Parental Bulletin - 7th December 2018

Parental Bulletin
7th December 2018

The Knights Templar School
Headteacher:
Mr T. Litchfield, G.G.S.M.
Park Street
Baldock
Herts SG7 6DZ
Email: admin@ktemplar.herts.sch.uk Tel: 01462 620700
Dear Parents and Carers
PARENTAL WEEKLY UPDATE – 7th December 2018
(available on our website)
Students and staff are certainly not slowing-up as we head towards
the end of term. From Maths, LGBTQ+ and National Space Academy
workshops, devised performances by year 13 students, the House
Drama competition, a visit from EastEnders star Shane Ritchie, to the
Christmas Fete, it has been another busy week at KTS! Next week
looks no less hectic with rehearsals well underway for our Gym &
Dance spectacular on Tuesday and Thursday at 7pm.
It is great to see so many students, leading, participating in and
supporting such a wide range of activities, both in lessons, before and
after school, as well as during break times. Staff give so willingly of
their time to help ensure that learning is not confined to the classroom.
Please do ask what your children have been involved in this
week, and encourage them to make the most of all that is on offer.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that students
should be in school by 08:30 each morning to ensure that they are in
form rooms when the bell goes at 08:35. Punctuality is vital to ensure that students have a settled start to their
day and that teachers and classmates are not disrupted by late arrivals. Those arriving after 08:35 must attend a
break time detention, unless you have notified school of a reason by 10:30. In which case, students are dismissed
immediately they have reported to K7. In the new year, students who are late more frequently will receive an
after school detention, so please do continue to ensure that they have established routines that help them meet
these expectations.
Finally, can I thank parents for your support and understanding regarding our efforts to make our site as safe as
possible for students at the start and end of the day. Finding alternative drop-off and pick up points a little way
from our main site is much appreciated.
Kind regards,
Sarah Barker
Acting Headteacher
Poppy Appeal 2018: Thank you for helping to raise £324.06

Dates for your Diary
Saturday 08 December 2018 Gym and Dance Tech rehearsal
Tuesday 11 December 2018 Gym & Dance Evening
Wednesday 12 December 2018 6th Form Winter Dinner Dance
Thursday 13 December 2018 6th Form Italy Information Evening
Gym & Dance Evening
Friday 14 December 2018 6th Form Big Quiz
Lateness
The school day begins at 8:35am. Therefore, students should be in school by 8:30am to ensure a prompt start. All students
arriving at school should enter through the gate from Weston Way onto the playground. Any student who arrives at school
after the bell rings at 8:35am will have to attend a break time detention, unless a parent/carer has notified the school of a reason
for lateness by e-mail, telephone or letter before 10:30am. The pupil must always go to K7, and they will be dismissed from
there if parents have given a valid reason for the lateness
From January, if a pupil is late 5 times or more then they will have an after school detention on that same day instead of a
break detention.
Year 7 Parents’ Evening - Tuesday 8 th January 2019 - online booking system
The online booking system for this parents’ evening will be going “live” on Friday 7 th December at 7am.
Parents have all been emailed the details of how to book appointments.
If you don’t have access to use the online booking system then please let me know so that your appointments can be booked
through the school.
Many thanks
Miss L Ward
Year 7 Leader
Movember
Mr Matthews and Mr Breadmore would like to thank
those members of the school community who have
generously donated over £150 to the cause.
Year 8 took the lead in school last week following their
assembly. Teams of pupils were armed with buckets
and collected spare change around the school during
form time and break. This has helped to get the
conversation moving forward and has really engaged
the pupils in the process and raised awareness about
this important issue.
https://uk.movember.com/mospace/13725799
Mr Matthews and Mr Breadmore

Drama News
Shane Richie Visits KTS
On Wednesday 5 th December the students at The Knights Templar
School had a surprise visit from Shane Richie. Richie spent an hour with
students in Year 10 studying Drama and Performing Arts. He spoke to
them about his experiences in the performing arts industry and the
many jobs that he did when starting out. Students were keen to
understand what it is like to work in television and on stage.
Richie was very engaging and enthusiastic about his successes and
spoke candidly about the pitfalls of fame. He offered advice for students
when auditioning and warned them to be resilient in the face of
rejection. Students found the time very informative; “It made me realise
I need to be thicker skinned and take rejection better” commented a
student. “It linked really well with the work we are doing in lessons”
commented another.
The Drama department were very pleased to host Richie for the
morning and Mr White, Head of Year 10 said “This was an excellent
opportunity for our students to receive advice with regards to careers
and opportunities in this industry”.

PE News
Year 7 Rugby Tournament @ St. Edmunds College
The year 7 rugby team travelled to St. Edmunds College to play in a rugby tournament on Saturday 1 st December.
The boys were drawn in a tough group for the highest tier of competition that included Leventhorpe, Bishop
Stortford High School and St. Edmunds College.
After a tough first match loss against Leventhorpe, the boys remained high in spirits to face Bishop Stortford High
School. The boys played unbelievably well and showed excellent organisation in both attack and defence. The
pressure defence ensured they turned over possession in dangerous territory and were rewarded with an excellent
result of 1 try each.
In the final game of the group stage against St. Edmunds the boys continued to show determination and spirit in
terrible weather conditions.
The final game of the game came against St. Edmunds College B team, which Knights Templar proved too dominant.
The result finished 3 tries to nil to end the day on a high.
Mr Smith commented, ‘The boys were so positive today despite playing against some tough opposition and wet
conditions. As the day went on the team improved significantly. The encouraging support from parents was a big
factor in keeping spirits and motivation high throughout the day and I’d like to say thank you for this.’

Year 7/8 Girls Rugby Tournament at Hitchin Rugby Club
Knights Templar took two year 7/8 girls rugby teams to Hitchin Rugby Club on Thursday 29 th November.
This tournament was aimed to develop the girls ability to play full rules in a competitive situation.
The year 7/8 squad, Mr Smith and England international, Hannah Gallagher, have been working hard since September
at training and this showed.
Both teams won all three of their fixtures convincingly. The final game of the day was culmination of all the other
team’s best players to play Knights Templar. Despite playing the strongest players from all the teams, the year 7/8
team still secured a 6 tries to 3 victory.
Mr Smith added, ‘I’m so excited for the country completion in March 2019. If the girls continue to work hard in
training they have a real chance of doing something special and winning consecutive county cup honours after winning
the competition in 2018.’

Year 8 Rugby Team developing strength and depth
On Tuesday Mr Matthews, Mr Smith and Coach Petre took 22 boys to Welwyn Rugby Cub for an RFU pitch up and
play development tournament. Sadly, only Stanborough School had accepted the invite and after a quick coaches
meeting it was decide to play 4 x 15 minute quarters. This allowed KTS to give plenty of minutes to the new players
in the squad and to try players in different positions. The result was a superb display of running rugby with
brilliant running lines, support play, off loads and passing to players in space with all the boys having fun representing
the school.
Luca and Josh, playing their first ever games of Rugby, were excellent and both got on the scoreboard with fantastic
tries. Luca powering through tacklers and showing excellent agility to score and Joshua showing real speed and
power to score with his first touch of the ball!
In the pack Adrian, Jacob and Oliver were quickly getting the idea and carrying the ball hard and making some
strong tackles. Daniel was very powerful in the loose and helped create the try of the day in the final quarter. The
move started on our own line with quick hands from the forwards releasing Jake and Daniel into space. Following
brilliant interplay and off-loading Jake finally scored in the corner to round of the move. At half back both Freddie
and Stan were brilliant at linking the play and breaking into space.
The Squad still need to improve on their work at the tackle area and understanding when to put more players into
the ruck to secure the ball. The coaching team were most encouraged by the strength in depth that is being created
by recruiting new players from PE lessons and at the time of writing 30 boys in year 8 have had the opportunity
to represent the school team this term.
In the New Year Mr Matthews and Mr Smith will be looking for some sterner tests against local private schools
and Hitchin Boys. Onwards and upwards for this superbly talented and dedicated group of boys.
Mr Matthews

Music News
Congratulations to the following students for passing instrumental grade exams this term:
Isabelle, 8 Hancock Initial Grade Piano Merit
Jasmine, 10 Knights Grade 1 Flute Pass
Isabel, 7 Hine Grade 1 Flute Distinction
Abigail, 11 Templar Grade 3 Flute Pass
Rachel, 11 Hancock Grade 5 Violin Merit
Maggie, 13JHN Grade 6 Flute Pass
Callum, 11 Bennett Grade 6 Guitar Pass
Adam, 11 Crellin Grade 6 Guitar Pass
Jonathan, 11 Hancock Grade 6 Flute Merit
Dom, 9 Knights Grade 6 Flute Merit
Toby, 9 Hine Grade 6 Piano Distinction
Dominic, 12 DMD Grade 8 Piano Distinction
This winter there are a few things worth noting:
Asthma UK recommends: Wrapping a scarf around your nose and mouth can
help prevent asthma attacks.
“Try wrapping a scarf around your nose and mouth – this can help by warming
up the air before you breathe it in, so it’s less likely to irritate your airways”.
Dr Andy Whittamore, Asthma UK’s in-house GP
I have had a few students come to see me recently due to sickness or
diarrhoea or both. Just to remind you that we do have a 48 hour away
from school policy following these episodes. If you believe the sickness to
be caused by a bug then keep them away from school. If you think
sickness is caused by not wanting to go to school, then they are very
welcome in.
Children with colds are still expected to come to school unless they are
really unwell with it. If you wish to give them cold remedies then do so
before they come to school. Most cold remedies do have Paracetamol
and Caffeine in them so they will not be allowed another dose of paracetamol until about lunch time if they
had some earlier at home. If I don’t have a permission form, I would have to contact you by phone to ask
your permission, and if I can’t reach you I would be unable to give any to your child. Paracetamol permission
forms are on the Medical matters page on our Web site: https://ktemplar.herts.sch.uk/Medical-Forms/
Paracetamol can be very cheap if you don’t buy branded products. I found locally a packet of 16 tablets for
19p so worth a look around. Liquid paracetamol can be cheap if you buy unbranded versions too.
The cold weather is on its way so wrap up warm, drink lots of fluids and enjoy the snow if it comes.
Mrs Jane Mance
School Medical Officer
Y10 LGBTQ+ Sessions
I would like to extent huge thanks to all of the students and parents in Year 10 for your support following this
week’s LGBTQ+ Awareness sessions. Students represented the year group commendably and were mature and
sensitive when dealing with such a complex topic. Should students want to find out more, get support or simply
discuss the matter further, the school’s LGBTQ+ Alliance group meets every Thursday lunchtime in K1B.
Miss M Staines

The Knights Templar Air Scheme
Kate Romano Report
The project
Over 7 weeks in the Autumn term, I was truly privileged to work with 20 Year 8 students
from Knights Templar School as part of the Artist in Residence scheme. I’m not a visual
artist – though I’m quite experienced in making simple shadow-play images. I’m a
classically trained professional musician with a doctorate in composition. I previously
worked for 15 years in academia and I’m also a writer and presenter for BBC Radio 3. So
with this mixed-up artistic background, I now head up Goldfield Productions, creating
cross-arts touring shows in collaboration with wonderful composers, writers, poets,
inventors, puppeteers…. Goldfield make ‘adventures in sound’ often in the form of
storytelling with music and images and it was this idea that I brought to the Artist-in-
Residence scheme.
The 20 students were split into in 4 groups. The plan was to make miniature 5-minute pop-up storytelling shows
- from zero to performance in just 12 hours over 6 weeks. The students learned how to create shadow-puppet
images with black paper and coloured lighting gels which were projected onto a fabric screen illustrating the
story which one member from each team narrated. Others in the team provided the music / sound effects and
operated the images. In these little productions, there are roles for everyone. You can be on the stage or behind
the scenes; you can be a storyteller, a puppeteer, a sound maker, a writer, a paper-snipper, a designer. You can
do what you enjoy and know or try something new.
The Images
I was impressed by the way that these young people gradually started to work as teams and
pull together to create the images for the shows. I am forever amazed at how we can be so
fascinated by bits of black paper and coloured gels! In our digital world, I still can’t quite
fathom out why a bit of cut black paper moving across a fabric screen seems to captivate,
yet it does. I think its the transformation - something that looks rough and ready and
amateurish (we made them from cereal boxes, sticky tape etc.) turns into something that
looks quite magical, clean and professional.
Its easy to underestimate how tricky it can be to represent your visual ideas in flat black and white. Some of the
early experiments that the year 8s tried didn’t work; they were putting colour on them, drawing detail in pen etc.
Then realising that none of that mattered once you put a light behind it - all you see is the outline. So they
learned to re-think how to portray ideas very simply and what it takes to get a message across - usually ‘less is
more’. Some ideas were very hard; how to show open doors, ascending steps, a rock concert, a forest at night, a
desert scene, dancing chicken nuggets (yes!) These students have come a long way in their visual and
representational thinking and the work was very high quality. Many of them invested a lot of time on the drawing
and cutting with an admirable persistence beyond their years to ‘get it right’.
The Stories
The stories were the greatest challenges: my initial idea for the AIR project was to use very short pre-existing
stories so that the focus of the 6 weeks would be on the images and music making (i.e. how to retell a story in
your own way). But the students were adamant that they wanted to write their own stories - so we went for it! It
took a lot of time, and I think that they found it much harder than they thought they would. It resulted in some
disagreement amongst the groups which stalled their progress a little; it’s hard to work with so many ideas and to
debate each one in great detail. And groups tended to fall out quite quickly if left on their own! To fix this, we
split the weeks (3 and 4) so that I could spend much longer with the groups to shape the stories. Some of the
students wrote very well - Maiya, Tanaka, Savannah, Flo. All of them had strong ideas that they were very willing
to share. One week we had some spontaneous story telling; it was off-topic, but all the better for it. Creativity
ignites creativity.

I helped structure the ideas and added in the phrases that came out of group conversations so that everyone had
scripts to work to. I found that the students were generally more fluent when speaking than writing and some of
the nicest material came out of the conversations with a few leading questions (what did the moon look like? Can
you describe the desert to me? Does the spider bite hurt? Is it like this... or like this? etc.)
Creating an atmosphere
The students were very good on creating atmosphere - what colour / light / sound will
convey what mood? I think that with more time, we could have extended this even more
to the music. There were some really good ideas: for example, Holly came up with the
suggestion to do a very effective ‘tick tock’ on the cow bells every time the riddle was
posed followed by a tambourine rattle when the answer was found - those sort of simple
ideas can be particularly dramatic and help the narrative. Bailey’s glissandi on the toy
piano every time the scene changed was inspired!
Summary
All of the children impressed me. They all seemed to find a role that suited them and their strengths as I hoped
they would with this project. Some found that role quickly, others took a little more time. These tiny shows
demand a huge amount of ‘transferable skills' to make them work and so often this can be sadly overlooked
because the focus for the parents is on the final product, not the process. But for the record, I think they have:
developed their creativity and independent thinking; these shows are entirely their own work, their ideas,
their expression of what is important to them and how it is portrayed and communicated
learned how to work as teams, recognising and using each other’s strengths and interests for the greater
good, delegated and stepped up when jobs needed doing
developed critical decision-making skills (debated ideas- what will work and what won’t, when to move on,
when to fix an idea, best route forwards etc.)
developed public speaking, communication and presentation skills / language development
shown real persistence in a trial-and-error approach to making the artwork
worked to tight deadlines and a professional performance standard
developed fine motor / coordination skills (paper cutting is hard!)
an awareness of the wider context: live theatre (some came to see Goldfield’s Hansel & Gretel show),
history of shadow puppetry etc. (I brought in two paper theatres for them to see / play with)
True creativity is messy! It's not painting-by-numbers. There aren’t rules and there isn’t a
formula. It’s usually a case of 2-steps-forwards-and-3-backwards as you work towards an
often-changing goal which gradually becomes more refined as you move onwards. It can be
frustrating and you need to try a lot of things out before you find the idea that works. It
also takes a lot of time and a supportive framework for all this messiness to take place in.
That is why I value the AIR scheme so much - there is time and a framework to try out
something truly creative, ambitious, and bold. I think that’s really important for young
people and hugely rewarding.
Thank you again for this great opportunity. It’s always a pleasure to work with KTS and the students.
We are an Artsmark school because we invest
in projects like the Artist in Residence to engage
young people in creativity.

Panto success
This year’s Sixth Form pantomime production of Snow White was truly exceptional and
the incredible buzz and atmosphere in the audience on all 3 performance nights was testament
to that.
The pantomime is an entirely student-led initiative that requires students to source
scripts, organise rehearsals, direct, liaise with technicians, sell tickets and complete all
manner of other jobs without the support of staff to ensure a successful production. Our
students have worked tirelessly over the last term to complete each and every one of
these tasks with meticulous attention to detail and resulted in a wonderfully polished
performance which will live long in the memory of those in attendance and of course,
those involved with the actual performance.
In my speech at the end of the final performance night, I emphasised to the audience just how hard the students
work to balance a massive undertaking such as the pantomime with the daily stresses of their A Level studies, parttime
work and all manner of other extra-curricular involvement- I would like to emphasise that point one last time
here. What audience members saw on the night was a very professional, slick, funny performance that gave great
value for money. What they didn’t see was the hours of rehearsal time, the choreography of dance routines and
the countless email communications to market, organise and deliver an event of this size. In addition, audience
members don’t get to see students running off stage after a scene and working backstage on homework and
coursework tasks for their A Level subjects.
I would like to pay tribute in particular to Eve and Anni for their superb leadership in organising and directing the
production and to our A Level dancers Lauren and Annie for choreographing a huge number of dance routines and
working so diligently with some of the ‘non-dancers’ to get them performance ready for the night.
We are very lucky to have such an incredible group of students at The Knights Templar Sixth Form and I for one
could not be prouder of each and every one of them.
Written by Mr Raymen (Deputy Head of Sixth Form).
Engaging minds speaker causes a stir
At the KTS Sixth Form, we pride ourselves on providing a well-rounded education and utilising guest speakers with a
range of backgrounds and social/ political views to challenge our young people to think differently or question the
society we live in today.
Last week’s Ceri Dingle did just that!
The controversial Dingle works for a youth education charity that provides young people with a chance to make
challenging film productions about a range of political and social issues.

The controversial Dingle works for a youth education charity that provides
young people with a chance to make challenging film productions about a
range of political and social issues.
When Dingle visited KTS, she presented the students with her views on the
feminist movement and incorporated topics such as the gender pay gap
the, #metoo movement, the alleged ‘rape culture’ in the western world
and challenged concepts such as catcalling and the recent campaigns to
move these forms of ‘harassment’ into the realms of hate crime.
To say that Dingle, provoked a reaction from our year 13 students would
be an understatement. Dingle did make some very interesting points with
regards to media scare mongering around the concept of predatory men
and the subsequent impact this has on women being seen as weak and
vulnerable. She also made some insightful comparisons between the
#metoo movement and other large scale social issues such as the spike
in knife-related crimes in our UK cities and questioned why the
obsession with gender has caused such a social crusade for one cause and not another.
Ceri Dingle
While I found Dingle to be a clearly intelligent, thoughtful and well-read individual who conveyed her views with
skill and eloquence, there were too many occasions where her ‘soundbites’ were deliberately provocative and at
times, downright offensive without carrying the same substance or clarity that many of her other points had. Put
simply, she was looking for a reaction.
Well, that is exactly what Dingle got from our year 13 students! She fielded a huge range of questions and
challenges from the audience at the end of the presentation, to such a point that due to time constraints, we were
unable to satisfy all requests from students to have their say.
However, such is the strength of feeling in the cohort, this week we have 3 articles written by students, each with a
different take on the controversial speaker…enjoy!
Written by Mr Raymen (Deputy Head of Sixth Form).
Report by Sasha Mills
It has been argued by many that social media can often lead to an echo chamber effect, where the views that you
agree with are echoed by those around you, and there is no exposure to differing opinions. To counter this effect, a
speaker known for her controversial opinions, Ceri Dingle, was invited to our tutorial last Friday to explain why she
thinks that women’s equality has already been achieved. Her opening suggestion was that women “have it better”
now than they have ever had it before; in the 1920s, for example, women faced much more systematic inequality.
Although this is true, this logic could be applied to almost any period in history; in the 1920s women had it better
than they did in the middle-ages, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for improvement. The core of
Dingle’s argument throughout her talk is that, however bad we think things are, someone out there is experiencing
worse. Women in developing countries struggle far more with inequality than in the west, and it is important to
acknowledge the privilege that we have in the UK, a place that is considerably more equal than many other
countries. Despite this, I believe that we should be able to campaign for the issues that still affect us, such as
catcalling and sexual harassment. Dingle acknowledged these problems but preached having resilience towards
them. This may be an important quality, but it also implies that we should simply ‘put up’ with these experiences,
when nobody deserves to be made to feel uncomfortable or intimidated by a member of the opposite sex in the
first place. At times it appeared as though Dingle was saying provocative things simply to provoke a reaction, a
growing trend in an increasingly heated political climate. Everyone has the right to express their viewpoints, but it
seems as though we live in a time where this is happening less respectfully, as evidenced at points during the talk.
For two more reports on the Ceri Dingle visit please click here.

Senior football update
The senior boys’ football team have had a good week with a 3-3 draw at home to Hitchin Boys’ and a crucial 5-4
win over Marriotts. These results keep the boys in the running for a place in the end of season final and hopefully
they can build on these results in their upcoming fixture with John Henry Newman.
Senior basketball team with last gasp win at Hitchin Boys’
Last night, our senior basketball team travelled to Hitchin to take
on the Boys’ School, an opponent that has always challenged us
for league titles and causes KTS a great deal of difficulty in recent
years.
The early stages of the match showed signs of the result going the
same way as previous seasons as Hitchin ran out to an early lead.
However, a strong defensive performance in the 2 nd half and the
shots finally starting to fall for the KTS guard trio of Jim, Julius and
Kim meant that KTS stayed within striking distance but could
never take the lead.
However, with just 10 seconds left KTS had an in-bounds from
their own half, trailing by just 1 point. Jim moved the ball up the
court at pace before finding the wide open Kim who showed
nerves of steel to knock down a clutch 3-point shot and secure a
famous 2-point win for KTS over our long-standing rivals.
Well done to all of the boys involved with this gutsy and resilient
team victory!

Winter Dinner Dance
On Wednesday 12 th December, we look forward to having 140 students descend on the beautiful Spirella
Ballroom for this year’s casino themed Winter Dinner Dance. Please ensure a prompt 7pm arrival for what
should be an excellent evening of good food, entertainment and fun!
For Sale
We have 14 chairs for sale at £10 each. If you are interested please email Mr White
(nwhite@ktemplar.herts.sch.uk). If more than 14 people would like one, there will be a lucky dip
draw.