Dear Parents and Carers,

We’ve had a wonderfully busy and enriching week in school, with plenty of celebrations, learning, and memorable experiences for the children. 

This week, the children have enjoyed a range of book‑themed activities for World Book Day (week!). Juniors paired up with Infants for shared reading, the Juniors created badges of their favourite book, and the Infants turned dolly pegs into their chosen book character. 

The Infants also read the books from the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize (Illustrated) 2026 Shortlist and voted for their favourite. It was a very close result, but Milo and The Mountain by Jamie Carroll came out on top. We’re looking forward to hearing Year 3 and 4’s votes next, and then passing our overall thoughts on to Waterstones. 

Both school sites held fantastic book swaps. It was fantastic to see how excited the children were to swap books and take home a fresh selection of titles. We hope the children enjoy their new pre‑loved books at home—such a wonderful way to give books a second life.   

As part of the National Year of Reading, Geraldine launched an exciting new Underground Reading Challenge for the Juniors. Each tube line represents a book genre, with stations marking the stories they discover along the way. Will they complete a whole line—or even conquer the entire map? 

The Infants have taken home a Reading Bingo Challenge to encourage reading across a variety of books. Completed lines—or full houses—can be returned to school in exchange for special reading stickers. 

Finally, fostering a love of reading depends on a well‑stocked library. Children have brought home sponsored‑read sheets from Friends of HTPD, and we are grateful for your support in helping us continue to refresh our library shelves. 

It was the turn of Year 2 and teams from Years 3 and 4 to visit The Spectrum for Sportshall. We are incredibly fortunate to be the only school able to take entire year groups of infants, and all of our Year 2 children participated with great enthusiasm. Our Year 3 and 4 teams performed brilliantly and were rightly proud to achieve second place—well done to all involved! 

On Tuesday, nine members of the Holy Trinity Advanced Recorder Group from Years 5 and 6 represented the school at the Godalming Performing Arts Festival. They performed two pieces in front of an audience and an adjudicator, who provided detailed feedback. We are thrilled to share that they achieved an impressive overall mark of 82%, along with wonderful comments praising their confident tone, excellent rhythm, and the joy they brought to their performance. We look forward to hearing more from them—and from our younger recorder groups—throughout the year. 

On Wednesday, we welcomed our SIAMS inspector to the infants site. A huge thank you to all the children, staff, parents, clergy, and governors who contributed to the day. It is always a pleasure to share our school with visitors, and our values, sense of joy, relational approach, and strong community spirit shone throughout the school. We hope to be able to share the report with you before the Easter holidays. 

Year 3 enjoyed the second of their two exciting Greek Days this week. They worked with Matt from Ludo Productions on a Greek Drama Day, exploring a myth, creating a performance, and learning a traditional Greek dance. Many children dressed in simple, creative Greek‑style outfits—thank you to families for your support! They also designed and made their own healthy Greek yoghurt dips, selecting flavours and toppings. It was fantastic to see the children applying their learning in these hands‑on, immersive workshops. 

It has been lovely to welcome so many families into school for this term’s parent‑teacher consultations. If you haven’t yet booked an appointment, please do contact your child’s teacher. Celebrating the children’s progress is always a highlight of our term. 

Have a wonderful weekend. Let’s hope the sun comes back!

Best wishes,

Vicky

Thought of the week: Lemons – Self-control “Are your words sweet or sour?”