Dear parents, guardians and friends
One of the wonderful things about being a teacher is the opportunity that it affords to work alongside hundreds of creative people each day. On Tuesday evening, our Year 11 GCSE musicians put on a concert to showcase their work. Mr Gray writes, “As preparation for their GCSE performing exams, Year 11 organise and perform in their own concert. They set up and ran the whole evening – from designing the programme to introducing each item. They all performed beautifully, and it will set them up very well for their solo performing exams next week.”
Those who know me would not be surprised that I regard mathematics as another route for creativity. Year 8 students certainly had a chance to explore this last week. Mrs Sawyer writes, “On Wednesday, the whole of Year 8 took part in our interhouse maths competition – an event organised and run by the y13 house prefects. Two volunteers from each form were working on difficult puzzles on the stage, including some Junior Kangaroo questions, while the rest of the form were working together to complete some magic squares and mathematical dingbats. They all worked really well and solved some particularly challenging problems. Sofie and Cheryl from 8C came first in the questions on the stage scoring a brilliant 33 out of 38. 8G came first on the form questions, which led them to win the whole competition.”
As I write amongst the first snowfall of the winter, it would seem that Persephone has made her annual descent to the Underworld. At least, that is what might be suggested by Greek mythology. This story is one of those intertwined in the stunning musical Hadestown to which our newish Head of Drama, Miss Annesley, arranged a visit last week for our KS4 and KS5 drama students. They will draw inspiration from this as they study theatre more broadly and devise their own work in school.
I have news of wonderful sporting endeavours to share with you. On Saturday 8th November, Mrs Bolton and Miss Johnson gave up their Saturday to take our junior and intermediate cross-country teams to compete in the Southwest Regional Cup. On an extremely tough and undulating course. Our juniors finished 8th and our intermediates 4th. For context, there are approximately 600 secondary schools in the region. Well done, girls!
There’s always a lot of sport happening at and around The Holt, but a mention for our U14 basketball team who this week slam-dunked a 22-10 home win over St Bernard’s Grammar School.
A different form of competition saw four of our KS4 students participate in a series of formal debates on Tuesday evening. With the Wokingham Borough Council chambers as their setting, Elysia, Talia, Eva and Shayna argued for and against a number of motions and acquitted themselves very well. How important that our students learn the art of listening, engaging and speaking in reasoned debate!
Tomorrow, Thursday 20th November, sees our sixth form open evening at which our Year 11s will be joined by external students interested in seeking a place to pursue A level studies at The Holt. It is important that our young people think carefully about their next steps after GCSE and consider all options available to them. However, we firmly believe that The Holt is one of the very best settings in which to continue their education.
Of course, all the normal lessons, assemblies and extra-curricular activities continue as normal. Year 11 and 13 have been receiving feedback on their recent PPEs. Well done to them all for their hard work! So, in these short November weeks between Remembrance and the start of Advent, you will see from these snippets that school life has been as busy as ever. If you have a young person at the school, do remember to send them in with Christmas Fayre tombola prizes on our non-uniform day on Friday.
Ben Adams
Assistant Headteacher