Dear parents, guardians and friends
If you are reading this, then you have survived “Blue Monday” – suggested to be the emotional low point of the year for many people. Well done.
I think Year 11 would agree, having made it through their January PPEs, that the year ahead is starting to look a little brighter. Well done to them too! They celebrated the end of their exams with, inter alia, something wicked from The Globe Players who brought Macbeth to life in our school hall. Thank you to the English Department for organising this.
It’s been quite a week for performances of many types. Miss Annesley arranged for a visit to see The Hunger Games live at the purpose-built Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre. It was a great show, but a very late night as staff and students trekked back across London to find the M4 closed. Thank you to all the staff who accompanied the trip and still managed to arrive for work bright eyed and bushy tailed on Friday. See below for a picture of Miss Harris and Mrs Salamut-Ward plotting their journey home.
You may remember that, back in July, we held our annual Holt Young Musician of the Year event. Last week, our instrumental and vocal winners from that night performed in the Rotary Club’s Wokingham and Ascot Young Musicians Competition at Luckley House School. The standard was incredibly high, but well done to our pianist Claire, and Martha who came second in the voice section. Mr Gray writes, “We are incredibly proud of both students for their outstanding musicianship and for being such excellent ambassadors for the school.”
Moving on to sporting performances, many of our students competed in the Berkshire Schools Cross Country Championships in Newbury on Saturday. Mrs Bolton writes, “We are incredibly proud of the participation and performance of our runners. Thank you to the parents for superb support. Well done to you all!”
Highlights included:
Marnie U18 Berkshire CHAMPION
U15 team – Berkshire CHAMPIONS 🏆🥇
U13 team – 3rd place 🥉
Grace – 4th place with automatic qualification for the National Schools Finals 👏
Isabelle – Qualification for the South Region Finals👏
At The Holt, we want our students to leave us prepared for responsible adulthood. Our Year 10 Health and Social Care students were recently set a task towards that goal. Miss Illingworth writes,
“The students need to learn about the importance of verbal communication. So before the holidays, students were set the task of researching different careers in health and social care in order to deliver a presentation on the skills and qualifications needed, and how to get into jobs in this sector.
To make the experience more formal, I invited our Careers Lead, Miss Johnson, to come along and be a judge alongside me,
The students did an absolutely brilliant job and delivered their presentations very well indeed.”
Some of our students attended the election of the Youth MP for Wokingham Borough on Monday. We are proud to announce that Year 11 student Jasmine was duly elected. If you know a young person who would like to get involved in politics, perhaps you might point them in the direction of WBC’s Youth Council.
The next time I write, blue will have turned to green, and spring will have sprung. My best wishes to you all as we see out the last of winter.
Ben Adams
Assistant Headteacher