Thursday 10th October - 15 yr11,12 & 13 girls were invited to attend the #Now's the Time 2 medical conference at Northampton High School. They attended talks on personal statement writing, applying to uni and the admissions and interview process for medicine and heard the personal experiences of GP's, Consultants and junior Doctors. Some even had the opportunity to dissect the heart and lungs of a sheep. An informative and enjoyable day was had by all.

Thank you to everyone who voted for the fitness suite through the Tesco Bags of Help Scheme.We are pleased to announce that we won the first prize of £4000 and are presently sourcing the equipment to enable the upgrade. We are looking forward to using the fitness suite to  inspire our students to maintain a healthy, active lifestyle.

On Wednesday the 25th September we are fortunate to have Team GB sprinter Diani Walker coming to Sponne to deliver a fitness challenge and inspirational talk to the year 7s. The year 7s have each been given a sponsorship form as part of the Sport for Champions event, as their efforts will go towards raising funds for unsponsored Team GB athletes and Sponne PE equipment and opportunities.  

A Level Examination Results 2019

Students and staff at Sponne School in Towcester are celebrating another excellent set of A Level results this year with many individuals achieving outstanding grades. Despite new specifications and a return to the two year A Level programme, results have remained very similar to previous years and most students continue to achieve the highest grades available. Just under 50% of students gained the very highest A*-B grades with almost all students passing. Students did particularly well with the very highest grades of A* and A grade with more than a third of all students achieving at least one of these.

Amongst the many delighted students today were two who achieved A*’s in all 3 of their subjects, Olivia Adams, who will be studying Biomedical Sciences at Oxford University and Ellie Massey who will be studying Biological Sciences at Durham University in the new academic year. Tim Fung achieved 1 A* and 3A’s, while Issy Grant gained 2 A*’s and 1 A grade. George Coombs, Will Ferreira Dyke and Lauren Flower all achieved an A* alongside other high grades whilst Rhiannon Barnby, Carl Davidson, Beth Dolman, Tom Heron, Jess Hornsey, Becky Jenkins, Jared Kent, Alfie Long and Annabel Purdy all achieved multiple A grades. Many other students gained at least 1 A grade in their set of results.

Headteacher Mr Iain Massey said: “We are really proud of our students who have done so well in gaining these excellent results. It is reassuring that the grades reflect the hard work that students put in and the outstanding teaching and support provided by the staff at Sponne School. Well done to all our students, including those who have secured their first choice university places.”

Miss Victoria Austin, Head of Sixth Form from Sponne, said: “I am always amazed by the high standards our students achieve and want to congratulate them on their excellent results. I am so pleased for them and wish them all the best in the future”.

 {gallery}A Level Results 19{/gallery}

On the 15^th July our Year 8 students took part in a Business Enterprise Day. The day was based loosely around the TV format ‘Dragons Den’.

Working in groups they were asked to come up with a product that would somehow ‘Save the Planet’.

They had to prepare a presentation about their chosen idea which included designs and how the product would be produced. They had to work out the finances, how much it would cost to make and what it would sell for. Marketing and Advertising was also considered – some groups made TV adverts, as well as posters, slogans and logos.

They then had to make their ‘pitch’ to some Business Dragons (Business people invited in from the local area).  The ‘Dragons’ had been helping the students during the course of the morning to help them with their research, give advice and to ask them some difficult questions!

There were some wonderful ideas – including a robotic ‘whale’ that sucked up plastic from the sea, ‘service stations’ for bees, solar panelled cases for phones, computer gaming consoles powered by static bikes, phone apps that helped with recycling to name but a few.

The students worked really well, it was great to see them negotiating within their teams and it was especially lovely to see students getting up and making their pitch to the whole year group – such a challenging thing to do.

Well done to A Salkend, H Kirby, F Brown and E Akrill from 8LC for being the team chosen by the Dragons as the company they would most likely invest in for their ‘Supreme, Green ‘n’ Clean’ wooden shampoo dispenser!

And a big thankyou to our Business Dragons for taking time out of their businesses to inspire future generations!

H Turton

This year saw a slightly different format to Sports day, with Year 10’s being on work experience and therefore competing against each other, during their final week at school. This saw some outstanding performances from a number of incredibly talented students and with this, came some new school records……

Congratulations to the following students!
10IP – Mixed relay (Beat the time held since 2014)
10SC – Boys 4 x 100m relay (Beat the time held since 1992!)
300m – Archie Tattersall (Beat the time held since 2015)
Shot put – Anna Woodman (Beat the distance held since 2014)
Discus – Annabelle Luntz (Beat the distance held since 2001!)
Hurdles – Lachlan Buchanan (Beat the time held since 2016)
300m – Georgia Corcoran (Beat the time held since 2014)

On Monday 8th July, Year 7-9 students participated in their annual sports day, taking to the field to represent their tutor groups in a variety of athletics events. The sun was shining and spirits were high, as plenty of tunes were being played by our resident DJ, Mr Moinet. Students demonstrated a real team spirit and embraced the day whilst cheering on their peers. Others were highly competitive and were out from the start to try and break a few school records. When the scores came in, the results were closer than ever before……

What a brilliant day our students (and staff) had yesterday at the Northamptonshire Sport School Games County Finals. This event is open to both primary schools and secondary schools to participate in. We took three teams to the event including Yr7 Cycling, Yr10 Rounders and Yr 8&9 Hockey. In addition to these teams 22 leaders also attended and helped organise and deliver the Archery, Tri Golf and Netball to the primary schools competing in these events.

The Summer Games programme is developed around a number of core values: Determination, Honesty, Passion, Respect, Self-Belief and Teamwork.
These are awarded in the form of stickers and trophies to those who have demonstrated one of these values. These not only apply to the competitors but their team managers and coaches as well as those spectating. As usual our leaders were absolutely fantastic and showed real professionalism, fairness and kindness. Many leaders were commended for their umpiring skills and ease of communication with the primary school children and their teachers.

We had a very successful day and our teams were also fantastic and all came back with medals!
• Y8/9 boys hockey - Bronze
• Y9/10 girls rounders - Silver (only just beat in a count back after a 3 way tie!)
• Y7 Cyclist - Gold (individual medal winners and team Gold)
Just another day at the office with Sponne Students!

On our 2nd attempt due to rainy June, we had a fantastic (and dry!) day. The Year 8, 9 and 10 Leaders were out in force, set up pitches, gazebos, meeting teams as they arrived, leading warm up practices and ensuring all the younger children knew the rules for the competition.
They did a fantastic job and over 40 children had a wonderful opportunity to play kwik cricket and show off their silky skills with some big hits, accurate bowling and some amazing diving catches.
The support both the teams and our leaders gave was brilliant to here with cheering and celebrating each other’s successes as well as consoling each other in moments of anguish!

We have hosted 2 Tri-Golf events in 2 weeks!
Thursday 9 May was our Level 2 Cluster Schools competition & Thursday 16 May was the Level 2 Open competition. 16 teams, 160 children, 26 Sponne Leaders and NO rain!!
Tri-Golf
The Sponne Sports Leaders started by setting up ten stations for the schools to take part in. We set up the “Grand National” which consisted of different coloured cones and if you hit the furthest you got the most points. The children really enjoyed it with wild celebrations!
The children said that they were really enjoying it and all had massive smiles on their faces as they were getting high scores. I heard lots of them saying “this is so fun,” and they all wanted to win! On the whole I think that the day went really well.

By Mitchell Boffin 9TCW

The biggest event on the Leadership calendar, The KS1 Festival – it is like a mini sports day with 16 different activity stations that the children complete in teams, total set up, lead and scored by the Leaders.  They take part in activities such as the water bucket run, ladders, sack races, football goal shooting, obstacle race and many more!  I heard several of my more experienced leaders saying:

“I love this event”

“It’s my favourite event of the year because they are also so cute”

“This is the best event because it’s everyone has so much fun”

It’s so popular that I even had Year 11 students that have finished exams and have left school volunteer to come back for it!

51 leaders, 16 teams, 240 competitors, 16 activities, music, random dancing, cheering, clapping and lots of supporting adults!  What an amazing day of fun and activity.