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 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 . 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. Her key message was to believe in yourself but to always work with others and to believe in team work. At the end of her talk we were very surprised to be presented with long service awards for fifteen years of Duke of Edinburgh Award. The Earl of Wessex (HRH prince Edward) then entered and spoke to the groups of Gold Award students. His Royal Highness spoke to the long serving volunteers, the Earl was very generous in his praise and thanks for the commitment we have made to the award. At SJL we currently run the Bronze Award in year ten. The students have until they are twenty-four to complete The Duke of Edinburgh Award to Gold standard. Louise Ashman

RECRUITMENT

Teaching Assistant / Intervention Co-ordinator Sir John Lawes School Grade: H4 Hours: 28 hrs per week – term-time only plus INSET

Sir John Lawes School is looking to appoint a Teaching Assistant / Intervention Co-ordinator to work with the SENCO across KS3 and KS4.

We are looking for applicants who put the experience of the child at the heart of their practice, someone eager to extend children’s learning and makes it fun.

The successful candidate will set themselves high personal standards and be keen to develop professionally to support the schools’ creative curriculum approach to learning.

Further details and an application form are available from Central HR at [email protected], the school website www.sjl.herts.sch.uk or on 01727 859382.

Closing date: Friday 25th January 2019 Interview date: Week beginning 28th January 2019

We reserve the right to make an appointment before the closing date, so early applications are encouraged.

ART FACULTY NEWS

By the end of term our GCSE Art and Textiles students will have completed their 10 hour practical mock exams. We are very impressed with the quality of the drawings, paintings, prints, sculptures and textiles pieces that they have produced. GCSE students please note that we will be releasing the actual exam question to you during your first lesson in January and this is the start of your actual GCSE Exam. You will need to have a separate A3 or A4 sketchbook for your exam piece.

A Level Art Graphics Photography and Textiles students, the completion date for your coursework is the end of January so that we can launch your exam prep time, you will only have a few days of January to finesse and finish off. Y12 and Y13 sustained pieces are looking impressive with some accomplished painting photographic, graphical and textile pieces being worked on in the Art Department. We are already looking forward to sharing these with you in the New Year and the Summer GCSE and A Level Shows.

Sixth Form students and last year’s GCSE students for Art and Textiles please note that if you have not yet collected your work you need to do so quickly so that we have room to display all the amazing work from this year.

Once again this year we ran a competition to design the SJL Christmas Card. This year we had a huge number of entries and a very high standard of design. The overall winning lovely watercolour image by Charlotte Holland in 9A is above. Congratulations also to budding art student Brett Henman who won the Major of Harpenden’s Christmas Card Competition. We shared a selection of entries and the seven highest placed designs on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. If you missed these you can see the excellent standard of these and all the rest of our students work by following us on Instagram (www.instagram.com/sjlartdept) Twitter (@artlawes) or on the SJL Facebook Pages.

Mr Higgins, Mrs Jacques, Mrs Farrell, Mrs Ponte, Mrs Pullinger, Ms Richardson, Mrs Ralph Mrs Redford

HOUSE NEWS

Already since September we have had a huge number of House Competitions and events I which students can earn House Points! From the House Quiz which filled the Hall, to Lawes’ Team Games which filled the Sports Hall for over a week, to Sports Leagues running down in PE, Britten’s Bake Off and some Festive favourites like the Christmas Card Competition and the hugely popular Form Room Decoration Competition. All of these events have been judged and by final assembly the House points will have been awarded and totalled. We will be awarding the House Merit Mark Cup for the House which has achieved the most Merit Marks during this term. That House will then hold the cup for the Spring Term. As well as Charlotte’s stunning painting above you can look at some of the Christmas Card entries on Twitter and Social Media and we will be sharing some photos of the best of the Form Room Decorations over the holidays on Social Media.

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sjlartdept/ Twitter @artlawes

Congratulations to all of you who have represented your Houses and involved yourselves in one of the many competitions. For those of you who have not yet, there is plenty of time next term and through the summer

Mr Higgins, Mr Evans, Mrs Ponte, Mr Bloxham, Miss Caldicott, Mrs Gibson, Mr Hatchell, Mr Morton.

The Friends of Sir John Lawes would like to thank you all for the support we have received over the last year which has helped us raise money for those extras that enrich the school for our children. We would also like to thank our fantastic helpers who have given up their time to help the committee run these events. We could not have managed without them. Wishing all the staff, students and parents a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We look forward to seeing you at next year’s events.

The Friends of Sir John Lawes Committee

Beers, Bubbles & Banter 31st January 2019 It's time for another social! No fundraising, just an excuse for a night out. An opportunity to meet other SJL parents, have a beer, a glass of prosecco and chat the night away. Don't worry if you don't know anyone who is going, new friends are people we haven't met yet. The event is free but to get an idea of numbers please RSVP

Looking ahead 31 January – Beer, Bubbles & Banter pub night 23 March – Night at the Races 29 June – Summer Party

Stay in touch….. Email: [email protected] Facebook: Friends of Sir John Lawes School Twitter: @friendsofSJL

SPORTS NEWS

Twitter The PE department would like to remind you we have a Twitter account for keeping students and parents up to date with fixture details, results and general sport and physical education news. Please follow us @SJLPhysEd.

Fixtures for next week: Week Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Senior Saturday

Monday Netball Cup Vs Roundwood (Away) Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday END OF END OF END OF END OF END OF TERM TERM TERM TERM TERM

Saturday CHRISTMAS

Week Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Senior Saturday

Monday INSET DAY INSET DAY INSET DAY INSET DAY INSET DAY

Tuesday Netball Vs St Georges (Home) Wednesday Football Vs Richard Hale (Home) Thursday

Friday

Saturday Rugby 7,8 and 10 TBC

Year 8 Hockey - SJL v Royal Masonic

We took 2 teams over to play Royal Masonic on a chilly Monday evening. One match was a county cup game and the other was a friendly. Both games were very entertaining and played to a good standard. The A team lost their county cup game 3-0. As the game progressed we got more into the game and the performance in the second half was much better. In the friendly game it finished 3-3 with SJL scoring late in the game for the draw. This was a game of 2 halves, Royal Masonic dominated the first half and then SJL dominated the second half. Well done to all involved.

Football News This year Jake Watkiss has been one of the leading lights in SJL football with his

Selection for the Schools Team. We have already heard of a successful beginning to his career in that team with starts and wins under his belt.

Jake played the whole game for the Hertfordshire Schools U14s last Saturday in their 2 - 1 win away from home against a strong Essex side. They are now top of the SSESFA league heading into the Christmas break. Hopefully there will be more great news to follow! All of us in the SJL PE Department wish you all the best for the rest of your fixtures.

County Badminton Championships

This year both the U14 and U16 Girls Badminton Teams qualified through the District Championships to play in the County Champs at the University of Herts.

The day was a great success with both teams doing very well in strong competitions. The U16 Girls were unfortunate not to place higher on the day, finishing 4th but only as a result of losing three of their matches by very narrow margins. They should however, be congratulated for this really fine achievement. Well done to Elizabeth Bratton, Sagrika Arun, Belinda Webster-Smith and Shannen Millar.

We are delighted to announce that the U14 Girls ended the day as undefeated County Champions after some superb performances in both the singles and doubles. The team only lost 3 sets all day in an incredibly strong competition, winning matches against Watford Girls, Queenswood, Sandringham, Presdales and Parmiters. Congratulations to our Badminton County Champions Lucy Savage, Katie Savage, Kaaviya Suresh Vidhya and Kate Webster- Smith!

County Indoor Rowing

On Wednesday 12th December, 24 SJL students were invited to attend a county level indoor rowing competition at , Stevenage. As an invitational event in which we raced the winners of the Stevenage district competition this provided a series of competitive, exciting 2000m team relay races at U12, U14 and U16 levels for both boys and girls, as well as opportunities for students to compete individually afterwards. At SJL we have borrowed three rowing machines to enable us to run an indoor rowing club, and this was a great way to end the term’s training with some tough competition.

All our teams acquitted themselves well against good quality opposition, despite some early mishaps from some of the less experienced teams, and all should be proud of their medals. Silver medals were very pleasing results for both U12 and U14 girls teams, the latter team of Molly Barker, Alyson Roberts, Jess Marsden-Rainsford and Siena Randhawa in particular displaying excellent character and adapting their race plan to come back from a poor start to almost take gold. After this our more experienced U16 teams took to the arena, with both the girls (Megan Hill, Ruby Barwell, Mary Kershaw and Joella McDonough) and the boys (Babli Abubakar, Jack Gibbs, Jake Spiteri and Harvey Welch) producing classy, powerful and well executed races to win their gold medals in commanding style.

After the team races had been concluded it was great to see a good number of SJL athletes entering the individual competition, a 200m sprint requiring a different set of skills and tactics. Once again facing strong opposition, including their own teammates, Harvey, Mary and Jess became individual county champions in their age groups, with very impressive performances from Ruby, Babli and Alyson among others. I was also proud of how all our athletes showed exemplary sportsmanship, supporting their teammates and showing their opponents courtesy and respect whatever the result had been. This event provided a successful conclusion to a good term’s indoor rowing and we look forward to more racing opportunities in the New Year.

Year 7 Basketball

The Year 7 students have been taking part in a development initiative this term at Oaklands College. They are coached by Oakland Wolves team members and then take part in games against the other schools. This week only Beaumont and SJL attended, which meant that rather than mini games the girls played their first full game. Beaumont are a strong side with several of their girls playing club basketball. They took an early lead but SJL showed real determination. After being 2 - 18 down they fought back to finish 12-24. Play was not one sided but SJL found shooting under pressure difficult and although we had lots of chances, converting these to goals was a challenge. However we now know what we need to work on and I am sure that with further training we will pose a greater challenge to Beaumont next time we play!

Year 10 Netball The year 10 netball team played their next game of the cup competition against St Albans Girls’ School on Tuesday. All the players pulled together showing great team work and collaboration. Every SJL player gave 100% in each quarter, demonstrating great speed in attack and creating a lot of turnovers in defence. The overall score of the game was an impressive 28- 12 to SJL, meaning the girls are through to the next round of the cup. Mary Kershaw received players’ player from STAGS and Megan Hill received teachers’ player of the match, both for their fantastic shooting and movement in the circle. The year 10s have massively improved throughout this season; taking on all coaching points from the teachers as well as developing as a team. Well done girls!

Year 7 Netball On Thursday 13th December SJL played , the match started with both teams playing strongly. The score at the end of the first quarter was 1-1. In the second quarter everyone upped their game, with the score progressing to 4-4. The third quarter SJL played very well with Samuel Ryder only scoring 2 goals and SJL scoring 4 goals with SJL now looking to hold the lead of 8-6 which they worked so hard to get. The last quarter went very well with Samuel Ryder scoring 1 goal and SJL scoring 3 which meant the final score was 11-7.Congratulations to Mia Collins for being nominated player of the match!

By Mia Collins