taking part and bringing all their learnt skills together. Hopefully the students will be able to use some of the combat work in future performances. 

• "It was so cool to use the swords". Year 7 Student.
• " I was nervous before I started but soon got to be comfortable with using the swords and adding noises to my performance". Year 8 Student
• "I loved the workshop so much! Being able to use swords was so fun". Year 10 Student.

Well done to all involved for some great work. 

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?

Year 12 Psychologists visited the Freud Museum, Hampstead on Tuesday 27th June as part of their studies of the Psychodynamic Approach.

The Freud Museum is dedicated to Sigmund Freud located in the house on Maresfield Gardens where Freud lived with his family during the last years of his life. The star exhibit in the museum is Freud's psychoanalytic couch.

Students took part in two workshops; “The Curious Case of Little Hans”, the famous case study of a young boy in Vienna with a phobia of horses and “Freud on Schizophrenia” – an alternative approach to the biomedical model that proposes that delusions rather than being symptoms of the disorder, are part of the healing process. We hope that students enjoyed the trip and found it useful for their studies.

Well done to Alex O'N in 7N who gained a silver medal for his 200m back swimming race on Sunday at CoStA End of Season Open Meet. This is a fantastic achievement. Congratulations Alex.

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

Last week, Year 9 went on an enrichment trip to PGL Liddington. The aims of the visit were to build students resilience, teamwork skills and confidence. With PGL’s vast array of exciting activities, the students were eager to get stuck in. Throughout the trip, they were able to experience Jacobs Ladder, zip lining, the giant swing, problem solving, vertical challenge, archery, trapeze and aero ball. All of these provided the perfect blend of challenge and excitement, with many taking on their fear of heights. In the evenings, students were also given the opportunity to participate in team building quizzes and tournaments. As the students bid farewell to PGL, they carried with them cherished memories, newfound confidence, and an unwavering spirit of adventure, ready to embrace the challenges that lay ahead in Year 10. A really big thank you to all of the staff that supported to make sure the students had a fantastic trip.

This week’s whole school theme prepares students for next week’s Fit 4 Life week. Fit 4 Life week has been a staple part of the school calendar for many years. It places an emphasis on the importance of physical activity for mental and physical health and encourages students to increase their participation in sport and exercise. The students received an excellent assembly from Director of Sport, David Keenleyside that advertised all of the additional activities that are running next week. This includes both Sports Day on Wednesday and the Charity Run on Friday. We encourage all students to walk or run the 7km and raise as much money as possible for our three charities: Herts for Refugees; Unicef; and Youth Talk.

We are delighted to include a report from Georgia and Gabby in Year 8 detailing their experience of  French trip last week.

We really enjoyed the trip!  All of the activities were fun and educational at the same time. Our favourite activity was when we went to the Nausicaa aquarium where we saw lots of fish (and sharks!). In Le Touquet, we experienced ordering at a café in French- and even got corrected by some very patient waiters. We loved using our French in the real world! Other activities we did included: visiting a chocolate factory, visiting a cheese factory, a very informative visit to a snail farm, shopping in the old town of Boulogne sur mer, a visit to Parc Bagatelle (the rides were great and we even went on a pedalo!) and lots of visits to beaches throughout. Overall, it was a very enjoyable and interesting trip that we recommend it to everyone with the opportunity to go. Thank you to our teachers for taking us - it was amazing!

It was fantastic to celebrate our 2022/23 Alban Federation cohort who have completed their teacher training last night. The programme requires hard work and commitment, alongside the dedication to change lives and we are really proud of all of them especially Ms Pearson and Mr Richardson who completed their training this year with us. Applications for 2024 open in October. Please visit the website for more information www.albanfederation.com . Well done everyone, we look forward to welcoming the 2023 cohort in September.

Newton top the board this week with 15,419 points with Fawcett second on 14,935 and Austen 3rd with 14,885. Well done to Mati M, Thanisk K, Freddie M, Jimmy D, Toby B, Salma C and George D who all gained 7 or more house points this week. And to Hepworth, who gained the most house points overall this week (233)

Next week it is all to play for with one of our major house events of the year- Sports Day. Good luck to everyone involved!

FRENCH: Le mot de la semaine: Inimitié

GERMAN: Das Wort der Woche: Vijandschap

SPANISH: La palabra de la semana: Enemistad

Thinking Question:

• There are roughly 6,500 languages spoken in the world – why do we have so many? How have they developed over time?

True Biz, written by Deaf novelist Sara Nović documents the experiences (both in their personal and professional lives) of the students and  headmistress (February) of River Valley School for the Deaf. The book provides the audience with a range of experiences surrounding the d/Deaf community such as February who is a Child of Deaf Adults, Charlie who is new to the school and the Deaf world and Austin who is Deaf and has grown up surrounded by Deaf family and American Sign Language (ASL). Throughout the book Nović has featured information about the language and its history alongside diagrams allowing the reader to further their understanding of the language and community. 

What I particularly like about the book is that the author has not specifically focused on the lives of the characters within the school but has told the story of the characters lives in the wider world, interacting with those outside of the Deaf community. I also really enjoyed the chapters from the perspective of February as it was really interesting to find out more about the running of a school and the difficulty and importance of keeping Deaf Schools like River Valley School for the Deaf open. - By Isabella B, Year 13

E is for… enmity [verb]

Definition: A state or feeling of active opposition or hostility.

Example: Decades of enmity existed between the two countries.

Synonyms: acrimony, hatred, rancour

Antonyms: friendship, liking, respect

Etymology: Based on the Latin ‘inimicus’.  From ‘in’ meaning not and ‘amicus’ meaning friend.

Good luck to the 3 superstars representing Sandringham at this years @SchoolAthletics

Our u19 Netball team had a great day @HertfordHornets 50 year celebration tournament over the weekend trying out new combinations. Preseason starts now!

Please see above for our upcoming fixtures. 

The critically acclaimed creative team that brought you ‘Hansel & Gretel’ are back with more fun-fuelled pantomime madness; a joyful new twist on another old story, it’s not to be missed. Rapunzel saves the day (and herself!) in this action packed, magical musical pantomime adventure. Let down your hair with a cast of kooky characters as they dance and sing through this unusual, tangled tale; where people live in giant old boots and tall towers, where frog boys rap about enchanted ponds and girls with long hair battle more than split ends! Tickets cost £10-£17.50 and you can buy them here.