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Therfield School March 2025

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Message Spring Term 2025 Edion Thereld News Excellence, Leadership, Opportunity ‘Best for All’

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Headteacher Update Welcome to the inaugural edion of Thereld News! We are thrilled to bring you the rst-ever newsleer, packed with excing updates and stories from our school community. This edion covers a wide range of topics, including our recent trip to Silicon Valley, where students explored the heart of the tech industry in the USA. We also highlight the Year 8 Enterprise Day with Hyundai, which was a fantasc opportunity for our students to develop their entrepreneurial skills. Addionally, we were delighted to welcome back Elaine Smithers, a former teacher from the late 1960s and early 1970s, who shared her wonderful memories of Thereld. Our school musical, "Malda," was a resounding success, showcasing the incredible talent of our students. We also hosted a Careers Fair, providing valuable insights and opportunies for our students' future paths. During RaG Week, our Sixth Form students demonstrated their generosity by raising over £1,000 for James’ Jar of Gis, a fantasc cause which means a lot to our school community. The front cover of this newsleer features the rst-ever lesson in our new Science facility, and we look forward to sharing photos of the ocial opening in our next edion. As this is our rst newsleer, we welcome your feedback and suggesons on what you would like to see in future edions. Thereld News aims to keep you informed and engaged with all the wonderful acvies and achievements within our school. Thank you for being a part of our community, and we hope you enjoy reading this edion. James Malley Headteacher

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USA Silicon Valley / San Fransico Student diary wrien by Vihaan, Year 9 Day 1 Dear Diary, I am currently on a plane to San Francisco, from London. The plane ride is thirteen hours long, I have read so much throughout this ight and solved my rubix cube! Day 2 Now, on the rst day aer the plane ight, we went to the Golden Gate Bridge, which was stunning and beauful. It wasn’t just the bridge, the urbanizaon in the background was also very cool. We then went to the gi shop, which was incredibly overpriced – but that was to be expected. Aer that, we went to the café. Later, we went to Alcatraz – which was very interesng. Alcatraz was a prison on an island that was famous for being so dicult to break out of. One quote I read about it, went like this: ‘If you break the law, you go to prison. If you break the prison laws, you go to Alcatraz.’ We went to the entrance and picked up radios containing headphones – we were told to follow the instrucons of the radios with our headphones and go to where they took us. They could – for example – show us specic cells and tell us details about the prisoners who lived there. While being renowned for their lack of jailbreaks, nothing is impossible and, seldom, people did break out of their cells and managed to hurl themselves over about a kilometer of sea. One successful aempt happened when (I think), an ocer gave the prisoners an ample supply of spoons, as a sort of toxic way of saying, ‘ha, you can’t get out.’ However, they did get out by painstakingly cung through the steel to escape. It was said to have taken six months of plan-ning, which makes sense. Anway, I will write about what happened today, tomorrow – hopefully. Or else I will connue to be a day behind which isn’t so bad, I guess . Day 3 So, on the third day, we went to Stanford University – a university in Stanford (believe it or not). It was enormous, and there were literal roads

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separang the dierent blocks – these wide roads were only built for bikes as people were beer o cycling to dierent places; like its own mini city. Personally, I really admired the atmosphere: everybody was cycling, people were chang, contently, and the weather was a nice cherry on top to set the mood. Certainly, a great contender when I pick my university. As I menoned before, the place was like a mini city. To expand on that: there were plenty of restaurants and shops such as Subway, which is where we ate. Aer that, there was another part that was like an all-in-one shop. Vast, there was a secon for books, food, clothes and even a mini-Apple store! It matched up as many people there have a MacBook. Then, we went to the Tech Interacve. Personally, I had my fun and enjoyed it, – The me we spent there wasn’t enough for me as there were so many dierent things to explore. Finally, we went to the Computer History Museum, which I enjoyed too. Day 4 Today was quite a good day. We rst went to do the Silicon Valley Tour, which was very excing. Just going in the coach, I saw so many cool tech companies like Nvidia. In the actual tour, we went to a massive apple store, which I have been to many a me; yet I never get bored, and I love their unique, clean aesthec. We also went to the Google store. Finally, we went to the Intel Museum which I really enjoyed. We had a proper tour guide who actually explained what we were looking at; for example, seeing the transistor’s amount exponenally increasing over me was fascinang. Someone called, ‘Ben’ in our group wore a ‘bunny suit’ which people wore when making computer chips and I was shocked that it actually worked and that none or very few germs were transmied. There were two secons of the tour for the intel museum. The second secon was more of a physical lab. We were put into pairs and had to make simple and clear designs to assemble a toy; we obviously had to gure it out ourselves before, however. We then got other groups’ instrucons and aempted to solve the toy with their method (there were mulple ways to solve it). Though many groups said otherwise, ours was denitely the best. Also, I bought a really nice Intel bole for $12, then later I had to bin it as I forgot to empty it! Overall, I loved the trip and would love to go next me!

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Year 8 Enterprise Day with Hyundai Hyundai Day is a great event for our Year 8 students and really helps them link the theory we teach around Eskills and transferable work skills to the world beyond school. We are very lucky to have Hyundai as one of our local partners in building communicaon skills in school. As part of the school career programme, all of Year 8 are invited to take part and create TV adverts to promote sustainable cars in the future. They are joined by Hyundai who delivered to school brand new vehicles for the students to take inspiraon from. The three best teams were then invited to showcase their talents at Hyundai HQ in Leatherhead and all nalists received amazing prizes. This iniave has many objecves, the most important ones being communicaon and teamwork, all designed to help improve employability skills.

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“ I enjoyed vising the car, geng in and seeing what it was like on the inside. I enjoyed planning our car advert and then presenng our ideas to the class.” Zac L “Learning about the cars was very interesng as was designing the advert in our teams.” Joel P “ Excing! I was in the nal and presented our team’s ideas to the Execs at Hyundai UK Head Oce. That was enjoyable, especially playing on the PacMan arcade game they had in their lobby!” Edward H

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Elaine Smithers - Thereld Alumni On 3rd March we welcomed back a very special guest to Thereld. Elaine Smithers was Head of Needlework at Thereld School in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Currently in a care home at 89, Elaine had expressed her wish to come back to Thereld for a visit via their ‘Wishing Tree’ iniave and so they got in contact with us and we were delighted to welcome Elaine back. She has many fond memories of the school and said that it was, by far, her favourite school to work at. Mr Claytor was Headmaster and Miss Bowhill was the Deputy Head at the me. On arrival Elaine met with Mr Malley, Headteacher and took a tour of the school. Things had denitely changed since her day and she shared many memories of her me here. Her next stop was a texle lesson where she had a

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chance to see our Year 7s create felt characters and speak with them about school. It was then lunch me and Elaine enjoyed lunch with a number of students and sta including Mr Malley who presented her with a cercate for service to the school and the Headteacher’s Award for Excellence badge.

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If you would like to support Sam in his fundraising eorts please follow the link: https://www.justgiving.com/page/sam-imrie-1730388097466?utm_medium=FR&utm_source=CL More informaon about MRF can be found here: https://www.meningitis.org/ My name is Sam Imrie and aer spending 7 great years at Thereld, I am currently in my rst year studying civil engineering at the University of Bath. So far my rst year at university has been a mix of growth, adapng to a new environment and learning to be independent. These have all been valuable experiences while using key skills such as the importance of me management, crical thinking and eecve communicaon, all things that I learnt from my me at Thereld. From learning how to design small-scale bridges to compleng group projects; designing a seang stand for Bath City FC, Uni so far has been just as fullling as I hoped it would be. The hard work I had to put in during both GCSEs and A-levels have absolutely paid o! However, the biggest highlight of my rst year is absolutely having the privilege of being able to fundraise for the Meningis Research Foundaon (MRF) in order to be part of the university team to climb Mt Kilimanjaro this August! Kilimanjaro Fundraiser - Sam Imrie, Thereld Alumni

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Eco Team combined forces with the STEM Society Our Eco team combined forces with our STEM society this term and had a really interesng talk from our visitor Julia Gaudelli who is a rered soware engineer who has worked with the Mullard Space Agency in collaboraon with UCL for many years. She came and spoke to the students about her work involving the use of satellite almetry for research into climate change in the Earth's polar regions. The informaon is sent to sciensts and researchers all over the world who use it to monitor changes in the world’s cryosphere. It was a fascinang talk and our students were really engaged.

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Malda Jr! This year’s musical has been excing, inspiring and challenging (at mes!) for everyone involved, from acng, singing and dancing to stage design. All the students who have been involved with Malda Jr! have shown nothing but dedicaon, passion and enthusiasm for the producon. It was a pleasure to see students from all year groups working together and creang a real family feel throughout the whole process. I am sure that if you came and saw the performances you can agree that the posivity and enjoyment was palpable! I personally want to thank all the students and sta involved in creang a truly superb show! On to next year….! Miss Christopher

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Careers Fair As part of Naonal Careers Week 2025, we once again held our annual Careers Fair with over 40 exhibitors from a really wide range of professions, ranging from future technologies to accountancy and hospitality! All the students in the school visited the fair as part of the C@T (Careers at Thereld Programme) which focusses on our students learning specic employability skills in each year group. There were also a number of Further Educaon and Higher Educaon instuons present who were able to talk to the students about the courses they oer and the entry requirements. Students had the opportunity to interview employers about their pathways to their jobs and consider which skills are the most important for each profession. We hold this event every year so any parents wishing to take part as exhibitors are always welcome - please contact enquiries@thereld.surrey.sch.uk if you are keen to get involved.

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RaG Week—17th March As part of the annual RaG week (Raise and Give week), this year our Sixth Form Commiee raised money for James’ Jar of Gis (hps://jamesjarofgis.co.uk/ ). All prots made in school will go to this charity . The Sixth Form had organised fundraising events throughout the week for students to parcipate in. The events organised included: • Monday - Bake Sale • Tuesday - Sponge the Teacher • Wednesday - Thereld's Got Talent—We were lucky enough to have singers through to stand-up comedy, • Thursday - Five-A-Side Penalty Shoot-outs • Friday - Teacher Lip-Sync Bale. The week ended with a bang were students watched their favourite teachers lip-sync to their chosen tracks in a hilarious showdown. It is a great community event in school and congratulaons to all the Sixth Formers involved!

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Year 9 McLaren Stem Day 60 students across Year 9 spent a construcve day working alongside the Smallpeice Trust on a McLaren funded STEM day. Students spent me designing, building, tesng and producing a sales pitch for an electric vehicle. All students engaged really well with the acvity producing a range of innovave designs and incorporang ideas around aerodynamics, cost eecve use of resources and budgeng skills. As well as delivering excellent presentaons to the rest of the group, students showed a high level of eecve teamwork, communicaon and creave skills as they develop through both the Science and Careers curriculum at Thereld. They were a credit to the school and should be proud of the work they produced on the day.

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Nine of our Year 12 students headed to the Peak District this weekend to complete their Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award training and pracce expedion. They spent the Friday compleng the Gold DofE training syllabus and route planning before two days exploring the Peak District. The weather was mostly kind but with some chilly nights and strong winds to contend with!

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A Great Aernoon of Dodgeball In partnership with LEO Academy we hosted over 50 Year 4 students for a Dodgeball tournament on Monday 24th February. We welcomed students from West Ashtead Primary Academy, Great Bookham School, The Greville Primary School, Walton on the Hill Primary School and St Peter’s Catholic School, Leatherhead. Thank you to our wonderful student helpers for making the event such a success!

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Headteacher Hot Chocolates Congratulaons to the students awarded Headteacher hot chocolates this term. Mr Malley has been delighted to welcome these students to his hot chocolate reward for winning Interhouse compeons, taking part in Duke of Edinburgh expedions, Extended Project Qualicaon, Eskills winners, Hyundai Enterprise Day winning team, excellent eort, excellent progress, being a Holocaust Ambassador, involvement in Malda Jr school producon, mentoring and Parents Evening helpers.

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Headteacher Hot Chocolates cont.

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Headteacher Hot Chocolates cont.

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4th April End of term Ski Italy trip departs 22nd April Start of term – 9.30am start for students New Science Build Opening Ceremony 23rd April CGI Day for Year 9 24th April Year 9 Opons Deadline KS4/5 Presentaon Evening 25th April Years 7, 8 and 9 Inspire Awards Assemblies 5th May May Bank Holiday 6th May Year 13 Leavers Assembly GCSE Exams begin 7th May Year 8 HPV Vaccinaons 8th May Year 6 Parents Meet and Greet Trust Quiz Night 12th May Silver Duke of Edinburgh Pracce A Level Exams start 14th May Year 8 HPV Vaccinaons 23rd May Culture Fesval for Years 7-10 & 12 End of half term – 2.30pm nish 26th May to 30th May Half term 2nd June 9.30am Start for students 3rd June to 6th June Year 5 Taster Days 6th June Year 12 Geography Field trip 10th June Year 10 Geography Field trip Year 5 Taster Day 13th June to 15th June Silver Duke of Edinburgh Qualifying 19th June Year 10 Geography Field trip to Worthing 20th June Year 13 Prom 23rd June Alumni Day 24th June Higher Educaon Day Year 9 vaccinaons and Year 8 catch up vaccinaons A Level Exams end 25th June GCSE Exams end 26th June Year 11 Prom Year 12 Kingston University Social Science Trip 27th June INSET Day 30th June to 4th July Gold Duke of Edinburgh Qualifying 1st July Year 6 Inducon Day & Year 6 Inducon Evening for Parents 2nd July Year 6 Inducon Day 3rd July Summer Showcase Year 5 Taster Day 4th July Year 5 Taster Day 8th July Year 5 Taster Day 10th July Headteacher Reward Trip KS3 Prizegiving Evening 11th July Sports Day 12th and 13th July Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Training 14th to 18th July European Experience Trip – Year 8 Upcoming Dates

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*Curriculum Enrichment Days day trips and in school events Year 7 - London Zoo & in school acvity Year 8 - Strawberry Hill & in school acvity Year 9 - Bletchley Park & in school acvity Year 10 - College and Universies visit & Thorpe Park Year 12 - Geography eld trip to London & Epsom 15th July Higher Educaon Day for Year 12 16th July to 18th July Year 7 PGL Trip 17th and 18th July Curriculum Enrichment Days * Belgium Baleelds Trip End of Summer term End of Summer term – 3.15pm nish for students in school