Dear Parents/Guardians and Friends
As we roll into the last two weeks of term, school had definitely taken on a Christmassy feel……..
On Friday, we held one of our annual highlights of the House calendar- The Christmas fair….. Weeks of planning for sure and a great time had by all. Students and Heads of House started the grand set up during period 2 ready for Year 7 to visit during period 3, Year 8 during period 4 and the rest of the school over lunchtime.
Each House decorated their House Christmas tree competition for those all-important House points. These were judged by Mrs Smith and Mrs Salamut- Ward. Congratulations to Lacemakers who won the competition and to Weavers who were runners up. They also each had their own stall. These included “Guess the teacher” from the baby photos, photo booth fun, spin the wheel, plus numerous drinks and snack stalls.
Here are some lovely photos
The Houses all raise money for their House charities, and this year, overall, they raised around £1,000 with Clothworkers raising the most money. This is a great amount.
The 6th form Tombola team also did a sterling job on the ever-popular tombola stand. Their job started a couple of weeks ago when they collected the donations brought in by student in return for an “own clothes” day. They labelled each prize with a raffle ticket and there was in excess of 1000 prizes, and then they managed the stall during the fair. The tombola is the stall where the proceed of which come directly back to the school, via Friends of The Holt. We were delighted that in all, the tombola raises £1400. This is a fantastic amount and will go towards buying some additional extras for the benefit of the students.
I would like to thank you, parents for supplying some pocket money for your daughters to spend at the fair, and to thank our incredible team of House prefects and House volunteers and Heads of House for all the planning, setting up, and importantly, tidying away. Of course, a massive shout out to our site team for setting things up ready for the fair. A great Holt team effort.
The Friends of The Holt ran another Holt classic…….The Christmas auction. Massive shout out here to Rochy Wilson, one of our parents, who ran this event; everything from sourcing prizes, to setting up the website to releasing the prizes to the winners. This event raised £1700 for The Friends of The Holt, and once again, this money comes directly to the school. Thanks so much Rochy!
If you have a fundraising idea that you would be happy to initiate, we would love to hear from you! Please contact the school on Holtschool@holt.wokingham.sch.uk.
We would be able to support you to carry out this idea!
Other things Christmassy………we have started our end of term presentation assemblies for each year group, Mr Gray and Mrs Crozier are deep in rehearsals with the numerous ensembles, choirs and readers along with the staff choir, ready for the Christmas concert on Thursday and 6th formers are busy working their way round all the staff rooms encouraging the teachers to take part in a Christmas video, to be revealed in the end of term assembly next Friday.
We are also very much looking forward to the staff and student quiz night on Thursday…….i must start reading up on my celebrity gossip ahead of the quiz!
On the Christmas concert, if you haven’t got your tickets yet, there is still time if you follow this link.
https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/the-holt-school/t-xmljzml
The concert is on Thursday 12th December at St Pauls Church and starts at 7pm. See you there!
Lastly, our “progress 8 scores” came out last Thursday. This score is a “value added” measure for our students who sat their GCSEs in the summer of 2024 and shows the progress they made at The Holt from their Year 6 starting point to their end of Year 11 leaving point. We achieved a 0.96. This means that girls who come to The Holt, gained on average, one grade higher in 10 GCSE subjects compared to if they had attended a similar school and against students of similar KS2 scores.
We are thrilled with the measure and know that this is through the dedication and care by our teachers towards our students as well as the support, encouragement you do at home to enable your daughters to achieve their best. Here is the link if you want to compare schools.
Compare the performance of schools and colleges in England – GOV.UK
We are 167/3706 schools so in the top 4.5% of schools nationally – which is fabulous!!
Katie Pearce
Co-Headteacher