How lovely it was to welcome back our Year 10 and 12 students to school on Monday.
The site team have been working hard for many weeks now to make the site compliant with the Government guidance for partial re-opening, and they have done a great job!
On entry to the school, there is clear signage, one-way systems in place and floor markers everywhere to remind students of that 2m distance rule for social distancing. Hand sanitiser stations are in place all around the school, and the classrooms have all been adapted for the small groups!
When our students and staff have been coming in the gates every day this week, they have been all smiles……..just happy and ready to be back. Even our Year 12s, who were starting their mock exams seemed to have a spring in their step!
The school, of course was not full, but felt purposeful once again. It was a great day!
For the rest of the school, here is a roundup of the news for this week
Key Stage Three
Now some Year 10 and 12 students are back in school for face to face lessons, there may be some changes for the rest of the school as to when work is set. Teachers may well be setting their remote lessons either the afternoon before their lesson, or on the morning of their lesson. This is to enable staff to either teach face to face, or conduct “live” lessons with Year 10 and 12.
Year 10
We are really happy we can offer face to face lessons for Year 10 students in their day “bubbles”. These lessons will complement the remote lessons being set for rest of their time by their option subject teachers. For the core subjects, students will all have compulsory afternoon “live” lessons scheduled. These lessons times will have been shared with your daughter as they are timetabled across the year group to avoid clashes. So with a mixture of being in school, having remote lessons and some live lessons, it is “all change” again for the students. If you or your daughter is unsure of what she should be doing, where or when, please do email Ms Shephard, the Head of Year 10 on Year10team@holt.wokingham.sch.uk
Year 11 and 13
Centre assessed grades for GCSE and A level have all been summited to the exam boards now for a process of external moderation and alignment.
Please see below a link that explains once again the process.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/awarding-qualifications-in-summer-2020
Year 12
Exams continue this week and then students come in from next week for a double lesson for each of their subjects per week. Help will also be on hand for UCAS applications
All students
Tutors continue to call home this week, for a “check in” chat with their form groups. We had such good feedback from this last time and we plan another round towards the end of term. Tutors are also leading remote registrations and have commented on how lovely it has been to the hear students’ voices.
Lockdown has been a difficult experience for everyone, as we all know……but many young people in particular, may have struggled and so, Berkshire Healthcare is launching a new School Nursing advice and support line for children, young people and their families, to offer health advice and referral into the service for on-going support if needed. The line will be available from 9am-4.30pm, Monday to Friday.
You can access this service by dialing 0118 9312111 and selecting ‘Option 4’ to speak to a School Nurse from the team.
Other things that have helped so far, have included staying in touch with friends from school and keeping up with the latest news. To make this even easier, our Head girl team have set up a Holt School Instagram account. If you and/or your daughter would like to follow this group, they can do so by searching for “theholtschool” on Instagram and then look for the tag of Holt School Student Leadership Team. They are going to post lots of motivational ideas and tips to keep everyone feeling part of the community.
Have a lovely rest of week
Katie Pearce
Co-Headteacher