Dear Parents, Guardians and Friends
Our annual celebration of Harvest was the key event of last week! Thanks to your generosity, our House prefects and student volunteers from each form had lots of produce with which to build their displays- the first House competition of the school year. The theme this year was community and freedom and each House thought carefully about one particular element, providing information as well as neatly producing neatly designed displays. Weavers were the winners with their display on the right to nationality……. but really impressive was our newest House Broderers, who came in third place despite only having two form groups to donate produce. Here are some of the displays.
And here are the proud Weavers with Miss Izod, their Head of House
The student leadership team, led by Head girl Olivia Alborough, presented a well-planned and thoughtful Harvest assembly where they explored some of our freedoms in more detail……..and of course we all joined to sing the traditional Harvest song “Cauliflowers fluffy”.
On Friday, Year 11 students kept up our last Harvest tradition by delivering the food boxes to Wokingham’s elderly and to the local food bank.
Thanks must go to Miss Harris, who is our charity co-ordinator and planned all our Harvest events as well as our heads of House for maintaining the competitive edge.
This week, the English department led assemblies to launch their reading challenge across the school. They had collected photos of members of staff “being caught” reading, to prove the point that you can read anywhere ……the best one, was Mrs Smith who was snapped reading in the hair dressers with a full head of foils!
Please do ask your daughter about this challenge and encourage her to take part. There are great prizes on offer…….
On Friday, our Year 7 students went to Ufton Court for the annual team building and bonding day. This is always a favourite memory for Holt girls, as they get involved with all sorts of games and challenges to help them get to know one another better and to work as part of a bigger team. The weather looked a bit dodgy as they left, but I think they were lucky in the end and got away with only a shower after lunch. See below!
A great day was had by all. Thanks to Mrs Vaughan and her tutor team for leading this day out.
Yesterday, we held our annual Macmillan coffee morning. It was a few days later than normal, due to the Ufton Court trip…….and once again it was a sell out! As you can see by the queue……
The Year 7 and 8 students kindly baked or faked delicious cakes to sell during an extended break time. Staff and students came together for a delicious piece of cake to raise money for this fantastic cause. We are not sure of the total raised yet – we are still counting it there was so much! Thank you to Mrs Van Wygaard, Mrs Williams and the technology department and to everyone who contributed to this event. Here are some pictures of the students enjoying lots of cake.
Lastly, this week we had some lovely news from Mrs Griffiths who worked with Miss Shephard and student volunteers on our school garden in the summer. We are delighted to have retained our Silver Gilt this year with improved marks – just 6 marks off gold. Specifically, we received a Commended in the Mark Mattocks Schools Challenge Section. The judges asked our students some tricky questions and were clearly impressed with their answers. Well done to Chloe and Charlotte in particular; Chloe went along on Tuesday to collect the certificates from the Town hall award ceremony. Thanks Mrs Griffiths and Miss Shephard for leading on this project, a great success! See below some pictures of the wild flower garden.
Katie Pearce
Co-Headteacher