Parental Bulletin

10th November 2016

The Knights Templar School Headteacher: Park Street Mr T. Litchfield, G.G.S.M. Baldock Herts SG7 6DZ Email: admin@ktemplar.herts.sch.uk Tel: 01462 620700

PARENTAL WEEKLY UPDATE – 10th November 2016 (available on our website)

Dear Parents and Carers

Please may I remind you that school is starting one hour later than normal tomorrow as a result of all staff, the ma-

jority of sixth form students and the majority of year 11 students being here this evening for the 6th form open

evening. School buses will pick up students at the usual place but one hour later.

We are looking forward to a busy evening in school as students looking for places in our sixth form attend our 6th

form Open Evening. There are presentations in the hall at 6.00pm and at 6.45pm, which will last about half an

hour each. After the presentations, departments are open to discuss which A level choices would be suitable for

your child. Students will also get a chance to consider which wider curriculum subjects and enrichment pro-

grammes they might like to follow.

We were surprised by the BioSoc (Biology Society) when we came into school on Wednesday! The students had

turned the school into a range of habitats, highlighting different aspects of Biology. The students presented to the

school a copy of the BBC series, ‘Planet Earth II’, which will be placed in the library for all students to look at – after

I have had a good read. Thank you to all the students involved and in particular to Mrs Allman (we wish her well as

she goes on maternity leave on Friday).

I am really looking forward to the ‘Shakespeare Schools Festival’ on Friday evening at the Gordon Craig Theatre in

Stevenage - we have 14 students involved. Many congratulations to the students and to Mrs Raymen (formerly

Miss Bramley) on their work for this festival!

Can I draw your attention to two musical events taking place over the next couple of weeks. I do hope that you are

able to attend the Winter Concert on Wednesday evening. A real highlight of the term with some wonderful music

being presented. The concert starts at 7.00pm, with donations on the door afterwards.

Ben Goldscheider (last year’s Yr 13 student) will be presenting a recital in St Mary’s Church on Friday 18th Novem-

ber. You might be aware that Ben was a finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year in the summer when he per-

formed at the Barbican Centre with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Ben is currently studying in Germany. This

should be a real treat and I hope to see you there!

We will be holding our school Remembrance Service tomorrow at 11.00am. The weather looks dry, but chilly, so

students should wear school uniform coats if they wish to. Please note that hoodies are not school uniform!

Finally, senior students, the brass group and I will be representing the school at the Baldock Cenotaph on Sunday

13th November. The town will be holding its annual Remembrance Service at 11.00am. The students will be read-

ing the names of the soldiers named on the memorial and the brass group will be playing the hymns and accompa-

nying the National Anthem. It would be lovely to see you there.

Kind Regards,

Tim Litchfield

Headteacher

Year 11 Media Students

Mock exam information: Students will be sitting a full mock exam for both Action Adventure (Section A) and TV

Comedy (Section B). Please be aware that all the revision material is on google classroom, which all students access

regularly during lessons, and can access from home or on their phones by logging into ktemplar.me.uk.

Please encourage your son/ daughter to go through the ‘Action Adventure exam practice’ document which has lots

of guidance on how to answer each question. These will be the exact questions that will be on the paper!

Compulsory coursework catch up sessions: These have been running since September for any student who has not finished

coursework from year 10. Sessions are Monday lunchtimes and Wednesdays after school. Students who do still have course-

work outstanding have had letters sent home. These will continue to run until Christmas which will be the final deadline to

complete all outstanding work. Final deadline: Monday 19th December

Dates for your Diary Thursday 10.11.16 National Non Fiction Fortnight [Library]

Yr 11 MFL Written CA Preparation this week (students need to be in all MFL lessons

during this period)

Yr 9 10 & 12 Rotary Technology Tournament [The Priory School]

11:00-16:30 Yr7-12 District Cross Country Championships [Stevenage]

18:00-21:00 Yr11 into Yr 12 Open Evening

Friday 11.11.16 School commences today at 9.45am

08:30-13:20 Yr8 - 10 (20) Shakespeare Schools Festival Rehearsal [Gordon Craig Thea-

tre, Stevenage]

10:45-11:10 School Remembrance Service

Yr12 Progress Review

19:00-21:30 Yr8-10 (20) Shakespeare Schools Festival: Performance of Much Ado

About Nothing [Gordon Craig Theatre, Stevenage]

Saturday 12.11.16 Yr8 Caving Trip

Sunday 13.11.16 Yr8 Caving Trip

10:30-12:00 Brass Ensemble Remembrance Service

Monday 14.11.16 Yr 11 MFL Written CA Preparation this week (students need to be in all MFL lessons

during this period)

Yr10 Art/Art Graphics London Gallery Trip

08:55-13:20 Yr9-13 EDA Partnership Event 2: Singing for Musical Theatre (20 stu-

dents) [Emil Dale, Hitchin]

Tuesday 15.11.16 14:20-18:00 Yr9&10 District Hockey Tournament [ATP]

19:00-20:00 DofE New Yr9 Bronze Parents meeting [Hall]

Wednesday 16.11.16 19:00-22:00 Winter Concert [Hall]

Thursday 17.11.16 08:00-11:00 Yr12&13 Practical Dance Controlled Assessment [Studio]

12:30-16:00 Yr8 - 11 District Table Tennis Tournament [HBS]

18:00-20:30 Yr12&13 Music Mock Performances for AS and A2 [Hall]

KTS Best Books - Supporting Independent Reading

To support our pupils in their independent reading we have created a list of fiction titles, which we have called the

‘KTS Best Books’ list. Our aim is to encourage all pupils to read by suggesting books that they might like. The most

important feature of the ‘KTS Best Books’ list is that it is generated by both staff and pupils. We would like to en-

courage all pupils to share their favourite books with their peers by writing short reviews that we can add to the

list. To support independent reading, our librarians have offered to stock titles requested by pupils whenever pos-

sible. They are also very happy to offer the benefit of their experience and expertise to pupils in search of some-

thing new to read, so we encourage all pupils to make use of our Library.

The KTS Best Books list can be viewed and printed from the school website. It is available to all pupils through their

English classes and in the Library. Happy reading!

Library News

Our Year 7 and 8 pupils will shortly be receiving their free Bookbuzz title, a gift from the

Library.

Bookbuzz is a new reading programme which gives schools the opportunity to offer their students a free book of their choice, from a list of specially selected titles.

The aim of Bookbuzz is to inspire excitement about reading, whilst discovering new authors and titles. We hope your child enjoys their Bookbuzz book and that it encourages them to continue reading. To find out more about this year’s titles, and other books that your child might enjoy, do visit the website where you can also find useful links about reading and writing, and fun writing activities that you can do at home with your child: www.bookbuzz.org.uk

National Non-Fiction November

Quote of the Day

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking”.

Haruki Marakami

Art News: On Monday there will be a visit for Year 10 students to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Although students need not wear school uniform we ask that they dress appropriately for a school visit. Also, a reminder to parents or carers that we need your permission to take your child on a school trip, this is automatic if paying by ‘wisepay’ but if not, please ensure the permission slip is returned to school, along with your cash or cheque payment. Thank you. The GCSE mock exam takes place on 17th and 18th November. As this will be their first experience of it, please make sure your child is well prepared for the two full days that the exam involves and we wish all of our Year 11 students the very best.

Year 9 rugby success Monday 7th Year 9 hosted Tring School in the 2nd Round of the County Cup. Tring started the game in confident mood and after sustained pressure in attack, the KTs defence was being put under an early test. However, the in-tensity of the defending from both forwards and back, along with excellent line speed caused Tring to attempt one pass too many. Will Bruning had enough vision to see the pass and intercepted before running three quarters of the length of the pitch to score under the posts. Knights Templar then began to show their dominance. Dylan Daniel was excellent in the forwards and the County player gained many turnovers and excellent tackles. Further tries from Darleen Shasha and 100% conversion rate from Gabriel Taylor (5 from 5) ensured a 21-0 lead at half time. Tring school came out looking to prove a point in the second half and the KTS defence showed amazing pride and commitment in trying to keep a clean sheet. At one point in the match KTS had to defend 5 metres from their try line before holding the ball up over the line. From the resulting scrum KTS then managed to turn the ball over be-fore Will Bruning completed his hatrick. The KTS boys won their first match of the week 35-0 in this County Cup clash which will see the boys go through to the next round of the County Cup. On Wednesday we hosted John Henry Newman in a Local League fixture. The team was very buoyant especially after their win earlier in the week. We chose to receive the kick-off and from the outset our forwards dominated the contact area with Andrew Jardin leading the way. We won successive rucks and eventually Gage Harrigan went through for the try which was duly converted by Dylan Daniel. Further tries followed by Joe Howson and Dylan Dan-iel. All these were converted giving us a 21-0 lead at half time. In the second half, John Henry upped their running and scored a good try. However, our forwards continued where they left off in the first half by gaining and regain-ing possession again and again. This provided Dom Merrill, at scrum half for the first time, lots of easy passes and even 2 sniping runs. 2 more converted tries followed by Joe again and Will Bruning giving us a 35-7 victory.

Well done to all the boys who played. Our teamwork is improving. Senior Basketball The Senior team have been slow starters this basketball season after playing two county league games over the past two weeks and suffering losses at the hands of both St. Marys, Cheshunt and St. Colomba’s College, St Albans, two local schools who have considerable recent local and national success.

Our first match was against St. Mary’s away from home on Thursday 2nd November and it was clear that there was still a great deal of summer rustiness to shake off. Defence looked solid, but it appeared to be a real struggle to convert opportunities on offense. The final score of 47-32 showed the high standard of defence, but the team all felt that with some better finishing it was a game that could’ve been won.

Monday 7th saw the visit of St. Colomba’s at home. We lost to them two years ago but knew that their team had lost some height since then giving us a real chance to come away with the victory. It was a competition throughout the majority of the game but we just couldn’t go on a significant run to keep in the game. This, along with some tight decisions that went against the Seniors meant St. Colomba’s handed us our second county loss this season by a score of 57-71

Our next match is on Monday at home against St. George’s and we believe we can begin to turn our record in the County League around. Feel free to come along and show your support.

Ibs Odumade (Yr13)

Year 9 hockey update This week our year 9 hockey team battled it out with St Francis School in the County Cup competition. The match was a very tense and evenly contested affair with both teams having good chances in an ‘end-to-end’ encounter. However, the opposition proved to be very clinical on the counter-attack and scored 3 goals, all coming immediate-ly after periods of intense pressure from KTS. At the final whistle, the score line read KTS 0 – 3 St Francis but this was not a true reflection of the KTS performance or the competitive nature of the match. Congratulations to Zoe Nicholson, Maisy Tomlinson and Abby Fearfield for their stand-out performances.

Year 7 football update Despite suffering their first loss in the District League competition to Greneway School last Monday, the year 7 football boys rallied well to overcome tough opposition in the 2nd round of the County Cup. The KTS team travelled to Sandringham School and put on a wonderful display of passing, movement and clinical finishing as they breezed into the 3rd round of the competition with a 5-0 win over their opponents. Well done to all of the boys involved and in particular to Rory Gillam who scored a hat-trick! Indoor Athletics club will take place every Thursday at Knights Templar from 3:30- 5:30. There is a charge of £1 per session and is open to all pupils of every ability and experience. This charge is to pay for specialist athletics coaches who will be delivering the high quality session. You will get the opportunity to take part in hurdles, javelin, shot, running and jumping events. Any further questions please see Mr Smith. Thursday 3rd Nov- U16 Boys and Girls District Badminton Tournament Very high standard of competition hosted at Knights Templar School and organised through North Herts Schools Sports Partnership. Knights Templar School provided the officials for this. A huge thank you to the following stu-dents from year 12 who ensured the smooth running of a very competitive tournament:

Katie Allerton, Sam Prior, Aghattha Villaflor, Sam Collins, Hannah Loosley, Harry Jones, Joe Fantom, Ethan Padget-Dunthorne.

The U16 Girls (Chloe Connolly (Cpt), Judith Simmonds, Charlotte Marsden and Alice Winzer) came 1st and have qual-ified for the U16 County Finals which will be held at Hertfordshire University on the 6th Dec. Congratulations and good luck. The U16 Girls will also join the U14 Girls team at the competition

The U16 Boys (Jack Connolly (Cpt), Ross Canter, Chris Saunders and Joe Bibb) came 3rd in a very competitive compe-tition. The Girls Rugby squad played at the district development tournament on Friday 4th Nov Both the U13 and U15 teams won their first 3 matches in their pools. The U13 team beat Nobel by a convincing score, which was a sweet victory, as the girls had lost to them in the home tournament played last half term. Unfor-tunately the U13 lost their final match 15-10 and went through as second place winners to the next round. Out-standing performances from Berri Clarke, Tegan Grimes and Amy Gonis, who scored many tries and made some huge tackles in what can only be described as miserable weather for the coaches and spectators! The U15 Team won the next two games in their competition but missing a key player Eva Dennis due to an injury in the final game the girls came out as second place winners. Abbie Picking our captain of the U15 team was talented spotted by a England development coach. Several players in the squad made their first appearance representing the school in rugby which was inspired form their successes in their Rugby PE lessons this term. Katie Allerton (sixth form coach) assisted both teams at the tournament, sharing her tactics and feedback through-out the day. Katie is an assistant coach at the girls rugby practice and plays for Hitchin Rugby Club. She has been a key role model in promoting both school and club rugby and creating links at local clubs for the girls. On behalf of the team we would like to thank her for her commitment this year.

Miss Ward, Girls Rugby

#BigBiologyDay

November 9th saw the Big Biology Day brought to life at Knights Templar in the form of habitats around the world. The Arctic, the Rainforest, the Ocean and the Desert were all represented through factsheets on ani-mals that live in these environments, a fantastic piece of art in the can-teen, and a series of nature facts decorating stairs in the new Science block. Our Year 7s also had the opportunity to search for various animals

using ‘Who Am I?’ questions.

Following the recent television series début, the Biology Society has donated the book Planet Earth II to the school to commemorate the day. Once the book is transferred in to the library, we encourage students to take a look and discover more about the amazing phenomena that can be found on our planet. This stunning habitat artwork was created by Beth Mance and was put up in the dining hall: Here’s some quotes from some Year 7 students had the oppor-tunity to compete an ‘animal hunt’ around school during break and lunchtime yesterday. This is what they had to say about our Big Biology day: ' I thought that it was a fun way to learn science'

'We saw lots of animals around the school and it made the day really fun'

' Big Biology day wad very good, and I liked that #BigBiologyDay was written on the floor in chalk'

'The drawings around the canteen were amazing!'

'I saw a lot of interesting animals and facts on the doors, walls and tables'

' I found it fun to find the answers, me and my friends really enjoyed it'

' I liked the leaves with the information on them in the science block' Thank you to the sixth form students who helped to make everything happen on the day: Casey Manning, Rebecca Wray, Annie Ferrari, Charlie Duke, Beth Mance, Joe Ready

It’s that time of the year again! Moustaches will be everywhere. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this campaign, it is a global movement aimed at “changing the face of men’s health!”

So a number of KTS members of staff have stepped up to the plate and enrolled to participate in this global event. In addition to supporting research, the

Movember movement also encourages people to discuss their health concerns with one another. After all, it is an awareness campaign for the most common male-bodied health problems, such as testicular and pros-tate cancer, as well as mental illness.

If you wish to donate to the team please access the link below, every penny helps and your son/daughter will be able to update you on their teachers’ moustache styles throughout the month of November! https://uk.movember.com/mospace/team/

Governor Profile: Nicky Bull

I’ve been a parent governor since February 2015. I serve on two committees; Teaching & Learning/ Student Welfare and Curriculum, Assessment and Achievement, and am also the Link Governor for Sociology and Psychology and Food monitor. Secondary School is a time of life changing decisions and choices. The students are intro-duced to a range of new subjects, sports and experiences and then gradually choose which ones they want to continue with and which ones they want to leave behind. It is probably this that made me put myself forward as a parent governor; I want to be involved in steering the school forward, so that choices are available to students, with support in place to help students achieve their full potential. I want our school to provide everything that young people need within our local community from Year 7 to 13.

I’m a single parent, living in Bygrave, with my two children, a son in Year 13 and a daughter in Year 9. We’re a very sporty family: I do triathlons, and also swim and cycle for pleasure. Last year I went on a swim tour of Croa-tia and this summer I cycled the Coast to Coast route, raising funds for the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme and in the process achieving my Diamond Challenger award. Both my children have benefitted from instrumental les-sons, school trips and expeditions. In my opinion, Knights Templar has given them tremendous opportunities.

My career has been in Education; I’ve worked in Botswana, Brunei, Bethnal Green and am now in Baldock. I’ve taught at all levels, from Early Years to Higher Education. Although working as a teacher gives me a greater un-derstanding of the workings of a school, as a governor I am driven far more by what I think and feel as a parent.

ENTERPRISE ENGAGES STUDENTS

BILL BOWKETT: PARIS CLIMATE DEAL “A GLOBAL WARNING”

CHARLIE BOWKETT: DR STRANGE REVIEW

WWW.KTSNEWSKNIGHT.COM

Euan Ryan reports on Year 12

Business Enterprise day on

Thursday 3rd

November.

Click here for more…

Winter Dinner Dance announcement Unfortunately, earlier this week a letter regarding the annual Sixth Form Winter Dinner Dance event was sent home to students with the incorrect date of the event provided. The letter sent to students states that the event will take place on Thursday 8th December when in fact, it will take place on Wednesday 7th December. This oversight in the letter was due to an administrative error rather than a late change of date. Wednesday 7th De-cember has been the allotted date for this event since its original booking in June 2016. We apologise for any inconvenience that this may have caused and we look forward to what promises to be an ex-cellent night of festive fun for our sixth form students to enjoy. Senior football update Last Friday evening, the KTS Senior Football Team hosted Hitchin Boys’ School in a District league fixture. The opening half was incredibly competitive and despite KTS dominating possession, HBS posed a real threat on the counter-attack and proved to be very clinical in front of goal. With the 2 sides swapping the lead 3 times in the first half, the score at half-time was 3-2, in favour of KTS. However, the 2nd half was a very different affair. The KTS boys took complete control of the game and their domi-nance in terms of possession seemed to slowly sap the energy from their opponents. From this point onwards the goal scoring chances came thick and fast with our stand-out players happy to oblige with well taken strikes at goal. Hat-tricks for Theo Reed and Sean Blyth, as well as goals from Elliot Campbell-Gumb, Joe Fantom and Elliot Powell, ensured that KTS took the victory with a very comfortable 9-2 win. Well done to all of the boys involved.

KTS graduate profile- Amelia Ellis Amelia performed remarkably well in her A Level studies, achieving an A* in Biology, an A in Chemistry and a B in Psychology. Amelia worked incredibly hard to achieve well academically throughout her time at KTS but she was also an incredibly important member of the student and school community. Amelia worked on the Interact committee, helping to organise numerous events in the school and local community, often raising significant sums of money for various charita-ble causes in the process. Amelia balanced these responsibilities impeccably well, along-side her academic studies and her role as a subject prefect. Amelia is now studying a degree in Pharmacy at The University of East Anglia. We wish her the best of luck with all of her future endeavours.

Government & Politics students visit Westminster On Monday 7th November, Miss Harrison and Mr Sherry took 11 Year 12 Government and Politics students to West-minster for the day. While we were there, students were given a guided tour of the historic Palace, starting by fol-lowing in the footsteps of the Queen and entering through the Sovereign’s Entrance. Once inside, our guide ex-plained lots of the history about the building and some of the incredibly significant events that have taken place inside. Students were taken through both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and were reminded in-cessantly that sitting down on the famous green or red benches was not allowed. Following the fantastic tour, stu-dents then took part in a voting and elections workshop, helping to develop their understanding of our own elec-toral system, the problems with it and the possible alternatives. We were then able to stop for some photo oppor-tunities and sight-seeing around Parliament Square and the Supreme Court. All in all, a very successful day out! (Written by Miss Harrison) Enterprise Day success On Thursday 3rd November, year 12 participated in the annual KTS Enter-prise Day. This event allows students the opportunity to work in teams to design a commercial product and build a subsequent business plan around that product. The students were challenged with the completion of a number of tasks throughout the day ranging from; costing and recruitment exercises to making the product logo and packaging. The emphasis for this day was for the students to work effectively when unsupervised, demonstrating the skills required to work efficiently as part of a team, as well as demonstrating the independent learning skills required to meet deadlines while working alone.

Ensuring that the students made the most of this opportunity were the 11 ‘group facilitators’. The group facilitators were very kind in offering their time to assist with Enterprise Day, sharing their expertise to prompt, question and lead each group of students to ensure that the tasks were completed to the best of the students’ ability. The day was a fantastic success, closing with a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style presenta-tion from each group, explaining their product and accompanying business model. The levels of student engagement and focus throughout the day were truly

wonderful, prompting one of our group facilitators to say this: ‘….I would like to say how impressed we (facilitators) were with Enterprise Day this year. The students really did work exceptionally well. Above all they (students) were such a nice group of young people with whom to work and in my recollection it was the best Enterprise Day to date.’ We would like to thank the students for their superb efforts throughout this event but in particular, we must thank the 11 volunteers who acted as group facilitators on the day. Many of these volunteers were once again provided by The Baldock Rotary Club, with which the school has a very special relationship. The expertise, advice and enthu-siasm provided to the students by our facilitators on the day proved crucial in ensuring the success of the event.

Year 12 Geography Fieldtrip to Blencathra On Monday 17th October, the year 12 geographers had a rather early start in or-der to make their way up to the Lake District where we spent four days com-pleting field work studies in and around Cumbria. During the journey the year 12 class payed a visit to the tourist, coastal town of Morecambe in Lancashire. Here we took some time to observe the selection of coastal defences, watching how effective they were and saw rare use of a fish tail groyne. After this quick stop, we made our way to Blencathra, in the Lake District, where we found a lesson prepared for us, by our tutor for the trip. This gave us a chance to review the work we had completed and to gain some preparation for the next day.

We spent the next day in the city of Carlisle where we used a cluster sampling method to see how urbanisation had affected the area. We studied the effects of urbanisation on the inner city and then visited a suburban area which was previously the village of Stanwix. We compared the types of housing in both places, the security protection systems and lots more. To finish the day, we again had a lesson to consolidate our work and again prepare for our next day.

The next day was our last full day of fieldwork, we visited the Solway Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) where we profiled a stretch of beach on a spit near Silloth. We were separated into groups and the profiling began. We had to measure the distance from the top of the beach to the bottom checking sedi-ment size and the angle of the beach. We used a range of useful technologies to help us with the fieldwork, for example we used GPS and iPads to record our da-ta. After a few hours of surveying we all stopped for our lunch on the beautiful scenic beach, some taking a break for stone skimming. We reached the end of the spit and as the tide was coming in quickly we started our walk round the other side of the spit seeing the vast marshes sheltered by the spit, stop-ping to talk about the reason the marshes had formed and how they were used to graze cattle at certain times of the year. After a pleasant walk through the countryside until we arrived back at the mini-busses. On our way back to the centre we stopped off in Silloth to sit on the massive sea wall and discussed sea defence processes. When we arrived back at the centre we learnt about the use of GIS (Geographical Information Systems) and how this can be used to present and locate data on maps. We also started to consider how statistical tests such as Spearman’s Rank can be used to measure the level of confidence we had in our data.

The last day was an early start, filled with people rushing to find all of their clothes from the drying room and checking to make sure they hadn’t missed anything. We had two lessons in the morning to consolidate all that we had learnt over the trip. In particular, we thought about how our learning from Blencathra would help prepare us for our exams at the end of Year 12 and we learnt about another statistical test called Chi Squared. After saying our final goodbyes to the centre and all the lovely staff that worked there, we got on the bus and prepared for our lengthy journey back home.

By Charlie Tunnicliffe and Lauren Tompkins

Year 13 student profile- Emily Arnold Emily is currently studying Physical Education, Sociology and English Literature at A Lev-el and is in the process of applying to study Child Nursing at university. Emily is an incredibly diligent worker who seeks to put 100% effort into everything she does. This has been the foundation of her academic success but has also provided her with a number of opportunities and successes outside of the classroom. Emily is an exceptional skater and as such, performs regularly as a member of the Inter-national School of Skating, Milton Keynes. Voluntary work is something which has epitomised Emily’s selfless and hard-working nature. She has worked effectively as a mentor to key stage 3 pupils in school and has

secured a work placement at Lister hospital to support her university application. We are incredibly proud of Emily’s achievements thus far and we look forward to seeing where her wonderful atti-tude and work ethic will take her in the future. Senior netball update Congratulations to all of the girls involved with a recent District Netball triangular fixture against Hitchin Girls’ School and Barnwell. Despite a tough defeat to Hitchin Girls’ School, the KTS girls rallied well to put in an impressive winning performance against Barnwell. Well done to all involved!

Year 12 student profile- Sam Prior Having achieved 5 A* grades, 4 A grades and 1 B grade at GCSE, Sam decided to study A Level PE, Geography, Maths and Further Maths. As his GCSE results indicate, Sam excels in the classroom but also has an array of other talents. Sam has always been an active individual and this is perhaps best epitomised by his undertaking of the Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award. When he is not navigating his way through harsh and unforgiving countryside as part of his D of E award, Sam can be found honing his skills as a roller hockey player! In addition to his sporting achievements as a performer, Sam has been heavily in-

volved with the District badminton tournaments hosted at KTS this year. He has played a pivotal role as an umpire at these events and has refined his leadership skills in the process. Finally, Sam is a very talented magician and has shown a great deal of commitment in striving to perfect this partic-ular art form. In fact, his performances for peers and colleagues have been so impressive that we have hired Sam to perform some of his mind boggling tricks as part of the entertainment at our annual Winter Dinner Dance event. Sam is an incredibly talented individual and we look forward to seeing some amazing accomplishments from him in the future.