Dear Parents, Guardians and Friends

Today is the International Day of Happiness, and so our Thought for the Week is “if you want to feel good, do good”.  As you may know, one of our key character traits at The Holt is gratitude, which we call the happiness attitude, as being grateful for the small things in life is one of the secrets to happiness.

To recognise great work, staff have been randomly and anonymously passing around a mug of sweets for others to enjoy, then refill, and pass on to the next random member of staff. It has been uplifting, especially the sugar rush!  It remains a mystery as to who started this trend!

For the students, we always encourage them to do kind deeds such as keep a door open for someone, smile, lend a pen etc…… It was lovely to see this in action this week, when a group students was rushing to get in the panini queue in the new snack shack at break. All arriving at exactly the same time, they organised themselves in order very well and the older ones let some Year 7s go in front ……….. very proud Co-headteacher…..!
Other things that made us happy this week included hearing the news that our team made it through to the next round of the bar mock trials. We came second in the first round two weeks ago and had to wait for the last set of heats on Saturday before finding out the good news. Well done to our fabulous team and to Miss Roberts and Miss Harris for all their hard work.
We also entered three teams in the local World Wide Quiz held at Sandhurst school last week. This event was organised by Miss Barrett in the geography department and was also attended by Mrs Smith. Well done to our Year 7, 8 and 9 participants for their hard work and who came third, fourth and seventh!

On Monday, the Spanish department celebrated their annual Tapas evening with Year 7-9 students of Spanish. They had a record 93 students taking part this year and so a big trip to Costco was in order for Mrs Stoker and Ms Wood to buy all the goodies. This event has been going on now for 20 years, so it has definitely become a much loved Holt tradition. Students enjoyed tasting some traditional delights, some familiar and some a bit more unusual, like squid in its own ink……mmmmm! There was an “all things Spanish” quiz, followed by a year group dance to La Macarena!

Dancing La Macarena……..

Thank you to our fabulous Spanish department and to Mrs Stoker for organising this event.

Great news also from the PE department! Our Under 16 football team won their semi-final match last night and have made it to the county cup final later on this term. Well done to all our players and of course their coach, Miss Shephard.

So that wraps up another week at The Holt School.
Tonight, I look forward to seeing many of our Key Stage 3 parents for our annual parents’ information evening where we will be giving information and top tips on how to manage revision ready for the KS3 assessments later on next term. There will be brief talks on everything from making a revision plan to tackling exam nerves!

We also have our annual quiz evening on Friday run by the Friends of The Holt School. It really is always a great evening and alongside the quiz there is the silent auction where some real bargains can be had. Thank you to those of you who have purchased tickets. The event is now sold out! I am off to start swotting up now……….
Katie Pearce
Co-Headteacher