End of Term Newsletter - No 669 – 21 December 2017
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End of term Newsletter - No 669 – 21 December 2017 We’re certainly ending a busy term with a last burst of activity! On Monday evening we were delighted to welcome Bridget Kendall MBE, Master of Peterhouse Cambridge, as guest speaker at our Annual Prize Giving which is always a wonderful opportunity to celebrate with students, past and present, who have achieved the very highest levels during the last year. Over 150 prizes were awarded, in a ceremony hosted very professionally by our senior prefects. This year we were in a new venue, Rothamsted Conference Centre, which proved to be a lovely setting for the event – we hope this might be the start of a beautiful relationship! Then last night we maintained much longer standing arrangement by holding our 30th (!) annual Carol Concert at All Saints Church. A packed programme saw over 200 students from year 7 to 13 performing together and if you weren’t in the Christmas spirit beforehand, their irresistible enthusiasm certainly meant that you left the church bursting with festive cheer (and mince-pies!). It has been a long term, filled with a lot of hard work from all the members of the SJL community. Over the last couple of weeks I have been very impressed by how seriously year 11 have been taking their mock exams and I am sure their efforts will be rewarded when they get their results in January. In the meantime, I hope they and all the rest of the students and staff have a restful break and I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year As always, if you have any comments or suggestions I would be pleased to hear from you, please contact me at [email protected]. Claire Robins LETTERS HOME THIS WEEK To parents of students in Year 12 re Parent/Teacher Consultation Evening Year 9 parents - Options booklet and invitations for the Year 9 Options Evening Year 11 parents - full reports SIMS INTOUCH We use a system called SIMS InTouch to send letters and notices home. It has come to our attention that some email systems have reported the SJL InTouch email address as Spam or Junk. Please remember to check these email folders and ensure that 9194028@capita- intouch.co.uk is added as an exception in your email system. This will mean you don’t miss any important notices or letters from the school. Thank you. A reminder that copies of all generic letters sent home can be found on our website at: http://www.sjl.herts.sch.uk/practical-information/letters-home.php SCHOOL CLOSURES In exceptional circumstances it may be necessary to close the school during normal hours. In these instances i.e. due to severe weather conditions, we shall inform parents by the following means: BBC Three Counties Radio 92.1 FM or 630 AM Mercury FM 97.5 – 102.7FM Sir John Lawes Website www.sjl.herts.sch.uk SJL on Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/sirjohnlawes School telephone message 01582 760043 Herts County Council’s website www.hertsdirect.org CONGRATULATIONS To the following students who received Headteacher’s Commendations this half term: Year 8 Ruby Robertson Amelia Spiteri Boden Lawrence Shannen Millar Belinda Webster-Smith Luke Hobday Cameron Angrave-Smith Isaac Carter Sagrika Arun Year 11 Reuben Bennett Thomas Dadswell Ben Dahani Callum Jones Emily Royston Finley Brown Year 10 Alistair Baird Luka Wilson Elizabeth Bratton Kasia Kramer Chloe Morrison Year 12 Ella Partridge Isla Brewester Polly Jenner Katie Burroughs Sanjna Vora Emma Shardlow Binti Shah Millie Rice Year 9 Cameron Rice Emily Duncan Phoebe Chapman Alex Hegarty Jamie Allen Izzy Dobson Kyran Gosling Zoe Wright Leon Lewis Sean Skinner Matt Swann Georgie Carter Alice George Harry Kremer Fleur Butler-Wright James Pollard Jack Allen Katie Sutton Abby Probyn Eve Burton Kate Robinson Ella Purvis Sophie Hill Sara Fisher Congratulations to Jonathan Bailey (10B) and Alex Hegarty (10N), who both achieved their black belt (1st Dan) in karate. Congratulations to the following students who recently passed music examinations: Seren Barker - Grade 8 Piano with Merit. Charlotte Evans - Grade 7 flute with Distinction Ed Smith - Grade 8 Piano. NEWS FROM PAST STUDENTS LATE AT TATE BRITAIN: FLUX 1 DECEMBER 2017 AT 18.00–21.30 Congratulations to ex-SJL student Holly Attzs, now at Central Saint Martins - a world leading centre for art and design education – who curated a show-reel at Tate Britain as part of the last ‘Late at Tate Britain’ of the year, exploring the theme of gender fluidity. Holly displayed a painting, and delivered a flawless dramatization of a monologue she had written to accompany her artwork, to a very appreciative audience. She was supported by Mrs Attzs and other ex-SJL students, including Esme Plumb, Andrew David, and Izzy Payne. Congratulations go to Max Jenner for his success in being appointed as the Reserve member of the 2018 University Challenge - Balliol College, Oxford University team. Balliol won the competition in 2017 and Max will know in a month or two if he has made it on to the team. We wish him the best of luck in his endeavours! DONATE YOUR CHRISTMAS TREE TO A HUNGRY GOAT! Dear friends of SJL. If and when you finish with your real Christmas tree and no longer want it, our goats and sheep will happily eat it for you! If you would like to donate your tree to our farm area then that would be fantastic. Please email me at [email protected] if you are able to bring in your tree. I know how helpful the parents at SJL are and I could end up with hundreds so if you could contact me first that would be great. Have a lovely Christmas and a pre-thank you from Billy, Bonnie and Bana Phil Evans - Animal Studies Coordinator MODERN LANGUAGES CONFERENCE This half term, twelve Year 11 students were invited to attend the Modern Languages Conference held at St Albans High School for Girls. Lecturers from the Universities of Birmingham, Cambridge, Manchester, UCL, SOAS and Oxford delivered master classes in French, German, Spanish and Italian. Our students were also able to try a new language and take a taster class in Arabic, Russian, Mandarin or Linguistics. “Yesterday, we went to St Albans High School for Girls for a language conference. We were joined by language students from schools in our area and we had several talks from graduates and lecturers. As a student of French and Spanish, I enjoyed the French lecture which consisted of watching, discussing and analysing a short clip of the film “La Haine” and learning what studying languages at university is like. We also had a taster session of either Russian, Linguistics, Mandarin or Arabic. I chose Arabic and thoroughly enjoyed learning about their alphabet and writing from right to left.” Emily Dixon (11H) HAPPY CHRISTMAS FROM ECO SCHOOLS We hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and to help you all have a more environmentally friendly Christmas we have been tweeting via our twitter account @SJLecoschools our #ecoadvent countdown to Christmas packed with lots of eco- friendly ideas. Check out the site and follow us @SJLecoschools Happy Eco Christmas! ECO-SCHOOLS IDLING Over the past few weeks at eco-schools we’ve been working with the St Albans City and District Council on an Anti-Idling campaign. Idling involves leaving a car’s engine on when not driving, which creates 20 times more pollution than when driving at 30mph. A visitor from St Albans Council came and spoke to us to encourage us to take action against idling to help our local air pollution. This is a prominent issue in Hertfordshire, which has the second worst air pollution in the country. We also conducted a survey afterschool and found that 50% of cars were idling. This much idling near a school can be harmful to the health of everyone in the nearby area as the chemicals released can irritate peoples’ lungs and also wastes money from burning the fuel. The Eco-Schools group will be doing more work on this cause in the new year and for more information visit www.stalbans.gov.uk/greentravel . MFL FACULTY NEWS We have had a busy term and our students have taken part in a variety of competitions both in school and out of school. German Debating Competition At the beginning of September the Y13 consortium students (St Georges and Sir John Lawes School) decided that we should enter a German debating competition run by the Goethe Institut in London. On Wednesday 29th October we travelled to Watford Grammar School where we debated the question of whether there should be a common European Language. We were against the motion and the judges were very impressed with the way that they were able to talk freely in German, make jokes and respond to the other team’s arguments. We won the first round, which was a fantastic achievement, and are now against Haberdashers Askes School for Girls in February. Congratulations to Chris Rouse, Barney Crawford, Henry Meredith and Toyin Akinkumi! French Essay Writing Competition Barney Crawford also entered an essay writing competition run by Lancaster University. He had to write 500 words around the topic of language and nation. Barney won a runners up prize of a £25 book token and the judges commented that his essay was not only well written but also well researched. Well done, Barney. Year 7 French Advent Calendar competition In the leading to Christmas, Year 7 students took part in a French advent calendar competition.