Sackville Open Day … in case you missed us

Once again we would like to thank all of those who manged to make our COVID-secure open day so safe and rewarding on Friday September 18th.

We are aware that not everyone managed to book into the day, so we are delighted to share below

• a video of the presentation by Headteacher Julian Grant, Deputy Headteacher Paul Street and our senior students
• a virtual tour of the school for prospective parents and students with Head of Year 7 Jake Endersby
• our promotional video from 2019 (we did not commission a new video this year under the current conditions)
• a slide show of some of the key school events from 2019-20

Our prospectus is also available on the website here.

Open Day 2020

smart

smart

smart

smart

smart

smart

Thank-you to all of our visitors who made our open day so safe and successful. Friday September 18th was due to be an INSET day, so our students missed no teaching to allow open day to go ahead.

We would like to thank our sixth-form student ambassadors who worked a long shift to show all of the visitors every corner of the school, pausing to allow all of our staff to take questions.

We are aware that many people were not able to secure a tour booking. We will be putting a video of today’s talk alongside a virtual tour on this website by the middle of this week.

Amber update

Regular readers of our posts will know that year 12 student Amber Titchener was busy over lockdown releasing her self-penned single Jigsaw and performing for Live Nation UK. Jigsaw has now had well over 100,000 streams on Spotify alone.

Her new single No Company was released on Friday 18th September, and you can see the video on YouTube here. Add it to your Spotify playlist here.

Alongside starting her A levels this autumn, Amber is busy writing songs and planning their release. We will keep you posted!

Welcome to our new year 7s

The start of the year is always an exciting time for us at Sackville; it is doubly so this year as we welcome back students who spent a lot of the spring and summer at home. We were particularly pleased to greet our new year 7s on Thursday September 3^rd.

Assemblies in whole year groups are not currently possible, but it was good to briefly talk to the year 7s as a group in an outside space. They certainly impressed staff in their first two days; we are very much looking forward to accompanying them on their journeys over the next seven years, and seeing what amazing things they achieve.

Sackville students shine

Sackville’s year 11 students are celebrating their GCSE successes.

In this most extraordinary year students have shown resilience and maturity in coping with the unexpected curtailing of year 11 and the long wait to hear their results.

Despite the closure, their hard work and excellent attitude over the past two years of their GCSE courses have led to exceptional outcomes.

Headteacher Julian Grant commented:

“We would like to congratulate them and wish them every success as they embark on their post-16 education. They have been a fantastic group of young people to work with and we look forward to sharing more achievement with them in the future.”

Sackville students celebrate A level and vocational course success

Sackville students are today celebrating achieving hard-earned A level and vocational results including a high proportion of top grades. In what has proved to be an unprecedented year in so many ways, they have been rewarded for their hard work and strong performances throughout their time in the sixth form. We are delighted with the university places their efforts have secured, including four Oxbridge places: two at Cambridge and two at Oxford. We have a record number of students going to study at the selective ‘Russell Group’ universities. These include Imperial, Kings and University Colleges in London, and the universities of Durham, Leeds, Edinburgh, Warwick, Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Exeter and Liverpool. Our students will certainly be flying the Sackville rose at all points of the compass this year.

Even in this challenging climate, across the year group students have also managed to secure sought after and highly regarded apprenticeships and employment including at the Queen Victoria Hospital and in the police.

We are extremely proud of how well our students have coped in the face of adversity this year, and we know that they will carry something of Sackville with them into their extraordinary futures.

Headteacher Julian Grant commented: “We wish these remarkable students all the very best and are full of admiration for the way in which they have handled such extraordinary challenges. We continue to be committed to supporting them in every way possible as they move onto the next phase of what will no doubt be bright futures. I am extremely grateful to our staff for their unstinting efforts over the last two years, and of course to those of our wonderful parent body”.

“The school is absolutely amazing. The support and advice they offer students is fantastic”

 “The Sixth form team have been so helpful and clear during these uncertain times” 

 “Thank you to all the staff for their calm and measured advice during this highly stressful experience”.

Thank-you and have a great summer

At the end of the strangest term ever, it’s time to say a huge thank-you to our students, parents, carers and staff for their magnificent attitude and efforts over the closure period.

We’ve loved having our year 7-9s in for their well-being sessions, and our year 10 and 12s for their face-to-face lessons. We are eagerly anticipating the return of all students at the start of next term. Our plans for a COVID-safe return are in place, and can be read in full on our latest edition of Sackville News.

Exam results and sixth form enrolment

Our year 13 students will get their results by email on August 13^th, and our year 11s on August 20^th. Year 11s will be able to enrol virtually for the sixth form from August 21^st. Any non-Sackville students who wish to enrol and have not yet applied should contact Mrs Plumb, our sixth-form administrator.

Start of term

Term begins for year 7s and 12s on Thursday September 3^rd, and for other years on Friday September 4^th.

Open day

Open Day will be on Friday September 18^th. Details on booking into our open day will be published here at the start of term.

Have a great holiday and we look forward to seeing everyone in September!

Performing in a lockdown

Some subjects are more difficult to manage in a ‘remote learning’ environment than others. How do you do a group rehearsal for example? That’s one reason why our in-school sessions have been so important over the last five weeks. During the last week of term our year 12s have been in, but it’s hard to practise musical theatre when there is a class quietly getting exam feedback next door! So Miss Warran took her performing artists outside in the sun to sing and act their hearts out.

Meanwhile, some of our younger musicians have been showcasing outside school …