GHS Connect #5 Monday 5 October
From the Head
Three weeks until half term with our inset day this Friday which should provide a little bit of a chance to re-charge the batteries! Everyone is doing a wonderful job of staying positive and just getting on with it - thank you. Governors have also asked me to pass on their specific thanks for everyone’s hard work at this especially challenging time. School is very different to how it was a year ago, but it’s amazing to see how we have all adapted so well.
I want to say a particular thank you to Will, Jack, Dipesh and all staff involved in putting the virtual open evening materials together. This kind of thing takes a huge amount of time and work, and in many ways, is much harder than just delivering the evening on the day itself!
I also want to thank all staff for the work they are doing around setting additional work when students are self-isolating and also setting homework on Google Classroom. I know that all of these things take additional time, but we should reap the benefits of this if we continue to do this well. Firstly, as I said last week, parents are more likely to follow the rules and keep their children off school when they are ill, if they know that the work will be of high quality. Secondly, if we can get students into good habits in completing homework regularly, less catch up will be needed. Lou will soon be launching a pilot of ‘Show My Homework’ which will be our next step in developing further student independence. We have reduced some of the directed time this year, by removing all time for meetings on Tuesdays when there is a parents evening, and we have also built in some more time specifically for planning, preparation and marking on Tuesdays. I know that, in this job, there is never enough time, but hopefully this will help a little.
In case you didn’t spot it, our former student Bukayo Saka got a full England call up - a little point of celebration for us all, amidst all of the other challenges we are facing!
Hopefully the weather will be kinder to us this week - famous last words...
Mia