For those of you new to the school, we thought we would share a bit about Fo$S and what they do.

Fo$S support the school by funding a wide range of equipment and activities to enhance the educational experience of children at Sandringham. Last year they raised £15,000 from various events and this was used to fund items including: £6,000 to fund the lighting system in the main hall, £2,700 to enhance student experience across the Science Faculty, £1,000 to fund reading pens for the Learning Resource Centre, £700 for PE to purchase some gymnastic equipment and £800 for the Media Department to purchase resources. They also pledged an additional £2,700, to the English Department for an annual digital theatre. This year they are hoping to help with the funding of the school minibuses.

We are sure you will agree, these are amazing donations which help enhance the learning of all of our students so your support with Fo$S is greatly appreciated- whether that is with volunteering your time or services supporting events, donating items for raffles or coming along to events yourself. 

From Amy B and Abbie M 7T.

A few weeks ago on Friday the 18th we participated in the Last Form Standing competition. It was a great chance to collaborate with the people in our form to produce an amazing piece of music.  It was a competition for all forms in year seven. We went to the Sandpit Theatre after lunch and performed in front of the whole of year seven and some teachers. We have been practising our song in our music lessons. The song we sang was Happier by Marshmello. Our form (Turing) placed fourth out of all the forms with Fawcett in first, Hepworth in second and Elgar in third. We enjoyed watching the other forms perform their songs. It was overall a very uplifting experience to see all of the other forms singing their songs. We loved seeing our friends singing loud and clear. We think that everyone did amazingly and deserves acknowledgement for all the hard work that they have done.

This week, we feature Fanya P (8T) who has recently been awarded the “B2 Certificate of Modern Greek Language” with a rating of “Excellent.”  This was a great success for Fanya as not only has she worked really hard to achieve this but also, most children taking this award are aged 14, whereas Fanya took the test aged just 12. Well done Fanya, a fantastic achievement and testament to your commitment- we are really proud of you.

If you would like to nominate someone for the student spotlight next week, please contact the Holianm@sandringham.aetrust.co.uk with any details and/or photographs. We would love to hear from you about any students who are going above and beyond. 

As some of you may already know, our lovely LRC manager, Emily Critchley, is also a published author- with the fantastic books One Puzzling Afternoon, The Bear who Sailed the Ocean on an Iceberg and Notes on My Family all receiving rave reviews. Emily’s latest novel, The Undoing of Violet Claybourne, is published this week and is a dark captivating novel of family secrets, desperate ambition and the deepest betrayal. Described by reviewers as “atmospheric and gripping” (Good Housekeeping) ‘Chilling’ (Heat magazine) ‘Gothic fiction at its darkest and finest” , “a dark and immersive plot that becomes more gripping and sinister with every turn of the page” and “utterly spellbinding”- this book is the perfect winter read. It is available to buy here or at all major book stores and this Saturday, 9th November, Emily will be in Waterstones, St Albans from 2pm -3:30pm signing books. Do pop along to see Emily there or students can find Ms Critchley in the library most days if they would like to chat about what it takes to be a successful author and other inspiration for their creative writing. KS3 students can also attend Creative Writing club in K7 on Wednesday lunchtimes or visit her website here. We wish Emily every success in publication week!

We are delighted to share our new Destinations board for the Year 13 cohort of 2024.  As you can see, our students were hugely successful in securing places at a variety of universities and within a number of competitive apprenticeships. Some are also taking a well earned year out or embarking upon new careers. This is testament to all of the students' hard work and the amazing support of staff, support staff and parents. A huge thank you to Ms Warris for creating the display and we hope that younger students are inspired by it as they continue their academic journey at Sandringham. 

If you have any unwanted, good quality Christmas decorations and warm white lights, we would love them to help deck out our Staffroom and Sixth Form Conservatory. Please contact the admin email address if this is something that you can offer.

Also, if you want to get ahead with your Christmas to do list, a reminder that Treeasy are a fantastic company who provide excellent quality tree delivery and removal, whilst also raising money for the school. They specialise in only the very best top grade trees, the non-drop Nordmann Fir Christmas tree, and for every tree sold through Sandringham, donations of between £3.50 and £6.50 (size of tree dependant) are given to Fo$S. 

Ordering is simple- just go to www.christmastreeasy.co.uk and follow the instructions. Or for more information you can call 07710 407149 or email enquiries@christmastreeasy.co.uk. Please make sure you mention your school in all correspondence to ensure a donation to your school.

This week’s whole school theme is Remembrance. Remembrance Day is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth member states since the end of the First World War to honour armed forces members who have died in the line of duty. Following a tradition inaugurated by King George V in 1919, the day is also marked by war remembrances in many non-Commonwealth countries. This week students received a thought-provoking assembly from Deputy Headteacher Mrs Mouncey, in which they were asked to reflect on the sacrifices that people make on the behalf of others. As is traditional at Sandringham we will also mark the occasion on Monday 11th November at 11am with the whole school paying our respects to the fallen, and observing silence together. Thank you in advance to the whole school community for participating in such a powerful and moving service.

Marshalswick Library are running a Winter Reads Challenge, which is aims to encourage all ages to engage with reading during the winter months through a series of fun and flexible challenges. The goal of the Challenge is to complete six different tasks over the winter, from a list of 12. The challenge runs from Friday 1st November to Saturday 31 January and is open for all ages, so families can take part in the Winter Reads challenge together. Those who complete all six challenges by Saturday 31 January will be entered into prize draw to win an iPad 

The Challenge is FREE (you just need to do is be a library member and pop into the library and pick up a Challenges card for children and a Challenges bookmark for the adults) and could be a great activity to take part in as a family over the next few months.

A lovely article submitted by Conrad in 10A. We hope it inspires others to follow their passions! 

Last weekend I competed again at the Winter Gardens Empress Ballroom for the Blackpool Grand Finals. I achieved 5th overall in the Junior SDT Ballroom category with my Waltz and Quickstep, and 6th overall in the Junior SDT Latin category with my Samba and Rumba. I also competed for the first time in the Junior couples category at Blackpool, and my partner and I reached the Quarter Finals with our Tango. I was slightly nervous even though it was my second year at Blackpool, as there were more dances to perform this time. But there was a lively atmosphere and our team gave each other encouragement and support so it was a great honour to be there. I hope that, by persevering and putting in hard work, I can make it to the Grand Finals again next year and achieve even better results!

If you would like to submit an article for the Student Voice, please contact Mrs Holian on gmail with a few lines and/or photographs. We look forward to hearing from you.

We are currently looking for a:

• Pastoral Support Assistant
• School Counsellor
• Receptionist
• Marketing Officer

to join our fantastic school. More information is available on our website here.

Please share with friends who may be interested.

The Student Leadership Team Training Day will take place on Tuesday 19th November.  The students involved with the SLT will be receiving their invitation to the day, and a few more details shortly.

The day will include some leadership training, staff-interview training and an opportunity to start work on the projects that each team will be working on over the coming weeks and months.

We look forward to sharing more details of these projects as they start to take shape in the near future, including articles written by the SLT. 

A reminder that our next seminar session is “Youth Talk – supporting young people and their mental health” and will be delivered by Jim Lewis and clinicians from the charity, Youth Talk at 5.30pm on Monday 25th November.  Jim will talk about how the charity can support young people. Also being discussed will be signs and indicators of wellbeing needs, how to promote positive wellbeing and how to support young people with mental ill health at home

If you would like to book tickets to hear from Youth Talk, please book them here. There are 250 tickets available and they will be issued on a first come, first served basis. We are expecting high demand for this opportunity, so please only book tickets if you intend to attend. Please note we will close the access to book tickets once all have been taken. We will not be issuing physical tickets for this event and if you are able to book tickets, your request to attend has been successful.

A message from FO$S. 

We are holding the annual Christmas Fair on 7th December 11am - 3pm. This event has always been popular with parents, students and local residents; it features a lovely Christmas market to do some Christmas shopping, tombolas and interactive games for the students, plus festive food and drinks. It promises to be a great day, but we need your help!

Volunteers: We always appreciate anyone who can volunteer to help us out on the day. We need volunteers to help cook, serve food and drinks, run the tombola, plus help clear up afterwards.  If you can spare an hour or more of your time the FO$S team would really appreciate it.  You can sign up through the link below, which splits the jobs by time slots volunteersignup.org/AHAQY

Donations for Tombola and Raffle:  This tombola stall is always one of our most popular stalls, so all donations of sweets, chocolates or drinks would be very gratefully received.  There are two ways you can donate this year - either drop off your donations to the main reception (please note: if donating alcoholic drinks they must be brought in by an adult), or, instead of a bottle or sweets, you can donate to our tombola money pool and FO$S will purchase items to go on the tombola. You can do this here. We would also really appreciate prizes for the raffle, do you or your work have any prizes they would be happy to donate to our raffle? 

Face painters wanted:  In previous years the face painting stall has been really successful for the younger siblings. Unfortunately our usual face painter is unavailable. So we are looking for someone who has the equipment and could run the stall. If you are interested please email  friendsofsandringhamschool@gmail.com or contact Tara on 07921001591

Well done to Tommy G in 8N who took his Grade 3 guitar exam during half term and achieved a high merit. A great achievement. Well done Tommy!

Our Autumn Concert is almost sold out! Click here if you would like to buy the few remaining tickets or join the waiting list.

Finally, as mentioned in the headlines, we are excited to say that our Christmas Carol Service this year will be held at St Paul's Church on Blandford Road in St Albans. This venue allows for a bigger capacity audience and there is also heating which is an exciting new addition! We will share the link once tickets are released for this event but be sure to book quickly as this is always a popular night of the festive calendar.

This week we also feature Rebecca T in 9A who attended the autumn half term course with the HSSO (Herfordshire Schools Symphony Orchestra)  from 30th Oct  to 2nd November. The rehearsals culminated in an exceptional concert on Saturday where they performed Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin, the overture from Girl Crazy by George Gershwin, a concerto by Florence Price and finally the score from Korngold to the Sea Hawk.

Also in attendance were several other students from Sandringham School, and it is fantastic to see so many students taking part in Music at County Level. We look forward to bringing you more news of those in the Hertfordshire Youth Orchestra, The County Youth Choir, the County Wind Sinfonia and the County Youth Brass and news of their future events including an exciting event in the spring for the HSSO performing at the Royal Albert Hall. Well done to all involved.

Friday 15th November is Children in Need Day and students are able to come to school in non uniform for a donations of £2 (or more if so wish) via Parentpay. We encourage students and staff to enter the spotty spirit and donate towards this hugely worthwhile charity which aims to improve the lives of thousands of disadvantaged children and young people across the UK by ensuring that their childhood is safe, happy and secure.

This week, our students have been actively engaged in creating poppies as part of our whole school Remembrance reflections. Each class has explored the historical significance of the renowned poem In Flanders Fields, deepening their understanding of remembrance symbols and honouring those who served. As a result, students have crafted individual poppies, now assembled into a moving “Field of Poppies” installation.

This project has been skillfully led by our Arts Award students, with particular recognition given to Cassie P., who is undertaking her Gold Arts Award and has overseen this project as part of her leadership component. We extend our sincere gratitude to Cassie and to our other Arts Award students, who have generously volunteered their time and efforts to complete the installation.

We commend all of our dedicated students for their hard work during lessons and thank our exceptional Visual Arts team for their invaluable support in guiding students through this meaningful project.

A write up from Ailbe T in Year 13.

This half term I went on a school trip to Belgium. We had an early start on Monday morning and travelled by coach and ferry to our hostel in Brussels.

Each morning we had breakfast together at the hostel and then travelled to do something interesting each day including an informative visit to the House of European History, going inside the Atomium, built for the 1958 world’s fair, and my personal favourite as a politics student, seeing where Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto from.

We went for lunch in our groups and had dinner all together back at the hostel each night followed by free time to explore Brussels ourselves. The ornate architecture of the city looks even better at night! On Friday we travelled home via Brugge where I headed to my favourite chocolate shop to buy my family (and me!) some chocolate.

It was nice to make new friends as well as getting to know our teachers better outside of the classroom. We were extremely appreciative of them giving up their time to take us on this trip!

Please see above for a lovely idea from St Albans Foodbank, encouraging people to think about those less fortunate at Christmas time. A "reverse advent calendar" gives ideas of items to put together to donate to foodbanks in the run up to the festive period and could be a nice family activity to take part in whilst helping people in need. 

Message from Miss England

Before half term we launched our Gambia Golden ticket chocolate bar raffle in the whole school assemblies. We have sold quite a few but there is still time to get yours! Pay £5 for a guaranteed chocolate bar and the chance to win an amazon voucher worth up to £50 as well as other prizes! Proceeds will go towards our fundraising efforts to build a borehole for our partnership school in the Gambia! 

The Dance department formally invite you all to join us on February 6th, 7th, 8th to our production, Velocity 2025. This year’s theme was revealed this week, ‘The Oscars’, and we are so excited to share with you all the amazing dance pieces. The dance club leaders have done an amazing job preparing pieces, and also those who attend clubs and companies, and Y9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 dance students all working super hard in lesson time.

Tickets go on sale Thursday 14th November on The Sandpit website, they sell out quickly so get them before they are gone! New layout of staging and seating means more seats/tickets on offer per show, and ultimately more people to support and enjoy the show. There is a special Velocity package on offer with select seating which will be available on the website whilst booking.

See you on the red carpet in February!

Article from Mrs Cooper.

The National Cyber Security Centre are running their Cyberfirst competition for the 9th year in a row! Registration is already open, and the competition closes on 27th November. 

It has sections on logic and coding, cybersecurity and cryptography! If you’d like to take part, you need a team of 4. You must all be girls, and you must be in Year 8. Once you’ve found your team, email Mrs Cooper to let her know so she can register you as competitors. You’ll then have until 27th November to complete all the challenges, and the nationwide winners will be announced in December! Good luck! 

Danny Watts's grandfather, Fergus, was a traitor. One of the worst sort. An SAS explosives expert who betrayed his country and his Regiment for money. He was arrested and left to rot and die in jail. But Danny knows something the army doesn't. Fergus Watts is alive and living in secret under an assumed name. Burning with fury and desire for revenge, Danny sets out to track down his grandfather and expose him. In doing so he sets in train an explosive sequence of events which throw Danny and Fergus together on the run from the people who want Fergus, and now Danny, dead.

Kalan P, 7F who has recently read the book says: ‘I enjoyed this book because it’s very dramatic and there are lots of facts about modern war.’

FRENCH: Le mot de la semaine: impertinent

GERMAN: Das Wort der Woche: unverschämt

SPANISH: La palabra de la semana: Impertinente 

Thinking Question:

Unverschämt is a really interesting word! It carries a strong, bold meaning, especially with the idea of "shameless" behind it. Do you think  it makes the idea of rudeness or disrespect feel more intense than the French and Spanish translations?

I is for ... impertinent [adjective]

Definition: Not showing proper respect; rude.

Example: She asked an impertinent question to the visitor.

Synonyms: Bold, Disrespectful, Impolite

Antonyms: Polite, Refined, Respectful

Etymology: From Latin in- ‘not’ + pertinere ‘pertain’.

Please see above for our upcoming fixtures. Good luck to all of our teams!

Well done to our Year 7 netball team who won their game on Monday. Some great play throughout the whole court, with everyone putting in 100% effort. POM went to Sadie for her superb interceptions

Our three teams were at Dulwich College on Thursday for the Regional Cross Country event. Our inter boys, senior boys and senior girls all aimed for a National Final.

Well done to Toby P who helped his Dacorum team to finish a superb 3rd place at the National XC relays over half term.

A brilliant week for our football teams with wins across the board!

Well done to the Year 7 boys A team who progressed into the 3rd round of the County Cup on Tuesday evening, winning away at St Clements Danes 2-0. Two early goals from Kennedy & Newton secured the victory. MOM Max G.The Year 7 B team also began their national cup campaign with a win over a strong Aldenham side. A 4-1 win after going into the half level at 1-1 puts us in the hat for round 2. Goals from Marwan, Nathan and Zidan. Jack P was MOM

Our U16 girls also had a brilliant game this week, progressing through to round 2 of the county cup after beating a strong KWS side 3-2. Goals from Liv W, Jasmine R & Rachel K. POM goes to Katie B for a superb defensive performance and early goal line clearance.

And our senior girls beat Chesham Grammar School 7-4 to progress into the 3rd round of the national cup! Player of the match performance from Hannah G.

Finally, congratulations to the U14G football team on their win against SJL in round 2 of the county cup. They all played exceptionally well and should be very proud. Goals scored by: Nell M x4, Beatriz S x3, Evie O, Anais S-B, Lucy B PP: Brooke B

This seasons Year 9 boys' basketball team campaign started with a 52-39 win at home vs St Edmunds. Some great basketball on show and massive improvements made since our last outing. Well done boys.

A brilliant effort from eight of our students who were highly impressive in the District badminton tournament this week. Our U14’s qualified for the county final (finishing 2nd in the district) whilst our U16’s just missed out (finishing 3rd). Great work from all involved

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

Award winning production company, Limitless Productions, are back in St Albans and this time they've got backup!

Welcome to the wild streets of 1920s New York, where gangsters run the show in Bugsy Malone! Join the charming Bugsy as he dives head-first into a thrilling turf war between rival gangs - Dandy Dan’s slick crew and Fat Sam’s lovable misfits. With whipped cream pies flying and laughter echoing, Bugsy navigates chaos while trying to win the heart of the dazzling showgirl Blousey Brown.

As the stakes rise and friendships are tested, Bugsy must step up to save his pals and outsmart the competition. Bursting with catchy tunes and high-energy dance numbers. From the team behind 'Little Shop of Horrors', 'Grease' and 'The Addams Family', this musical is a rollicking adventure not to be missed!

Tickets are on sale here and cost from £17.00