A reminder that our Sixth Form Information Evening will take place on Thursday 16th January 2025 from 5.30pm Join us for information about joining Sandringham Sixth Form. The Headteacher's presentation will take place at 5.30pm and will be repeated at 6.15pm. Subject talks with school specific information take place from from 6pm - 8pm. You can find out more about the admissions process here.

This term Year 7 have been very busy creating some beautiful island projects. Here are just a few of some excellent entries that we have had. The PRE Department have enjoyed seeing all their creativity and imagination throughout the topic! Well done everyone on your amazing efforts. 

It was fantastic to see our Year 7 and 8 students enjoying a night of fun at the Fawcett & Hepworth Charity Disco on Friday. There was even a Santa Claus who DJ’d the evening. Thank you to all that came to support our charities and helped to raise over £1000 for Charity Week. 

A reminder as well for Year 7 and 8 to bring in any cakes for part of Sandringham Charity Day next Friday. It is set to be one of the best days in the year and you even get to leave school at 12.15pm! To make the Winter Wonderland amazing we need YOU guys to bake or fake some cakes. These will be sold at one of the many stalls in Winter Wonderland.

Please bring your cakes to the Sports Hall on Thursday (19th) or Friday (20th) next week and leave in the small office just inside the Sports Hall. This will help raise more money for our chosen charities. Thanks and enjoy your last week of this term' 

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 are delighted to announce our winner’s for our Annual Christmas Card Competition. Congratulations to Christopher in Year 9 and Edith in Year 12 for their two winning designs. The two were selected from hundreds of entries of an exceptional standard and all were reviewed carefully before selecting our two winners. We have displayed the remaining entries in Visual Arts and the two winning designs will become the official school Christmas card sent out digitally to our wider community.

We would like to thank all of our students for their exceptional efforts and in particular Edith and Christopher for completing their wonderful designs.

This morning, around 115 Year 10 students interviewed for Prefect roles. It was fantastic to see so many young people wanting to take up Leadership roles within the school. We really encourage such responsibility as a chance to show leadership and set a great example to their fellow students. Good luck to those who interviewed, and we look forward to reporting back the list of successful candidates in the coming weeks.

Sandringham School has a vacancy for an Assistant Operations Manager.

If you would like to join our team of passionate, dedicated staff, visit here for more information and to apply.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Computer Science department is proud to announce our students’ exceptional performance in the prestigious UK Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge. The challenge, organised by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in partnership with the University of Oxford, introduces students worldwide to computational thinking through interactive problem-solving tasks. 

We are thrilled that 10 of our KS5 students ranked among the top 10% nationally in the elite(16-18) age group, earning Gold certificates—an incredible achievement! Additionally, three more students received Distinctions, and 12 others achieved a Merit. These accolades highlight their ability to tackle complex logical problems with skill and creativity.

A special congratulations goes to Will B-S, who achieved the highest score in the school—a testament to his outstanding computational aptitude.

Amongst Top 10% with Distinction we have : 

Year 12: Joe F, Harry P, Marcus L, Eugene V

Year 13: Will B S (Top score in Sandringham), Will M , Sam C, Dominik C, James C, Daniel N

As mentioned in the Headlines- it was a busy House week, with even the staff getting involved with their annual staff bake off! It was wooden spoons at the ready and after some fierce competition Newton & Shakespeare were crowned winners with Hepworth 2nd, Turing 3rd  Johnson 4th,  Austen & Elgar 5th and Fawcett 6th. Pictured above are the winning cakes and judges! 

There as also an excellent turnout for the Year 9 House Rugby. 1st place went to Austen with 2nd - Elgar, 3rd - Newton & Johnson, 5th - Shakespeare and 6th - Hepworth.

It has been lovely to see Year 7 enjoying their first festive season at Sandringham School. They certainly looked to be enjoying themselves at the Christmas lunch on Tuesday and there were some fantastic Christmas Accessories on Thursday. Here is 7F and Pratistha and Hayley from 7H looking fabulous. It has been great to see students bond as a year group over the past term, and get involved with school events such as Last Choir Standing, House Netball and Swimming and we look forward to House Rugby on Monday. Overall as a year group, they have gained 16,765 points- a colossal effort- and Sergey N in 7A has an impressive 136 points so far- the highest in the school. Well done Year 7 for having such a brilliant start! Ms Batten is super proud of you all. 

We were delighted to email out a link to the photographs of the KS4 Awards Evening earlier today. A huge thank you to Nicola Sanders for capturing the event. You can download the photographs at no extra cost and if you would like a copy of the programme, please ask your child to speak to a member of the Sixth Form support team who can give you a copy. Thank you again for attending the evening and all of your continued support.

Our annual Charity Day takes place on the last day of term (Friday 20th December.) Students can come in non-uniform for a donation via ParentPay, there are no usual timetabled lessons and the day finishes at 12.15pm. 

Students take part in a carousel of 4 activities through the morning and will be given two tickets to Winter Wonderland. You can buy additional tickets here. All of the money raised will go towards trying to reach our target of £25,000 for our three chosen charities. We hope that everyone had a fantastic day! The activities rotated throughout the day are as follows:

• WINTER WONDERLAND

• PANTOMIME (Y7-9) or BIG BULLSEYE CHALLENGE (Y10-13)

• HEADS OR TAILS QUIZ

• TUTOR TIME 

A big thank you to all those who have contributed so far to Sandvent 2024. We’ve now raised almost £500. Mr Smith and Mr Cracknell have just one week to go. Join in at https://bit.ly/sandvent2024 to see what they have been up to! You can donate via Parent Pay if you would like to support further. Look out for the VIP guest in day 20!

Thank you to everyone who supported Fo$S at the Christmas Fair last Saturday. The event was a great success and FO$S are pleased to announce they raised around £3,100 for the school. The Year 7 stalls did particularly well this year raising nearly £1,300. They could not have done this without all the help from our volunteers and everyone who came to the fair. So a big thank you.

If you weren’t able to make it on the day or didn’t have the chance to buy a raffle ticket, then there is still time. Tickets can be bought on ParentPay for £1 each. Each ticket purchased online will be allocated a paper ticket and added to the others sold. Tickets can be bought up until the draw, which will be made on Wednesday 18th December. The winners will be notified by email. This year’s prizes include a family Pub in Park Ticket, a Wine Hamper, a "Pamper Me" Hamper, and a "Try Something New" Hamper.

Every penny raised from the Christmas Fair and from this raffle goes towards supporting the school and its students, so please do get involved.

Well done to Hepworth who have maintained their lead for most of this term. Special mentions this week go to Mark H, Hinna W and Christie L who all have gained the highest house point this week (11) . Well done also to Newton for winning this weeks house points – (1282), 7A for the highest average points in their tutor group (82.5), Austen for winning year 9 House rugby and Newton & Shakespeare for winning Staff Bake Off.

UPCOMING EVENTS   

• Year 7 & 8 House Rugby – Monday 16th December
• KS4/5 boys House swimming  Monday 16th December
• Charity Day – Friday 20th December

A reminder that you can still buy tickets for our Carol Concert at St Pauls next Wednesday online here.

Here is what Alex S in Year 13 has to say: "We have busy rehearsing over the last few weeks for the Carol Service taking place on Wednesday 18th December. Lessons and Carols includes all of the traditional carols with various choirs singing along with the string orchestra. A combination of staff and students will also read lessons to allow a chance for reflection. As well as this, the ensembles will individually perform set pieces. This is always a really lovely festive event with the congregation joining in and getting in the mood for Christmas. This year we are excited to perform in a bigger venue and it is a nice chance for all of the musicians to be together in one place performing. Do come along for music, singing and perhaps a mince pie or two.

As mentioned last week, St Albans & District Foodbank Distribution Centres will be open on the days set out above during the festive period.

Over the festive period there are a number of closures, which may make it difficult for those with mobility issues, a disability or health concerns. With this in mind the Foodbank will be running a limited number of home deliveries to help ease some of these issues.  These will be on Tuesday 24th, Friday 27th and Tuesday 31st December.  Slots are limited, so please email info@stalbansdistrict.foodbank.org.uk  with as much notice as possible.

Storm has never liked to stand out from the crowd, but ever since she started Year 7, her life has been full of people telling her she needs to speak up, make friends and be more like her popular big brother. Then Storm breaks a school record, and finds herself the new star of the athletics team.

But as she's thrust into the spotlight, her home life and friendships start spiralling out of control, and it's time for Quiet Storm to show that she has something to say. A tender, empowering novel about family, friendship and finding confidence in who you are.

Imogen R in 7J has recently read the book and comments: “A very relatable book if you like sports, (running in particular,) or have trouble speaking up in class. Very intriguing and makes you want to read on after every chapter. Overall one of my favourite books I have read.”

FRENCH: Le mot de la semaine: nominal

GERMAN: Das Wort der Woche: nominal

SPANISH: La palabra de la semana: nominal

Thinking Question:

• For the first time all the words are the same this week in our three languages! Imagine if we all spoke the same language with the exact same words and meanings. How would this affect human relationships and cultures?

N is for ... nominal [adjective]

Definition: (of a role or status) existing in name only.  (of a price or charge) very small; far below the real value or cost.

Example: Thailand retained nominal independence under Japanese military occupation.

They charge a nominal fee for the service.

Synonyms: Supposed, Theoretical, Honorary

Antonyms: Actual, Significant, True

Etymology: From the Latin nominalis, from nomen, nomin- ‘name’.

The U13A netball team finished 2024 with an excellent win against Beaumont of 22-8. Well done To Grace B for getting player and Hannah  K for getting Coaches player. We look forward to another successful second half to the league in 2025!

Please see above for our final fixtures of 2024

Great success for both of our teams in the School Games County Badminton tournament. Having finished 2nd in their group (to the eventual winners) our boys just missed out on 3rd place but should be extremely proud of a 4th place finish in Hertfordshire. And our U14 girls finished 3rd in the County tournament. A great achievement against some strong opposition!

A brilliant display of football this week from our senior girls in their district league game against RPS. All 13 played brilliantly with goal scorers spread throughout the team. Congrats to Isla M for a well deserved player of the match.

And a great result from our U16 Girls who won 5-1 in their district league game POM went to Jasmine R for her composure in front of goal.

Our Year 8 boys didn't fare quite so well however, exiting the county shield at the second round to a very strong Aldenham side. And our Year 9 boys also lost 3-1 in the County Plate vs Nicholas Breakspeare. 

The Y11 basketball team came out on top in a superb advertisement for school basketball this week against SCC. 10 points down with 3 minutes left on the clock and the boys clawed it back to win the game on the buzzer. Well done everyone!

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