Dear Parents, Guardians and Friends
I can say without a doubt that I learn something new in my job every single day, and I can attribute much of that to the speakers we invite into school. We are grateful to have the support of members of our local community as well as national speakers who come to talk to students and teachers alike about their passion, interests and expertise. We have many inspirational role models who deliver these sessions to our students across the school from Year 7 all the way to Year 13 throughout the school year.
This week, Year 13 listened to first-hand information and experience about apprenticeships which ties in well with the National Apprenticeship next week, 6-10 February.
Mrs Hart provided information about all levels of apprenticeships, grade requirements, and researched live opportunities with the students.
Two apprentices from Maersk accompanied the seminar. The students listened to two different career paths from Victor and Vishali in Cyber Security Engineer and Risk apprentices.
They passed on their knowledge regarding applications, interviews, skills and opportunities within the company and encouraged the students to apply for apprenticeships even though university offers have started to come in.
Also, a representative from Oxfam came to speak to our Year 8 geographers last week to inform them about gender injustice.
Arabella in Year 8 told us about the talk:
“We learnt from the Oxfam speaker about Kibate’s story and about how Oxfam gave her and a group of women a loan to help her farm. They also taught the women how to deal with their finances, and she was able to pay off the loan after that. Kibate said she felt more respected in her village and that she used to be afraid of speaking in the village because she did not have an education”
Also in the PSHE department Year 9 students have been having ‘REAL’ sessions during their PSHE lessons. The sessions focus on Relationships, Esteem, Aspiration and Lifestyle.
The students were able to have discussions with each other about their expectations in relationships and were able to explore real life issues such as decision making and how to deal with conflict within relationships. The students also explored self-esteem and how friendships and relationships can contribute to their self-esteem. One of the activities that students carried out was where they had to think about the characteristics they would like in a future friend and then a relationship and put these characteristics onto their ‘person’ before having whole class discussions about why those characteristics are important and why different people gave different characteristics.
Thank you to Soulscape for delivering the sessions – the students really enjoyed them and the opportunity to discuss such important and relevant topics.
Thank you to Mrs Hart, Miss Williams and Miss McNally for organising all of these opportunities.
We are very thankful to those who come into speak in our school, and we always appreciate hearing from you, or any professional contacts that you may have who would be willing to speak in school. We are currently seeking out interviewers for our Year 12 and Year 13 interview days in March and especially in these fields of animal care, bioengineering and environmental sustainability. Please get in touch with Mrs Hart our careers lead at s.hart@holt.wokingham.sch.uk if you are able to assist us with this.
In house house news, Year 8,9 and 10 worked together for the return of the annual House Geography quiz.
Mr Mosley told us
The quiz was a great way to get our students together and test some alternative geographical knowledge that they won’t necessarily have been learnt within the curriculum. Each house had two teams made up of one student from Years 8, 9 & 10. The teamwork and communication skills on show were fantastic and the teams collaborated really well, even though it was the first time they had been in a team before. The quiz saw traditional rounds such as ‘Country Outlines’ alongside some of the less traditional ‘Service Station or Cheese’. The students all enjoyed the quiz, donuts and most of all heckling Mr Mosley. Ultimately, Tanners came out on top not only winning the individual team competitions but also the house competition. A big thank you must also go to our three Sixth Form Geographers who gave up their Friday afternoon to mark the quiz.
Events like these show how our school community comes together to challenge their knowledge as well as earn house points!
And finally, a quick reminder that we have more KS3 masterclasses coming up in the next half term which includes titles such as ‘Is society actually real?’. This is a shameless plug as this is the masterclass which I am running as a subject specialist in sociology. There are a wide range of sessions on offer throughout the year, so we really encourage your daughters to look out for these opportunities when they are advertised and give them a go – it is a enjoyable way for them to learn about topics beyond their lessons.
Emma Ward
Assistant Headteacher
Head of Sixth Form