End of Term Newsletter - No 704 – 21 December 2018
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End of term Newsletter - No 704 – 21 December 2018 Where did the time go? It only seems 5 minutes since we were greeting staff and students on their return to school in September and suddenly we are at the end of term, getting ready to celebrate Christmas with our families and friends. No matter how quickly the weeks seem to have passed, this is still the longest term of the year and I would like to congratulate the whole SJL community on keeping up the hard work and commitment right until the very last! Of course, it’s made easier to keep going by the traditional end of Christmas term activities. On Monday evening we were joined by Professor Michael Proctor, Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, who presented the awards at our annual prize-giving. We were particularly lucky that not only did he deliver an extremely interesting address to our prize-winners and guests, he also extended his visit to be able to spend time with some of our senior mathematicians who I know will have benefitted from the opportunity to talk to someone who has pursued the subject at the very highest levels. The evening itself was a wonderful opportunity, as always, to celebrate the achievements of our current students and to welcome back some prize- winning ex-students and hear about what they have been up to since they left us. Then on Wednesday evening, we were once again the guests of All Saints’ Church, for our Christmas Concert. As the Reverend Linda Williams noted in her opening remarks, there seem to be more and more students (and some staff!) performing in this concert each year and it was certainly a packed house. I am delighted to say that owing to some very flexible organisation of performers and seating, our music and admin teams were able to accommodate an even larger audience than usual so even more people could enjoy the amazing standards on display. It was lovely to see the students taking so much pride in their musical abilities and the range of items was amazing – how many schools could boast a bassoon quartet?! A slightly slimmed down version of the concert will be enjoyed by some of our local neighbours on Thursday at our senior citizens concert too – so the Christmas cheer can be spread even further. When I look back over the rest of this term’s newsletters, I am absolutely astonished once again by all that the SJL community has achieved over the last four months – and more and more convinced that everyone really deserves a break in order to refresh themselves before the new year. However, whilst relaxing, I hope they will also reflect on just how much we all have to be proud of in 2018 – and how much we have to look forward to in 2019. I wish you all 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 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 LETTERS HOME THIS WEEK To the parents of Year 12 students re Parents’ Evening. To the parents of Year 9 students re Options Evening being held on 24 January. Year 9 students will have received their Options booklet. A reminder that copies of all generic letters sent home can be found on our website at: www.sjl.herts.sch.uk/402/letters-home NOTE FROM GOVERNORS – PERFORMANCE COMPARISON TABLES Parents may be interested to know that the government has now published the official school performance comparison tables (although these will not be fully validated till January). These contain all schools nationally and provide a good opportunity to compare how individual schools are performing under a wide range of measures. It’s good to see all three Harpenden secondary schools doing so well in these tables. As a reminder, SJL do not make their performance information available to any other commercial organisations. You can find the tables here. SCHOLARS’ EDUCATION TERMLY UPDATE It’s been a good term for all the schools in SET and for those who would like to find out a bit more about what’s been going on in our partner schools, a termly update is available on the Scholars’ Education Trust or by clicking on this link. CONGRATULATIONS Congratulations to the following students who were awarded Headteacher’s Commendations this half term: Alexander Gardiner 9H Annamarie Osborne 10R Bertie Brooks 12A Aliya Moghal 7R Ben Leaver 8R Charlie Hill 7L Amelie Cartlidge 8A Ben White 8A Charlie Kay 9R Daisy England 9L Josh Light 7A Olivia Horton 8A Dottie Birss 13A Justine Jing 11H Ralph Megson 7A Edward Webb 12B Kaaviya Suresh Rose Parkinson 8K Elana Connolly 8A Vidhya 9K Rosie Sutton 8H Eliza Davies 8K Kale Muir 7B Ruby Barwell 10R Ellis Martin 7A Katie Burroughs 9R Ruel Shepperd 9L Emelia Rice 13R Katie Grimes 8A Samuel Barber 7N Emilie Baudot 10R Leyah Fullarton- Sarah Jones 8H Enny Sanusi 8A Turner 9N x 2 Scarlett Forte 8H Eva Higgins 8N Libby Wall 9R Scarlett Maeer 7R Frederick Terry 7H Lily Norwood 9L Simeon James 11H Gabriel Bouabci 8K x 2 Lola Cox 8B Sophie Jacques 9L Georgia Cramb 9L Lucy Dixon 10L Susie Stafford 12A Hannah Brooke 8B Lucy Holloway 12A Syed Khan 10R Hannah Brooke 8B Malachi Hammond 8K Thomas Hogston 7A Jacob Sunderland 8N Matilda Masters 7K Thomas Johns 8L Jess Chadwick 8A Mia Collins 7H Xerxes Gyara 7H x 2 Joely McPhun 9B x 2 Micheala Sullivan 7L Zach Grose 8H Josh Gilder 7A Oliver Bardsley 7B MUSIC EXAMS Congratulations to the following students who recently passed ABRSM or Trinity Music Exams: Grace Ridgeway – Grade 1 Piano with Merit Caitlin Michael – Grade 2 Flute with Merit Tom Lindsay – Grade 2 French Horn with Distinction Rosie Sutton - Grade 3 piano with Distinction Leila Palmer - Grade 4 Piano Immy McPhun – Grade 5 French Horn with Merit Daisy Simpson – Grade 5 Music Theory with Distinction Charlotte Richardson – Grade 5 Flute with Distinction Alice Parkinson - Grade 8 Flute with Merit Charlotte Evans – Grade 8 Flute with Distinction YEAR 7 STUDENT OF THE MONTH The Year 7 pastoral team have introduced ‘Student of the month’. Students are nominated by their form tutor for displaying qualities from the Lawes from Learning. Congratulations to the following students who were nominated this month. 7A Taylor Barraclough for her positive attitude to learning and life at SJL. 7B Ella Condon for consistently good behaviour in lessons, kindness and helpfulness towards others, enthusiasm in and contribution to both lessons, clubs and form competitions - along with an excellent grade sheet! 7H Frederick Terry for always showing good manners and being very polite and kind. During enrichment day, he showed creativity, passion and collaboration by doing amazing work for his group. He also got excellent results in the first grade sheet. 7L Kira Turnpenny for her politeness, for generously bringing in cakes for the tutor group on her own (usually 2 students share) and for being a committed student in lessons. 7K Micah Ogu for attending extracurricular clubs and his excellent attitude towards lessons. 7N Brett Henman for contribution to the school community and kindness. 7R Tom Cunningham for the impressive number of activities he takes part in outside of school and for being in the school rugby team as well as always being polite and attentive in form. He never moans or grumbles, he just gets on with it! Mrs Hayden Ria Anderson – for constantly being helpful to both staff and her peers. She is always polite, well-mannered and committed to everything that she does. HISTORY NEWS History club is the perfect balance of Historical knowledge and craziness! It’s a weekly club, and we never failed to be impressed by what has been cooked up for us over the week; board games, role play and interactive games to list but a few. Last week we looked at the French Revolution and played an interactive board game to help us enhance our knowledge of the event. This isn’t all we’ve learned about though, we choose topics we want to learn about ranging from terrorism, the Soviet Revolution and we’re ending the term with the history of St. Nick! History club is a great learning experience and we would really recommend it to all students in years 7-9! Kasia Kramer and Bethan Hancox DUKE OF EDINBURGH’S GOLD AWARDS On Tuesday 4th of December my husband and I had the honour and privilege of being invited as VIP guests to the presentation of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold awards at St. James’s Palace in London. We were given an exclusive tour of the private rooms of palace and given a fascinating insight into its rich history. The Gold Awards were presented to our group by Dany Cotton who is the first female Fire Commissioner of London. Her talk was inspirational and she recounted her journey from joining the fire service at the age of seventeen as one of only thirteen female fire fighters in a force of nine thousand to dealing with the Grenfell disaster and the aftermath.