Our fantasy display board was unveiled this week and we are encouraging students to find their way to another world. Fantasy and fantasy romance titles are particularly popular at the moment here in the LRC with series such as the Twilight Saga finding a whole new audience. Escapism is key whilst exam season is upon us and we are encouraging students to relax and enjoy a magical, mystical tale or two! Many thanks to our creative Miss Blandford in the LRC for all her hard work making the display.

With Year 11 and Year 13 leaving this week, a gentle reminder to please settle any outstanding ParentPay balances please. Thank you!

A selection of our Year 10 Hospitality and Catering and Food Preparation students attended a Hospitality & Catering takeover at West Herts College on Friday. They took part a series of workshops delivered by industry professionals including: barista skills, travel and tourism, food waste management, table setting masterclass, mocktail making and sushi preparation. The students had a great experience and many were inspired by the possibilities, a future in the hospitality and catering sector could provide. Everyone came back motivated and well fed! 

Good luck to 2024 GCSE, BTEC and A level dance leavers!! You have worked so hard so let's show the exam boards what you are made of!

A special shout out to Dillon, Sophie, Lily, Amber who have been a huge part of the dance department for 7 years, we will miss you!

Go and smash your exams and enjoy your freedom this summer. 

Wishing the best of luck to our students taking their public exams this week. 

To Year 13: Thank you for being enthusiastic, hard-working, funny, entertaining, resilient, keen theatre nerds! You've been a DREAM to work with. We miss every single one of you lots, BUT we're also so excited to see what comes next. You will be amazing wherever you go. Good luck with all your exams and please pop in to say hello!

To Year 11- class 0.01- You've been a wonderful class and such a dream to work with. You've listened, you've run around school chasing me to mark extra essays you've done and you've just generally been a fantastic, hard-working bunch. You'll be missed in the Drama block this summer, but we know we'll see lots of you soon to join Team Drama for A Level next year. To class 0.02- Thanks for being thoroughly entertaining, brilliant and somewhat excitable (especially during Friday, Session 5). You've really embraced everything we've thrown at you and shown how hard-working you can be. We wish you all the best of luck tomorrow and can't wait to see our new Team Drama in September for A Level.

With Athletics season in full swing and the sun shining, every Wednesday, 3.30pm, outside K block, Sandringham school run takes place, alongside Mr Clark’s middle distance training. Feel free to come along to either or both! Latest results are here. We’re hoping, if the numbers continue to grow to feature in the regular parkrun newsletter, so come and join us! Congratulations to Samuel K (7N) who just completed his 10th run in a Personal Best!

On Tuesday 7th May, Louise Hardy from Balfour Beatty gave a careers presentation to all Year 8 students.  Louise spoke about her own career path into Engineering and gave an interesting insight into the various roles in the field.  It was particularly fascinating to hear about the huge role Louise played in planning the infrastructure for the London 2012 Olympic Games.  Students were engaged throughout and we are sure they were inspired by this assembly.  Huge thanks to Louise for taking the time to present to Year 8.

This week we feature the very talented Kiana Y in Year 8 who was selected out of 21,5000 entries for the online Royal Academy Summer Show with her amazing sculpture “The Misaki Stairs” What a fantastic achievement Kiana. Everyone who entered received 10 house points. The Art department would love to create an exhibition in school to celebrate all the wonderful art work so please bring in your entries if you haven’t already done so.

If you would like to nominate someone for the Student Spotlight, please contact holianm@sandringham.aat.school with a few details and/or photographs. We would love to hear from you

As previously mentioned, the picture above includes a useful list of services students can access, should they be feeling overwhelmed. 

We would also like to highlight again two excellent services which parents and students can access for support with their mental health and well-being. First Steps (who work closely with CAMHS, ED and NHS links to support young people who are struggling with eating difficulties, disorders, low self-esteem and poor body image) provide an excellent variety of resources. Young people can either self-refer or can be referred by someone else through their website www.firststepsed.co.uk. This is an excellent service for those experiencing difficulties, so if you would like to find out more, please visit the website or speak to Mrs Coyne in the SLA.

The Sandbox by Mindler is also an excellent free, NHS funded service to support children and young people in Herts with their mental health and well being. It offers access to internet enabled Cognitive Behavioural therapy, one to one support from professional therapist by texts, phone, online chat or video calls. Signing up is easy and doesn’t require a referral from a professional. You can visit The Sandbox website or click here to find out more details.

TACaccess is a new, free UK-wide directory developed by school leaders to provide rapid, cost-effective access to trained, DBS-checked mental health therapists, experienced in working with children and young people. With 1 in 5 children and young people suffering from a diagnosable mental health condition, Ruth Simmonds and Julian Rose set about creating a service that: - includes a directory of therapists with video profiles - searchable according to identified needs; - an online booking facility; - embedded, secure video conferencing facilities for online therapy; - secure payment to therapists through the directory. If this sounds like something which may be useful to your child, please follow the link here to register.

This week the theme of the week is Mental Health Awareness. This is a week that was created by the Mental Health Foundation and this year it takes place nationally on the 13th-19th May. The theme for 2024 is ‘Movement: Moving more for mental health’. This theme is important because despite the fact that Movement is vital for our mental health, so many people struggle to move enough..We know there are many different reasons for this, so this Mental Health Awareness Week aims to help people to find moments for movement in their daily routines; such as going for a walk in your neighbourhood or putting on your favourite music and dancing around the living room.This week students also received an excellent assembly from Mr Neville, where he shared some of his own strategies on how students can better regulate their mental health.

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?

We thoroughly enjoyed celebrating Year 13’s Last Day yesterday morning. We had a brilliant parade of costumes, videos of school memories and a whole host of special awards! As a year group, they have been fantastic; not only working incredibly hard over the last two years, but participating in and giving back to the school and wider community. It was great to celebrate all their achievements and the community that they have built. We wish them the best of luck for the future, and look forward to further celebrations at their prom in July.

One of our members of staff, Mr Smith, is running to and from 200 Hertfordshire schools in support of Home-Start Hertfordshire. He is just over halfway through, having covered 150 miles so far. Read his story and feel free to donate here if you can.    

Sandringham are currently looking for a SandpitTheatre Technician to join our fantastic school. More information is available on our website here.

Please share with friends who may be interested.

As mentioned in the Headlines, we bid a fond farewell to our lovely Year 11s on Wednesday. They have been a fantastic year group, showing real levels of motivation and ambition over the past five years, which we know will put them in a good position to flourish in their upcoming exams and beyond. As a year group they have shown commitment to all aspects of school life and achievements include National and County Champions in a range of sports as well as outstanding performances on the stage in Music, Drama and Dance.  Friendships have been formed and resilience shown during difficult times. We wish them lots of luck in their GCSEs and look forward to welcoming many of them back to join our Sixth Form in September. For those that are moving on to pastures new, we hope that they are happy and successful in whatever path they take and look forward to welcoming them back for our GCSE awards in the Autumn Term. Thanks Year 11, it has been a pleasure having you as a year group!

Well done to Turing who maintain their lead with 17,914 points. Newton, Fawcett and Shakespeare take 2nd, 3rd and 4th places. Well done to the following students with the highest points this week.

1. Clariden L (7F) 9 points
2. Diego D (9T) 9 points
3. Alvin L (7F) 8  points
4. Hannah L (7F) 8  points

If you are looking for something to do with the family on Saturday come and see our Art teacher, Mrs Gidden exhibit some of her paintings at The Living Crafts event at Hatfield House. She will be demonstrating oil painting techniques as part of the Herts Visual Arts group. The event features crafts such as glass blowing, metal welding, wood carving, ceramics and you can book workshops via the website here.

You are cordially invited to see our fantastic Year 7, 8 and 9 Drama Clubs take to the stage to perform extracts of their work they've created this year during Drama Clubs. The performance will include a showcase of:

• Young Actor's Company (Year 7) - James and The Giant Peach
• Eight Creates (Year 8) - Charlie and The Chocolate Factory
• Sandringham Actor's Society (Year 9) - Lord of The Flies and Tuesday 
• Musical Theatre Club (Year 7, 8 and 9)

Tickets are available on The Sandpit website and are live now! Don't miss out on an opportunity to see what we get up to in Drama. 

FRENCH: Le mot de la semaine: abandonné

GERMAN: Das Wort der Woche: ungenutzt

SPANISH: La palabra de la semana: En desuso

Thinking Question:

• How many languages are there in the world? If you don’t know, look it up! Have a think about why there are so many.

WRATH: extreme anger or rage.  Cassie Cotton has always been unusual, a bit different – but this only makes her more intriguing to her classmate Fitz. Cassie can hear a noise that most people don’t notice or recognise, and she believes it’s a sound that shows the Earth is in distress, damaged by human activity that is causing climate change. When this belief leads to her being ridiculed and bullied at school, Cassie disappears. Fitz is determined to find her, but he has no idea where to start looking, or if he’ll be in time to help her…

Published by Barrington Stoke, Wrath is a short novel written in a dyslexia friendly format. Marcus Sedgwick was a multi award winning writer and these short novels are a great way for all to experience his writing style. Our collection of shorter novels include stories by writers such as Patrice Lawrence, Tanya Landman, Emma Carroll and Peter Bunzl and they are a great way to discover the works of a new author when life gets very busy!

D is for ... defunct [adjective]

Definition: No longer existing, living or working correctly.

Example: He had been a reporter for the defunct New York Herald newspaper.

Synonyms: Obsolete, Expired

Antonyms: Working, Performing

Etymology: Derived from the Latin word ‘defunctus’ meaning  dead.

Well done to our Year 8 girls representing Sandringham at their regional finals in Guildford this week.

Well done also to our Year 9 team, who unfortunately bowed out of the county up plate with a disappointing defeat to Simon Balle. The hosts hit 105 off their 20 overs with Sandringham only reaching 66 before losing all 10 wickets.

Please see above for upcoming fixtures. Good luck to everyone taking part

Our Year 7 season comes to an end at the hands of SCC in the junior NBA. A 28-20 loss. Good luck to SCC in the next round. A fantastic season for our Year 7 boys however, with some great performances and improvement in play. 

Amazing to see that SIX school records have already been broken this year. Well done to all students and we look forward to reporting on more new records as the season progresses.

• Guy R-J - Yr 7 1500m
• Madison W - Yr 8 hurdles
• Toby R - Yr 8 300m
• Harry R - Yr 8 shot put
• Erin R - Yr 9 TJ
• Toby  P- Yr 9 1500m

Our Athletes faced tough opposition in a fixture in Stevenage on Wednesday with all schools taking points off each other.

Athletes of the meet:

• U14G - Madison W
• U14B - Will H
• U16G - Carys McP 
• U16B - Luke C

Following the fantastic success of ‘Hansel and Gretel’ & ‘Rapunzel’ our creative team are back with a Brand New pantomime adventure based on the classic tale.

 Puss In Boots and the Pea Green detective agency are ready to save Pantoland from a terrible threat!

The Hickory Dickory Dock clock has been stolen and someone is messing with the pantomime timeline. The police are struggling to sniff out a suspect and things are getting stranger by the hour! Join Puss In Boots on their epic quest to bring the time thief to justice. This sword-swinging, paw-scratching, time-stopping pantomime is an action packed treat for all ages!

Tickets are on sale here and cost from £10.00