A Message From Principal, Mr Martin
We have had a fantastic penultimate week at Samuel Whitbread Academy and we still have the House Olympics to come next week!
Our Proms went extremely well: the Year 13 Prom was held at Amberleigh Gardens in Cotton End and the Year 11 Prom was held at Offley House. Events like this take an incredible amount of organisation and I would like to thank the staff and the two student Prom Committees involved in putting the two events together. Over the years, students have arrived to Prom by various means including: limos, Ferraris, classic cars, Aston Martins, fire engines, helicopters and even double decker buses. But current Year 11 student Ava topped them all and arrived on horseback!
This week, Year 12 students have been out on work experience with various different companies all across the county and beyond. Again, I’d like to thank the careers and Sixth Form teams for all their time and effort in coordinating work experience for over 200 students. The Sixth Form team also held their induction day last week and students experienced taster lessons in several of the 36 different courses that we run at SWA. It was an extremely worthwhile event and it was great to see so many of our Year 11 students back in school, as well as the external applicants from schools all across Bedfordshire.
After the successful, but slightly wet, Gold DofE practice expeditions last month, this week saw the real event and this time the challenge was the heat. I'm glad to say they all returned safe and sound, if a little pink in the cheeks. I would like to thank all of the staff for giving up their time and for coordinating all of the different aspects that make up the Gold Award.
Last week in Food studies, Year 10 students made Afternoon Tea for their family. I can personally vouch for many of the cakes and brownies, which were superb and no doubt thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. I know all of the students would want me to thank the staff for helping them to produce some fantastic looking cakes, sandwiches and handmade sausage rolls.
It has been a jam packed term for the Music, Art, Textiles, Dance and Drama departments and this concluded last week with A Night at the Musicals. It was an amazing production, with performances from musicals such as Annie, Cabaret and Grease. The talent on display was truly amazing and the highlight for me was the song from Les Miserable, involving over 40 students. I would like to thank all of the staff involved and for all of their work this year.
This week the PE department ran sports days for Year 9 and 10, as well as organising a fantastic Sports Awards Evening to celebrate all of our students’ achievements this year. It would be impossible for me to list all of this year’s impressive fixture results in this newsletter; but, the highlights this year certainly have to be our national cup runs in football, as well as national awards for gymnastic, girls rugby and our first ever world silver medal for dance. We still have the world championships in taekwondo at the end of the month in Holland and we are hopeful for success.
Finally, if you haven't already seen it, please check out our leavers video on our YouTube account made by our fantastic media department, which along with the usual performances from teachers and support staff, this year includes a special guest and ex alumni.
