Dear Parents, Guardians and Friends

This week at The Holt we celebrate our annual Harvest Festival.  During this time, students are encouraged to reflect on the importance of supporting our local community and helping those in need.  Thank you for the donations that have been sent in; our classrooms are bursting full of tins, toiletries and fresh produce that will soon be donated to the local food back and elderly residents in Wokingham.

Harvest is also an opportunity for the whole school to come together to support a chosen charity.  This year the chosen charity is WaterAid.  Mrs Sawyer and Mrs White delivered a thought-provoking assembly reminding students how much we rely on clean water and the impact that this has on our daily lives.  A non-uniform day will be held on Friday 13th October.   All proceeds will be sent to Wateraid.

On Friday we held our annual Macmillan cake sale.  This is always a very popular event in the school diary, with queues often stretching out of the main hall and across the front lawns!  Year 7 and Sixth form students donated/ baked a whole host of tasty delights that were devoured by our staff and students in thirty minutes.  The total amount raised was £719.28.  Thank you to the Food Technology department and everyone who purchased, donated, and ate cake on the day!

Year 7 came together last Thursday for another Holt tradition, a team building day at Ufton Court.  Students spent the day in beautiful surroundings taking part in team building activities, some of which are shown below:

Ms Herron, Head of Year 7 was really impressed with how they came together as a year group.  Students had the opportunity to meet new people and build the foundations for future friendships.  We were so pleased that the weather remained dry so students could make the most of the many activities on offer.  Thank you to Ms Herron for organaising the trip but also to Year 7 for participating; it really was a great experience for everyone involved!

Again, on the theme of teamwork, registration groups have been busy taking part in the ‘Form Board’ competition.  Students work together to design and create a classroom display to represent their form groups but also to display important information and notices.  So much time and effort goes into creating these displays, all students get involved and learn important skills like compromise and negotiation.  Some of the finished displays are pictured below:

Heads of Year will be announcing the winners in assemblies soon!

There are so many opportunities available at The Holt:  taking part in House events, charity sales and extracurricular activities are so important to The Holt community.  Please encourage your daughters or sons to get involved.  The extracurricular timetable link can be found here: Extra Curricular Activities | The Holt School

Enjoy the weekend when it comes…. if the weather forecasts can be believed, it is going to be 24/25 degrees this weekend.  I suppose the summer is better late than never!

 

Mrs Martin

Assistant Headteacher