Dear Parents, Guardians and Friends
As we gallop to the end of another academic year, our school seems to get busier with lots of exciting activities.
Our Year 12 geographers spent most of last week basking on the sunny beaches of Swanage to complete the field work for their A level. Well, whilst there may have been some basking, it was pretty full on for our students and staff as they worked all day and even into the evening. Students who chose a human geography project planned and conducted surveys and those that picked a physical geography project used the ranges poles and other exciting equipment to conduct studies on the beaches and surrounding areas.
The weather was pretty perfect, and a good time was had by all. Our students came back armed with the data they need to get their NEA (non- examined assessment – coursework) off the ground.
We are very grateful to our staff, Mr Mosely, Mrs Smith and Mr Marrison for organising and taking this trip.
The biology department were also celebrating as they received the results of this year’s Olympiads
The Intermediate Biology Olympiad is an international competition for Year 12 students run by the Royal Society of Biology. Over 17000 students took part in this year’s competition.
Only the top 5% of students internationally achieve a gold certificate, 10% Silver and 15% Bronze. Some students are also highly commended.
Mrs Whitehouse said “All our Year 12 A level biology students had the opportunity to take part, and they did really well this year! We are delighted to announce that Elisa, Malaika, Divya and Tanish all achieved a Gold award, with a further 14 achieving silver and 5 achieving bronze.”
Well done to all our students entering and to Mrs Whitehouse for facilitating this and encouraging our students to take part.
On Thursday, we opened up our school to prospective students in our annual “open evening”. This event is overseen by Mrs Smith but involves every member of staff in some capacity. It is the epitome of team effort! Our school looked lovely, our teachers were all set to engage the Year 5 students with subject information and games …….but as ever, our prefects stole the show. We had record amounts of prefects and other students wanting to help out this year which made the tour groups more efficient to run, but the pride they all showed in their school in the way they engaged with the Year 5 students and their parents made Mrs Kennedy and I so proud. So many parents commented on what delight our students were, how impressed they were with the facilities and what they saw in the classes that they left the school site with a very firmly positive idea that The Holt is for them.
I want to thank all our staff and students for this great evening.
From one big team event to another……the very next day was Sportsfest…..aka sports’ day!
Our site team- who are truly amazing- massive shout out to them……set up the field for our lastminute.com change of time to the morning due to the heat and were out there before 7am getting things ready alongside our PE department. Our terrific Heads of House were also on board with the earlier day and were setting up their stalls with the larks. There were many other staff members who were also in super early, after a late opening evening the night before, to pitch in and help!
Needless to say, the whole day was a triumph. Not only great sport, but everything else…….the cheering on, the House stalls, the live performers and of course the colour run! The whole event was supported by great music by our in-House resident DJ Mr Gilbert with the hilarious commentary supplied by Ms Harris and Ms Holmes! Another sports’ day ending with the whole school dancing on the field………..preparing them for Reading Festival or even Glastonbury one day!
This year’s overall winners were Spinners! Well done to them! Here are all our athletes at the start of the event.
Our House stalls were very popular with everything from mocktails, to waffles, to nail painting and hair braiding.
Overall, the Houses raised over £1,500 for their House charities.
The colour run raised over £3,600 the proceeds of this come directly back to the school!
Thank you and well done to everyone involved. The wonderful PE department, the site team, IT guys, the finance team, Heads of Houses, all staff and all our students. What a wonderful day.
As our penultimate week is in full week swing, our student leadership team is now working flat out to prepare for tomorrow’s culture day. Culture day is another wonderful event that is the result of strong teamwork. The plans look awesome – look out for the pictures on our social media! Students are invited to come into school wearing clothes and/or accessories that share and celebrate their cultural heritage. In return, students are asked to bring a donation which will go to the Reading Refuge Centre.
That then brings us to the last week of the school year, which for us is activities’ week.
More about that next week!
Mrs Pearce
Co-Headteacher