Dear all,

This week has been our inaugural HP Charity Week. Our wonderful House council, Year 12 mentors and Year 13 captains have been working hard to organise the events which will take place every lunchtime next week. Each house has had a specific event to raise money for linked charity. The events include a murder mystery, soaking the teacher, catchphrase, a penalty shootout and bingo.

On Monday evening, I had the pleasure of attending the Greenshaw Learning Trust Christmas Concert, held at Cirencester church. GLT were represented by Five Acres, Yate Academy, Park House, Blaise, Gloucester Academy, Henley Bank and, of course, Holmleigh Park. The HP contributions were by Sienna and Gbolabo (Y9), who performed a duet version of Bing Crosby's 'Silver Bells' and Oscar (Y8) who performed Chopin's 'Nocturne Op. 9. No 2'. For all three students, this was their first time performing for the school in such a setting and all did incredibly well. Amazingly, Oscar hasn't had a piano lesson before, but truly wowed the crowd with his rendition.

Our Year 11 and 13 students have been receiving their mock exam papers back from their teachers and are starting to respond to the feedback they are being provided with. Knowing what you performed well in and knowing your most important areas for development will help all of our exam year group students plan their own independent revision over the coming months. Regularly completing work at home is so important to both regularly retrieve previously learnt content and to practise applying it to exam-style questions. Revision workbooks and practice exam questions are excellent for structuring independent work at home.

Our whole school attendance increased this week, which was very pleasing to see. Having above 95% attendance at school is critical to both attainment and wellbeing. Being in school means students are up-to-date in their learning, which increases self-confidence, enables them to take part in the widest array of extracurricular activities and to spend time with their peers. We, of course, recognise that there are sometimes exceptional circumstances which prevent a student having an attendance of 95% or higher. However, it is critical that regular attendance at school is recognised as one of our whole school priorities. If there is any further attendance support that we can offer at any point, please do not hesitate to contact us.

We have a range of important and exciting events coming up next week, including house sports matches, Christmas discos and the Year 11 Parents Evening.

I wish you all a lovely weekend,

Mr Hudson
Headteacher