Dear Parents, Guardians and Friends,
As we write our final blog of this school year and we reach the end of our first one as Co- Headteachers, we can honestly say that it has been a fabulous year. We have enjoyed our new roles immensely and have felt so well supported by the staff, students, governors and parents.
The Holt is a fabulous place to work and, we are sure the students will agree (most of the time!) attend as a student.
We always say, you get out of The Holt what you put in and we hope over the course of our weekly blogs you have been getting a real feel for just how much goes on.
Last Wednesday the PE department held their annual Sports Personality of The Year evening. This was at the slightly earlier time of 5pm, to accommodate the other sporting event that was happening that night elsewhere in the world!
The evening got off to a great start with some terrifying trampolening by Lucy Barker, Lara Carr, Zoe Fearn and Bronte Newbury. We thought at one point our next building project would have to be to raise the roof of the sports hall for next time!
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We were delighted to welcome back Dr Emma Kavanagh to The Holt as our guest speaker. Emma is a sports psychologist to elite athletes and a lecturer at Bournemouth University, but also, Emma is an ex-Holt girl! Having worked on the British Olympic team, Emma told our audience all about important sporting and life-long character traits of the British team through the acronym PRIDE.
Emma was a truly inspirational speaker and it was wonderful evening. Thanks to the PE department for their organisation and hard work for this event.
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Also on Wednesday, the maths department organised their annual Year 7 maths trail around the school. Students have to find the answers to 50 questions, which are all numbers, some involving simple calculations. The students work together in small groups to find the answers during a maths lesson. Points are awarded for the House with the most correct answers. The clues were hidden everywhere around the school. We even heard excited students in the shrubbery underneath our office!
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On Thursday the French department worked with the science department along with representatives from each Year 7 form on their French/science House event. The aim was to design an eco-town for an emerging French speaking country. They also had to construct a model bridge designed to hold 200g of coins. Lastly, the teams had to present their findings to a panel of judges in French where possible.
The teams did really well on all of the tasks and their French was impressive, particularly from the Spanish side of the year who had to have a crash course in the key phrases needed!
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The summer music concert on Thursday evening was sheer delight and ended with an impressive finale from the Dam Busters. Going to these concerts over the years really helps you appreciate the progress our students make both with the music and also with their ever growing confidence.
We were treated to an evening of some very accomplished musicians and we are always in awe of the hard work, effort and dedication that goes into the performances that we see. Thank you to Mr Gray and to Mrs O’Reilly for organising this event.
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On Friday we welcomed another group of Year 5 students for our third secondary school experience day. This time was the turn of the maths and science department. They held very interactive sessions with the scientists staging a “whodunit” CSI day and the maths staff leading a treasure hunt and a session on how to draw curves with straight lines! The Year 5s loved it, and gave us some really positive feedback. One student writing “The Holt is awesome, The Holt is awesome The Holt is awesome”. Praise indeed. Thanks to the maths and science staff for this day and also to Mrs Smith who organised all three days.
Over the weekend Miss Norris and Mrs Bolton were lucky enough to obtain tickets for Saturday’s Wimbledon finals. Taking with them 10 students, a great day was had by all even though it was a little warm!
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This last week of term has seen some fantastic end of year presentation assemblies for all year groups, the whole school “Grand clear up” and of course the legendary end of year whole school assembly. This is always an emotional one as the whole school comes together, very carefully packed into the sports hall, to celebrate the end of the school year with music, dance and readings, but we also sadly, say goodbye to those staff leaving. This year, Mrs Holland, Mrs Bell, Mrs Arter, Mrs Clarke and Mrs Allison are all hanging up their whiteboard markers as they start their well-earned retirement. No doubt, this will involve the obligatory September holiday……and why not? We wish them all the very best and we will miss them incredibly. Thank you for your long years of service to The Holt.
Follow us on Twitter, to capture a picture of our whole school community brought together!
We also say good bye to Mrs Clements, Miss Godfrey, Mr Howarth, Miss Kaur, Mr Anders, Mrs Padrick, Miss Taylor and Miss Norris. Thank you for all your hard work and good luck with the house moves and new posts, you will all be great!
We have often reflected over the year on how busy a school we are and how appreciative we are of all the staff who work tirelessly, in addition to the day job of planning, teaching and marking to make these events happen……this year alone has seen 35 House events, 67 day trips, 10 residential trips, 2 collapsed day whole school events, and 6 music concerts.
None of the above would happen without the staff to organise them and the students to take part so willingly and passionately.
We are truly proud to be the Co-Headteachers of such a great school.
We are looking forward to our summer break now, and so would like to take this opportunity to thank you for supporting your son/daughter so well this year.
We wish you a happy summer holiday and we look forward to seeing you all in September.
Mrs Pearce and Mrs Kennedy
Co-Headteachers