Dear Parents, Guardians and Friends,
I hope you all had a lovely Easter break!
As always, it was good to welcome our girls back to the summer term, which is a bit lop sided with five weeks this half term and then seven weeks from May half term to the summer holidays.
Mrs Pearce and I are delivering assemblies to all year groups this week on the theme of Achieve. We started in the autumn term with Inspire, the spring term with Challenge and now Achieve. The tip we gave to help girls achieve was to set goals. We reminded girls to take advice – to show humility to help them achieve their goals but that their goals need to be their own. We suggested that one factor to achieving is to have a ‘to do list’, as a notes page on their phone or maybe in a notebook and the key is to add to it every time they are inspired by someone recommending a book, YouTube clip, art exhibition or new tune and so on. The ‘to do list’ makes goals manageable, ensures girls do not forget things and they can look at it at any time. We went on to explain, coming as no surprise, that hard work and dedication are needed to achieve goals along with learning from mistakes, to keep going when things are tough and to be adaptable – stoicism! Everyone could relate to the satisfying feeling of ticking off ‘to do lists’ and the ticking helps track performance. We reminded the girls that they would become more self-confident as they tick off things on their list, this should make them more motivated and excited to take on more stretching tasks, and so the upward spiral goes on. To end we reflected on the importance of appreciating that achievements are different for everyone but all achievements make for a more enriching life. Sometimes we don’t realise our achievements until we look back so we encouraged the girls to enjoy the photos that come up as ‘memories’ on phones and to reflect on how much they have achieved since the photo was taken….! Everyone should be proud of their achievements but we reminded our girls to show gratitude and humility by acknowledging those who helped them on the way! Please do encourage your girls to start ‘to do lists’ if they haven’t already.
Year 11 and 13 are in the thick of hard work and dedication as they hit the final push to the GCSEs and A Levels – we are thinking of them all at this intense time and appreciate the support that you and the teachers are giving them.
House history also took place at the end of term; the girls had to create an egg of a figure from History, which could be a part of a diorama not more than a shoebox in size and prizes were given to some of the stand out entries. In Year 7 Edie and Holly for Eggbert Einstein and Visha and Latshayer for Egg Gandhi and in Year 9 Emma, Ainslin, Cara and Josie for two entries- Freda Carlo, and the Eggexcution of Anne Boiling. Well done to all the girls who entered and to Mr Furlong and his team for organising the competition and sharing their love of history!
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Weavers won the House Shield at the end of last term for 2018-19 – congratulations! Miss Izod, Head of Weavers, said ‘I am always extremely impressed by the high levels of participation seen across all sports inter-house events. The girls often show willing to step up and fill positions when needed, and certainly higher up the school are incredibly efficient in their own organization – 10W for example organized their own inter-house football team and went on to achieve 1st place. In my experience I have found the girls are competitive in nature but also willing to just ‘have a go’ to represent house and be part of the wider team. 9W been fantastic this year and their contributions to charity events are excellent. The prefect team were also instrumental in guiding the house towards their success this year. As Head of House I feel that the majority of girls feel proud to be in Weavers and the whole school events really showcase their community spirit’. Well done to everyone in Weavers and there is house winner lunch on Friday to whom anyone in W is invited!!
Finally, Mrs Hart, our Careers Lead is organising Year 10 work experience, which runs from 17th-21st June. She is keen to find contacts in IT, hospitality, drama/dance and medicine. If you can help by taking on a student please do contact Mrs Hart s.hart@holt.wokingham.sch.uk .
Thank you
Anne Kennedy
Co-Headteacher