Dear Parents, Guardians and Friends
Our new student leadership team have really got stuck into their roles and last week they led an impressive bake sale to raise money for breast cancer charity “Sakoon”.
Raising an impressive £224.93, the students really enjoyed baking…….
And selling…………it was a great success!
As everyone knows, we love a bake sale at The Holt, but on a more serious note, the charity event was linked to work being done by our PSHE department and its head, Mrs Hornblow, to raise awareness and educate our students about breast cancer.
Mrs Hornblow said
We raised an incredible £225 for the Sakoon charity, which is excellent. They are coming in to school at the end of March to deliver a workshop so it is lovely we can to donate to such a worthy cause. Year 11 are going to be covering self-examinations in their next unit of PSHE – health & wellbeing, beginning after half-term so they will understand the importance of self-examinations and screening tests and signs to look for. I would also like to give my thanks to the Student Leadership Team who helped me with the bake sale. Their support and excellent baking skills no doubt led to the event being such a success and it was great to hear they still recalled their Breast Cancer Awareness workshop from last year.
Here are our student leadership team and Mrs Hornblow, looking exhausted but happy after the sale.
Last week, all of Year 8 were off timetable to take part in our annual “technology day”. This event has been a firm fixture at The Holt for as long as I can remember ……..which is about 20 years (!). the event has really evolved over time to reflect the changes in society and of course technology and the content is regularly updated. But what stays the same is the enjoyment the students get from it, the great team work they have the chance to demonstrate, and of course an opportunity for the Houses to compete.
This event was led by Mr Turner. He said
Last Wednesday Year 8 students were off timetable for Technology day. The day involved students completing a design and make challenge, in Houses, with the theme of structures. Their task was to build a protective structure which would prevent a stack of 3 digestive biscuits, kindly donated by Waitrose in Wokingham, from breaking when weight was dropped onto them. Students started the day by learning about structures, reinforcement, and crumple zones. Students then split up into their Houses, where they worked in teams of 5, to design, prototype, test and evaluate ideas. It was great to see students using their skills to create many iterations of their concept, as well as working so well in their teams. We ended the day with rounds of testing starting with dropping 200g weights and increasing up to 1kg.
I am pleased to announce that Tanners came 1st, Lacemakers followed in 2nd place and Haberdashers came 3rd.
Thanks go to Mr Turner for organising this major event, and of course the rest of the technology department for working with the students in their groups.
Also in the technology department, Miss Vockins was very excited at the arrival of a delivery of mussels. She wrote:
Last week we received a delivery of fresh UK grown mussels as part of the Fish Hero programme which I have been running in the department – there are some images of the students cooking and trying mussels for the first time.
We were the lucky recipients of 8kg of British mussels in a bid to improve their fish cookery skills and learn about healthy eating.
The initiative is part of The Fish In Schools Hero programme, which is run by the Food Teachers Centre. The programme aims to ensure that every child gets a chance to prepare, cook and eat fish before they leave school.
There is even a picture of our new head girl trying mussels for the first time ever! She is a now a new fan!
As ever, our clubs’ timetable is in full swing and I was very excited to see a recently added club added to the list! Cheer club for Year 7 started last week and is clearly popular already.
Well done for the students in attendance and thank you to the staff who run this club along with all our staff who give generously of their time to lead extra-curricular activities. We would like all our students to take part in at least one extra-curricular activity or club……..perhaps you could ask your daughter if she attends a club? Very often students that don’t go to clubs tell us there is nothing that interests them, in which case ask them what club would they join? We are certainly open to student-run clubs!
Mrs Pearce
Co-headteacher