This week, we say a fond farewell to one of our amazing caretakers, Stuart Franklin. Having worked at the school for over 10 years, we are hugely grateful for everything that he has done to keep our lovely school looking so smart. He is often spotted around the school, transporting items on his buggy so we know that he will be sad to let go of his keys to that! He is always a smiley face around campus and nothing is ever too much to ask of him. We wish him all the best in his well earned retirement. 

Friday 8th December is “Christmas Jumper Day”. Students are invited to support this National Charity Day for Save the Children by wearing a Christmas jumper or any Christmas accessory. A minimum donation of £2 is suggested and can be paid via parent pay.

We are super excited to announced that VELOCITY 2024 tickets go on sale Monday 4th December on the Sandpit theatre website. This is always a fantastic showcase of all of our amazing dance talents at Sandringham School and next year will be no exception. Grab your ticket before they are all gone!

We are currently looking for a Pastoral Support Assistant, Assistant Caretaker and Cleaner. More information is available on our website https://sandringham.herts.sch.uk/vacancies/

Please share with friends who may be interested.

We are delighted to say that we raised over £4,000 for Children in Need last month. This money will be used to help change the lives of children and young people facing disadvantage in communities across the UK so a huge thank you to everyone who contributed to our fundraising.

A polite reminder to parents, if you are driving your child to school, please drop them off outside the school gates, parking respectfully considering our neighbours' driveways. Please do not come on to the school site to drop students off as the entrances are very busy in the morning with students arriving and the car parks are reserved for staff only. 

You will have received a letter about the Year 7 & Year 8 School disco on Friday 8th December 6-7.30pm in the main hall. This is a fun event to also help raise money for charities as chosen by the students: Unicef, Herts4Refugees and Youthtalk. Tickets for the event costs £6.50. Please make your payment via ParentPay by 6th Dec!

With no newsletter last week, we are delighted to feature four student spotlights this week!

Congratulations as well to Keerthana A in Year 12, who has been participating in a prestigious student law competition. She was asked to write an essay and present a case critiquing the Supreme Court’s judgement in last year’s Fearne v Tate case. She was invited to compete in the final last Monday where she presented her argument in the Supreme Court to the barristers and one of the judges involved in the case and was the overall winner. You can catch the very end of her presentation here: https://youtu.be/RQq50R5H06M

Keethrana said of the experience: I was given the amazing opportunity to speak before the Supreme Court in front of the barristers who argued the Fearn v Tate, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I won, which was unexpected yet incredible!! It was a fantastic experience, and I learnt a lot simply by speaking at the courts and being challenged with questions from them and it definitely taught me more about legal careers, and some of the career paths I'd like to pursue in the future.  

It was with some trepidation that a group of 25 year 9 and 10 students and 3 teachers left Sandringham in the early hours of Thursday 23rd November on an exchange to Annecy in South West France.  Most students had not met their French partners before and everyone was at least a little apprehensive!  We need not have worried.  We could not have been given a warmer welcome.  

As we pulled into the car park at the Jean Monnet Collège in St Jorioz, Annecy, an hour after our arrival at Geneva airport, the children were lining the gates, desperate to see our students and to try out any English they could recall.  It was like superstars arriving!  The students were paired up and taken straight to lunch, French-style, always with some bread on the side.  This was the beginning of a week-long adventure, on both sides, each trying their language skills and trying to understand each other a little better.

The students did some activities together, and the English students did some sightseeing in France and Switzerland without their partners.  Over the weekend when Sandringham students were with their French partners, I believe the bowling alley did not know what had hit them!

Our Sandringham students are to be commended for their courage in leaving their families to stay in an unknown environment where their language and social skills would be put to the test.  They did extremely well. We cannot express our gratitude strongly enough to the Jean Monnet students, parents and staff for the warmth of their welcome and for accommodating our idiosyncrasies!  We are also very grateful to the hard work put into the exchange by Madame Kincaid.  We look forward to the return visit in March where we will enjoy sharing the delights of St Albans and a good cup of English tea!

We are very proud of our Year 12 Young Enterprise company, Arista-Crafts. It ran its first stall at Harpenden’s Christmas Carnival last weekend. Their items include beexwax wraps for sandwiches and food; phone charms and macramé bracelets. The company managed to take almost £400 at the event and won the “Innovation Award” for their beeswax wraps. There will be an Arista-Crafts stall at the Sandringham School fair and you can purchase their products here:

https://www.ye-tradingstation.org.uk/company/12783

Congratulations to Trinity V Yr13 and Christopher G Yr8 who were selected as finalists for the Maltings Art Prize. Their work was featured in an exhibition at the OVO theatre in the Maltings. Well done to Trinity and Christopher for their outstanding art work. We are very proud of the high standard of art work from all our students who entered. Students may collect their work from Mrs Gidden.

Our A level French group had a great day at the BFI learning about la nouvelle vague and French cinema. The below write up of the fantastic day is by Isabella L and Lauren P.

Last Tuesday Mrs Sweeney and our French A level class went to the British Film Institution.  The study day began with a presentation, analysing the style and themes of the French New Wave and its impact on contemporary French cinema.  In the afternoon we watched a screening of La Haine.  We expanded our vocab and broadened our knowledge of French film and culture.  It was great to be immersed in the French language and overall a very interesting and enriching day!

We had several staff and students indicate the various parkruns they’ve been involved in since the start of term. Leading the way are Johnson house, closely followed by Hepworth and then Elgar in third place. In terms of individual student efforts, Hannah P, 8J as completed nine parkruns since the start of term. Closely followed by Laila H, 9H with seven runs and Hamish B, 8E with four. Bonus points will be awarded for parkrun tourism. Noah L, 12S gained his, by running at Grovelands parkrun in early November. 

Staff and students earn one point for their house every time they walk, run or volunteer at a parkrun or junior parkrun. So why not get active this weekend at a parkrun near you. 

• Our local parkrun (Saturday 9am) is Jersey Farm, details found here. 5k.

• Our local junior parkrun (Sunday 9am) is Verulamium, details found here. 2k. 

There are many others too, see the map here, so wherever you take part, complete this Google Form. If you’ve never taken part before you will need a parkrun barcode. How to register and further details can be found here. We look forward to hearing about more entries in the coming weeks!

Carol Service – Weds 13th December, 7pm at St Saviours’ Church

With our annual Carol Service is fast approaching, our choirs and ensembles are busy preparing! Our choirs and Sinfonia are involved in this event, as well as a fewer of our smaller ensembles and all students taking part have received a letter. Rehearsals are taking part from sessions 2-5 in the church, so students need to remember to bring layers to keep warm on the walk there, as well as sensible walking shoes and a packed lunch. The event begins at 7pm and is held in St Saviour’s Church. It is worth noting that this is a very popular event so we strongly recommend purchasing tickets in advance via the Sandpit Theatre Box Office.

Instrumental lessons

We are in the process of getting our instrumental provision up and running again. Students who receive instrumental or singing lessons should check their emails as they will be notified if their lessons are resuming. Lessons will be held in different spaces, as the practise rooms are still closed, so students need to read the details carefully to check where their lesson will be.

Well done to Austen & Elgar houses who raised an impressive £1,969.24 for charity week recently. Thank you to all involved for your awesome efforts. 

A huge well done to Katherine M, in Year 13 who has been reselected for Saracens Mavericks U19 Pathway Squad. The team are coached by Tamsin Greenway and they begin their opening NPL (National Performance League ) campaign, next Saturday at the University of Nottingham. Katherine is currently captain of the Performance Squad at Sandringham school and it is great to see her excelling outside of school as well. We wish her the best of luck for the rest of the season.

We inspire our students to learn and apply their knowledge and skills for others’ needs and make positive changes to the world. A number of students from year 8 to year 12 learn about the design thinking process and start preparing for their STEM projects in various categories related to sustainability, health and wellbeing, equity, diversity & inclusion, and education. We have meetings every Wednesday lunch time at I6. Come and join us if you have some ideas or you would like to know more about how to start a STEM project.

SATURDAY RUGBY: ALL GAMES OFF!!

Due to weather conditions currently and forecast for overnight/Sat morning we have made a decision to call all rugby games against Sir John Lawes off (2/12/23). We will look to re-arrange the block fixture before the Xmas break. Please spread the word!

Fo$S look forward to seeing you at the Christmas Fair. We've got lots of lovely stalls to do some Christmas shopping, inflatable games and tombolas for the students, plus lots of lovely food and drink. Please come along to help raise money which goes towards vital funds which enhance the learning of our students.

A huge congratulations to Lauren D in Year 12 who has been awarded a certificate in recognition of being on of the top performers in GCSE Astronomy this summer. The award is given in partnership with the Royal Astronomy Society (RAS) to acknowledge student who were one of the top performers in the GCSE exam this year. This is a huge achievement and we are incredibly proud of Lauren.

We are also delighted to feature this week Isla in Year 8, who qualified to dance and compete at an ADFP dance weekender in Camber Sands. She danced on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and on Sunday she achieved her dream of moving up a grade to Under 14 Intermediates by placing 2nd in her freestyle discount fast solo out of 24 dancers. She also won her fast pairs heat with her dance partner. We are super proud of her! Well done Isla.

If you would like to nominate someone for the Student Spotlight next week, please email holianm@sandringham.aat.school with a few details and/or photographs. We would love to hear from you and celebrate the success of our wonderful students. 

Written by Bea K in Year 12.

On the 22nd of November me and other Biology A Level classes in year 12, went on a trip to  see lectures in London. The lectures covered a variety of topics and were given by different scientists and professors. The first lecture, given by Professor Lord Robert Winston, looked at Epigenetics and genes function. The second, by Professor Jennifer Rohn, described her studies in microbes, and the necessity of developing new antibiotics. My personal favourite lecture, from Professor Giles Yeo, discussed obesity and its causes, and the powerful genetic and biological influences on food intake. This I found particularly interesting, not only due to Yeo’s passion on the subject, but also the case studies and statistics he showed us. Between lectures we had breaks, and a talk from an examiner outlining how to answer questions in the exam and other useful tips. Professor Steve Jones and Alice Roberts gave the final two lectures, the first about Darwinism and evolution, and the second about anthropology. Overall, I felt like I learned a lot and would like to thank the biology teachers for organising this trip.

We are delighted to include a write up from the French students from Jean Monnet about their experience of Sandringham students visiting them. 

At first the correspondents arrived at Jean Monnet School on Thursday 23rd November, we were excited to see them. They ate lunch with us but we felt very shy. Then the English people went to the library to listen to stories. Afterwards they went to their host houses. On Friday we all went to Annecy to complete a quest. In the quest we were in groups of 10, we completed different missions, like singing the national anthem of France, in the old part of Annecy. At lunch a part of the group ate at Burger King and the others ate their picnic. At the end of the trip we went to the castle museum of Annecy.

When the weekend came we did lots of different activities with our correspondents. We went to different mountains such as Semnoz, La Clusaz and Chamonix. In the mountains we sledded and visited the village in the snow. A lot of people went to the Christmas market in Menthon or Annecy. In Menthon’s castle there was an ice rink, it was very funny. On Saturday evening we went bowling and it was very cool. After bowling we slept very late. At the weekend some people had a crepe party, it was very good! Someone else went on the lake on a boat, it was so cool! At the laser game we had a terrible strategy and our team lost. But for the second game we destroyed them. At Vitam Parc, an Aquaparc some students swam and went on the slides, so fine! Some students stayed at home and played board games like Risk, that was incredibly fun!

On Monday we went to school but the correspondents went to Lyon. In the morning they visited the Fourvières cathedral and for lunch they had a picnic outside made by their host families. Next they could do some shopping. Then in the afternoon the correspondents went to see the museum of Illusions. Finally they came back by bus to the school at 7pm. On Tuesday in the morning they took the bus at 8:30am to go to Geneva. They went to visit the CERN exhibition where they could see a laboratory of science and could learn lots of interesting things. Before they had visited the Museum of the Red Cross where they learnt the history of the Red Cross. When they came back to St Jorioz, they went to Super U where they bought snacks and some of the students bought flowers for their host families.

On Wednesday they left the school at 6:30. It was sad. The students of 4eme A and C will miss you! <3 See you in 4 months!

Well done to all those who braved the cold on Monday to take part in house events! The results are as follows:

Year 9 & 10 house netball: 1st - Johnson 2nd - Newton 3rd - Austen 4th - Hepworth 5th - Fawcett/Turing& Elgar

Year 9 and 10 house Rugby: 1st - Shakespeare 2nd - Fawcett 3rd - Austen 4th - Johnson 5th - Turing 6th - Hepworth 7th - Newton

We are looking for parents/careers with experience of interviewing to help us with our ‘You’re Hired’ event in January.  Every year 11 student will take part in a mock interview to help prepare them for their future career.  The volunteers who have assisted in the past have given fantastic feedback to the school and enjoyed meeting the students.  If this is something you can help with on Thursday 18th January (ideally from 8:30am – 1:30pm), please email Carly Eady (eadyc@mysandstorm.org).  Thank you in advance!

The Puzzle of the Week is a Mathematics challenge run weekly. This week's puzzle is shown above. For every entry you will receive 1 house point, if you answer correctly you will win 2 house points 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?

Last week was the final lesson of our A level Life Drawing classes. Well done to all those students who took the opportunity to take part. They learnt experimental drawing techniques, using inks, pastels and charcoal on a large scale. The students benefited from learning how to draw the proportions of the figure accurately using measuring techniques. They also learnt how to work quickly and expressively. We are proud of the quality observational work they produced for their portfolios. We look forward to running these sessions again in the near future. Thank you to Mrs Steven who also assisted in teaching these lessons.

We are delighted to be able to promote Initial teacher Training at the Alban TSH in partnership with the National Institute of Teaching. They offer highly-personalised, school-based teacher training, in the Hertfordshire region in both Secondary and Primary (5-11 and 3-7) settings and have a depth of experience in teacher training as well as established partnerships with a wide spectrum of excellent schools in the region.

The Alban TSH are running a webinar on Tuesday 12th December at 11.30 for information about joining their initial teacher training programme. New additions to their training offer include flexible training pathways (3 days a week, 4 days a week and full time, assessment only routes and QTS with PGCE.) Please see the picture above for more information or you can find out more here. You can also click on the link here to register for the 12th December webinar.

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, Mrs Coy, that delved into Morality and explored how people make ethical judgements.

FRENCH: Le mot de la semaine: Répugner à faire…

GERMAN: Das Wort der Woche: abgeneigt

SPANISH: La palabra de la semana: estar poco dispuesto a hacer algo

Thinking Question:

• This week the French and Spanish do not have direct translations as an adjective. Why is it that not all languages have the same words?

After a dust storm nearly kills him, and forces his crew to evacuate, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal earth that he’s alive. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills - and a relentless refusal to quit - he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him? Riley O Yr11 says ‘ I enjoyed the science in this book which helped ground the story, particularly how the main character created water by using chemical reactions.’

L is for…loath [adjective]

Definition: Unwilling or reluctant to do something.

Example: She’d be loath to admit it, but she doesn’t really like ballet classes.

Synonyms: Hesitant, Reluctant

Antonyms: Eager, Willing

Etymology:  The word originates from the Middle English ‘lōth’ meaning adverse or hateful.

Lots of rugby news from the last two weeks:

Fixtures vs Roundwood Park last week: The Year 10s had a hard fought game in wet conditions eventually winning 15-15. Tries from Griffiths, Luke C  & Hill. The Year 8s had a fantastic game with tries from Toby R x3, Alps A, and Lucas H to win 25-20. Superb effort from all involved! The Year 7s hosted two games at Sandringham as well with some good rugby played by both teams. The A team lost 5-2 whilst B team lost 6-2. Brilliant to see so many boys represent the school for the first time today. MOM Cofone & Durant. Unfortunately the Year 9 game was called off to do weather conditions. Please note NO RUGBY FIXTURES THIS WEEKEND

Our 1st XV also had a brilliant game of rugby with Mr Lacey’s Sandringham side taking on his old school SJL. With the scores tied at 7-7 at half time, the game came to life in the second half with Sandringham edging it 26-22. Duncan, Jackson, Reynolds & Tsangar

Our 1st X1 had another win last week 4-3 over Hemel School to put us into the hat for the last 32 of the U18 @SchoolsFootball Cup. Goals from Jonah (3) and Noah. A great team performance, well played.

Our Year 8 A team also had a great game in the County Cup against last year's winners, Richard Hale. After initially ending the first half down 1-3, the boys in red pulled it back to win 4-3. Impressive goals from Lewis S, Toby R and Lucas H (2). 

The Year 7 girls' football team played very well against Beaumont is freezing conditions, unfortunately it was a loss, but a great experience and lots to learn from. Well done all! 

And finally, two wins for our Year 8 girls this week. A well-matched game against Beaumont but we just managed the win. With goals from Emma D, Lilia C and Nell McK. And another 3-2 win in the last 32 of the national cup. Goals from Nell McK (2) and an extra time winner from Bea S took us through to the next round.. As well as the goalscorers, a special mention to Emma D for her tireless work in CM.

The U19 netball team had a slow start to their game against SJL this week and after being 6 goals down, bought it back level and were drawing to the last minute where they unfortunately ended with a loss. Well done to all who played. POM Isla

Well done to our Year 7 team who kick started their junior NBA campaign with a 26-14 win over Verulam. Some good basketball played at times with Jacob C taking the MVP.

Please see above for the upcoming fixtures next week

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.

Sandringham School's Music Faculty present a traditional service of lessons and carols, taking place in St Saviour's Church in Marshalswick on Wednesday 13th December at 7pm.

Tickets are on sale here and cost £4-£5