HFCS NEWS

As we come to the end of this half term, I would like to reflect on what has been a positive and rewarding start to the year for our Holy Family community. It has been wonderful to see our students embracing the opportunities available to them, showing enthusiasm for their learning and contributing to school life in so many different ways.

I am particularly proud of the achievements and commitment shown by our students across the school. From impressive sporting performances and success on the netball court to enriching learning experiences, student leadership and our growing Business Enterprise programme, there has been much to celebrate. It is also encouraging to see our students supporting one another, building friendships and demonstrating the kindness, teamwork and determination that make Holy Family such a special community.

I would like to thank our staff for their continued dedication and care, and our parents and carers for their ongoing support. The positive relationships between our students, staff and families are central to our school, helping us to provide an environment where every young person is encouraged to learn, develop and reach their potential.

As we look ahead to the next half term, we will continue to build on this positive start, with further opportunities for learning, enrichment and personal development. I hope the half-term break gives everyone the chance to rest and spend time with family and friends. I look forward to welcoming our students and staff back for the next part of the term.

I hope you enjoy reading about some of the wonderful experiences and achievements taking place across Holy Family.

This half term we have welcomed Bishop Timothy (who will be inaugurated in December) to the diocese and Fr Andrei to our parish. We are incredibly grateful for the service of Bishop Alan and we wish him well in his retirement. We are looking forward to building our ties with both the new Bishop and Fr Andrei.

This half-term students have been learning all about the importance of Creation. Years 7-10 have been reading the stories of creation from Genesis and assessing the significance of our role in caring for the world.

We have been hearing this half-term about the importance of faith in action. The parables of Matthew shared in assemblies by our tutor groups have included the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, the landowners, and the great banquet.

Each of these has expressed the importance of not just hearing the Word, but doing something with it. The particular emphasis has been on charity work and how it can help us live out our mission.

This half-term has ended with our first charity campaign collecting tins to celebrate the harvest festival. The tins collected will be going to a local food bank, as well as trying to open our own food bank in school to support our own community.

Students this half term have gone to leadership conferences in the diocese.

Mrs McCoy organised for her Yr11s to participate in a conference on social media and then took our Year 13 Prefects to the Catholic Youth Leadership Conference. Thank you so much to her for organising this.

Thursday 5th November is the Youth Mass at Brentwood Cathedral, if you would like to attend - letters will be handed out on the first day back after half-term.

We are thrilled to be able to announce our pilgrimage to the eternal city of Rome in October 2027. We are hoping that this will be an incredible experience for our students to witness the core of our faith and engage in the incredible history that the city has to offer. Information about this trip will be sent out to the parents of Year 9 and Year 11 students who are eligible to apply.

As we head towards advent preparations are being made. Please note that our carol service this year will be hosted at Our Lady and St George's Church on Tuesday 8th December.

Our students have had a fantastic start to the term, with some brilliant performances across football, netball and table tennis, alongside opportunities to get involved in other sporting activities.

Our U16 girls’ football team started the term with a strong 3–1 win against Willowfield, showing excellent teamwork and sportsmanship. Our Year 9 boys’ football team followed this with an exhilarating 5–4 win against Frederick Bremer, making an amazing comeback after being 3–0 down at half-time!

The U16 girls continued their winning form with an impressive 5–0 victory against Leytonstone, demonstrating great teamwork and skill throughout the match. They then secured another fantastic result, beating South Chingford 6–0, with a special shout-out to Aliyah PJP for scoring a hat trick. Well done to the whole team for another brilliant performance!

Our Year 11 netball team also had a great 13–6 win against Heathcote, showcasing excellent teamwork and sportsmanship. It is wonderful to see the girls continuing to play with such a keen desire to win.

The team went on to receive silver medals at the Waltham Forest Borough rally and will represent Waltham Forest in the Essex Schools County Round Tournament on Sunday 18th October at Redbridge Sports Centre. What a fantastic achievement!

Away from the football pitch and netball court, our students enjoyed taking part in the Panathlon ten-pin bowling event. It was a fun opportunity to get involved, enjoy the competition and cheer each other on, with some amazing action shots captured along the way.

Our U13 and U16 boys also had the fantastic opportunity to take part in the Borough Table Tennis Competition. There was some brilliant table tennis on display, and we are incredibly proud of everyone who represented the school.

Both teams narrowly missed out on a place in the semi-finals, but they should be proud of their efforts and determination.

As part of Black History Month, 11Y discussed how sport has the power to change society, bring people together and unite communities from different backgrounds.

It was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the positive impact sport can have in promoting inclusion, understanding and equality.

Congratulations to all our students for their efforts, achievements and sportsmanship. We look forward to celebrating more sporting successes throughout the year!

Our Young Enterprise Business Club has been fundraising through themed sweet sales, using the money raised to buy new footballs and basketballs for the Lower Site playground. Thanks to Mr King for preparing the equipment!

The new equipment is helping younger students play together and build friendships, showing how enterprise can promote teamwork, kindness, inclusion and giving back to the school community.

We were especially touched by these thank-you messages from students:

💬 Jhayquan: “Sports activities make the school more friendly! This helps us with friendships, kindness, a healthy mindset and a sense of fun.”

💬 Ethan: “Thank you to the Young Enterprise Business Club for providing footballs and basketballs to the Holy Family community as we now have more to play with and it helps students who can’t afford their own ball.”

💬 David: “Football and basketball are two team sports where you can make friends and build communities together, so thank you so much.”

💬 Simon: “If you are struggling to buy a ball you don’t need to worry – everyone’s welcome. It’s also a benefit to students to better their skills.”

We are incredibly proud of our Young Enterprise students, whose hard work, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit are making a real difference to our school community. From selling sweets to building friendships, this is student enterprise at its very best!

This term, we are excited to launch Money Missions, our new extracurricular Business sessions for Years 7 and 8.

Students are developing essential financial literacy skills, learning about budgeting, saving, spending wisely and making smart financial decisions. They will also put their creativity to the test in a Dragons’ Den-style challenge, developing their own business ideas and pitching them to our Sixth Form team.

Our Year 12 students are supporting the sessions as positive role models and mentors, helping younger students build confidence and share ideas.

Who knows? We may have the next generation of successful entrepreneurs right here at our school! ~ Mrs O’Rourke

Our MathsWatch Leaderboard results are in! Students earn achievement points through their hard work and dedication on MathsWatch. A huge congratulations to our top 10 students for their fantastic efforts and achievements. Keep up the brilliant work!

There is one skill all students are taught in primary school that perhaps makes the greatest difference to their achievement by the end of their school career: the ability to read.

It is a skill that gives students access to many other skills, countless areas of the curriculum and vast amounts of knowledge. Reading helps you decipher a Maths problem, understand the history of the 20th century and navigate the increasingly complex world young people live in. As Mark Twain, the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, famously said:

"A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read."

As Mark Twain, the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, famously said:

"A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read."

However, it would be a shame if reading were only seen as a means to an end, a way of improving exam results, getting into a better university or securing a highly regarded career. These things are important, of course. They are vital, in fact, and we spend a huge amount of time at Holy Family helping students achieve their full potential.

But we also want students at Holy Family to become more. Reading is another way to grow as a person, expand your mind, develop emotional intelligence and deepen your understanding of the world around you.

The horror writer Stephen King, one of the most successful authors of all time, has said that "writing is telepathy". He means that writers, by expressing their thoughts, ideas and emotions through novels, plays, poetry, essays and journalism, communicate directly with us across time.

If I want to, I can discover what William Shakespeare thought about love more than 400 years ago. I can experience the words of the soldier poets of the First World War as they struggled to survive the horrors of conflict.

I can learn how African writers responded to British colonisation, read the experiences of an enslaved man in 18th-century America, or hear the testimony of a Holocaust survivor. I can even explore imagined futures or travel through space and time. Reading is a kind of time travel, after all.

We face great challenges to reading today, as books compete with social media and people become increasingly reliant on smartphones and computers. But if you do one thing differently today, why not pick up a book? Take some time to read, think and listen to the collective voice of humanity reaching across time.

Mr Parry

Head of English

All students return

School Closed - Feast of Christ the King

Term ends

Christmas holidays

WALTHAMSTOW HOUSE SITE | Years 7, 8, 12 and 13

📍1 Shernhall Street, London, E17 3EA

📞020 8520 0482

📩 office@holyfamily.waltham.sch.uk

WISEMAN HOUSE SITE | Years 9, 10 and 11

📍34 Shernhall Street, London, E17 9RT

📞020 8520 3587

📩 office@holyfamily.waltham.sch.uk