School lunchtimes at Woodham Academy are generally very civilised; however, lunchtime on Friday 14th February was a particularly entertaining and frantic affair. The main hall in Woodham Academy played host to a bake sale for the Sports Academy’s dance troupe and also The Great Woodham Sarnie Off.
On one side of the hall students haggled and shouted orders for baked treats and on the other, students worked in frenzied groups creating and assembling spectacular sandwiches – some of which were more like works of art than edible goods. The Great Woodham Sarnie Off was a humanities house competition with a twist. Students were asked to create a sandwich of their choice that represented a country or culture.
The competition was open to all year groups that are part of the house system rather than just Years 7 & 8 or Years 9 & 10 as house competitions are usually run. Each year was judged individually and there were even staff entries.
The judges were specially chosen as the two people who had the best credentials in the school to judge such a competition – Linda the head chef and Michelle the sandwich maker. They deliberated for quite a while with some heated debate over who should be the winner, but eventually they decided on who they felt were the rightful champions.
From Year 10 the winning entry was from Grace, Ellie and Emma who submitted a ten story egg and cress sandwich shaped to resemble the Big Ben, complete with cucumber slices as the clock faces. There were two entries from Year 8 that the judges deliberated over for a long time.
A Chinese dragon sandwich from Lisa and coronation chicken sandwich shaped to resemble the royal crown from Megan. In the end, it was decided that Megan take 1st place due to the outstanding shaping of the bread and relevancy of the filling. With the most entries from Year 7, it was a very close call, but in the end, Euan, Logan, Kieran and Jacob clinched it with their incredibly imaginative Indian sandwich complete with mango chutney, naan bread, onion bhajis and popodoms.
In 2nd place was a fantastic group effort to represent France and in 3rd was a sandwich encompassing all things British… even teabags!
Woodham Headteacher, Christine Forsyth, says, “the Great Woodham Sarnie Off was great fun and thoroughly enjoyed by all. When children are happy they are ready to learn and do well”.
