Dear Parents and Carers

A warm welcome to this action packed addition of our Newsletter.  It has been a very busy and positive last few weeks.  The PA arranged a very successful Christmas Fayre, raising over £2000 for resources for our students whilst importantly bringing the community together. 

Holmer Green Senior School students continue to outdo themselves with Zainab Iqbal being short-listed for the prestigious ‘The Education Art Prize’; Sophie Marshall writing an impressive poem called ‘A Million Heroes’; six students receiving bronze, or silver Senior Maths Challenge awards in this national competition and Year 9 students performing their Drama pieces at two local primary schools.

So many students have worked tirelessly at their studies since September, showing great resilience and perseverance with difficult concepts.  These students' hard work and excellence have been noticed by teachers across all Departments with over 150 subject prizes being awarded in assemblies in the run up to Christmas.  In addition, the top 10 students from each year group, 7-11, have received letters in recognition of their strong progress across all their subjects.  Finally, over 140 former and current students received prizes for their academic performance, progress, creativity and contribution to the school’s community at Excellence Evening.  This was an inspiring event hosted by Station Commander Charlie Turner from Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue service.

I am sure you will enjoy looking through the various articles to get a flavour of what students have been up to at a busy Holmer Green Senior School.  I wish you all a safe, but very Happy Christmas and New Year.  See you on Thursday 3 January 2019.

Kindest regards

Mr Ed Hillyard, Headteacher

Excellence Evening

On Thursday 13 December we held our annual Excellence Evening, an opportunity to celebrate the success and progress made by a large number of our student body.  We were extremely fortunate to host Station Commander Charlie Turner from the Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service as our guest speaker and prize giver.

A total of 140 prizes were given out on the night for academic and sporting success, contribution to the wider school community and positive attitudes to learning.  Our annual KS3 Commitment Prize was won by Lucas Payne in Year 8 and both Daniel and Oliver Graham (Year 8 and Year 11 respectively) won the Rob Holland Award.

END OF TERM CELEBRATIONS

Students from Year 7 to 11 have been awarded with Achievement Pins for resilience, perseverance and great work ethic in a particular subject. Two Awards for each subject area per year group were presented by Mr Hillyard in Assemblies over the past week.  In addition to this, one student per year group was presented with a Headteacher's Award.

Parents' Association

The PA would like to wish you all a Very Happy Christmas and New Year and say a BIG Thank You to everyone who has supported the events this term, either by volunteering or coming along.  The PA have hosted the Quiz Night and Christmas Fayre and provided refreshments for the Music Evening.

Next Term we have an amazing evening lined up for MARCH 22^nd  including dinner and entertainment provided by professional Magician/Comedian, Ian Keable.  Please put the date in the diary and if you are able to sign up to volunteer on the day even for a short period that would be great.  Just let Clare or another member of the PA know (claregrimm@gmail.com).  Tickets will go on sale in January.

Site News

We are just completing a major project across the whole school costing just under £400,000 to upgrade our Fire Alarm systems. This money was secured by a bid to the Department of Education for the sole purpose of this project. We are extremely grateful to the Parent’s Association for donating £10,000 towards this project and an additional £5,000 has been paid out of parental donations to the School Fund.

This project will ensure that all our Fire Alarm systems are brought up to current standards and includes a significant improvement in the lighting system as part of the Emergency Lighting upgrade.

We are also in the process of installing new perimeter fencing and gates which are also connected to the Fire Alarm. Once completed, after Christmas, this will ensure that all access to the school is completely controlled thus improving greatly the security on site. The gates will be connected to the Fire Alarm system so should there be a fire incident on site they will automatically open to let in emergency vehicles.

This year we are bidding to the Department of Education for further improvements to the school. We are submitting a £2.3 million bid to build a new 4 court sports hall and also a £360,000 bid to replace failing rooves. We will let you know the result of these bids as soon as we hear the result in the spring of 2019.

Drama News

HGSS Year 9 drama students visited both HGJS and Cedar Park School last week to perform their drama piece. The students had been working on dramatising the narrative and stylised drama. They produced pieces of drama where they had modernised traditional fairy tales and taught a modern day message in a humorous way.

The groups were: Lil Red rap battle, Cindy's story, The Great British Bake Off and Rapunzel's Bad Hair Day. Some amazing performances from Jake B, George Dorling and Neve had the young audiences in stitches. Well done to all pupils!

Year 12 Drama students put on a wonderful assessment show this week where they performed extracts in the style of Total Theatre by Berkoff and Naturalism. The contrasting performances were fantastic and the students, Freya, Melissa, Grace and Ella worked exceptionally hard to ensure their performances were professional with smooth transitions. Excellent work by all involved.