GHS Connect #7 Monday 19 October
From the Head
One more week to go! Thank you to everyone for such a great start to an extraordinarily odd time in education. We have achieved so much in just a few weeks and I’m very grateful to everybody. I want to say a special well done to all of our new staff - it’s not easy joining a new school at the best of times, and I’m sure it will have been even harder in the current circumstances. Congratulations especially to our NQTs and Teach 1st colleagues who have really come into a baptism of fire but have all settled in brilliantly. I promise, it does get easier!
We had a little break from Covid related matters last week, but I wanted to say a belated thank you to Richard Lewis who has spent far too much of his time contact tracing for Year 12 - it takes quite some time to go through this process, but he has got on with this marvellously and without complaint. Thank you also to the Year 11 team, and achievement teams who have stepped in and run study club so well in Shirley’s absence last week. The new look study club and online tutoring will already be making a massive difference I’m sure.
I hope that you have all seen my announcement about how we are moving to compulsory face coverings in communal, indoor areas. This is as a result of London moving into Tier 2 and is in line with other Ealing high schools. This applies to staff as well as students, but is only applicable in congested areas such as corridors. There is no need to wear face coverings in areas where social distancing can be maintained, such as in workrooms or in meetings, and there is no requirement to wear them outside, although staff may choose to do so, and many of us are wearing them whilst on duty. This week will be a kind of ‘soft start’ where we remind students to wear face coverings - we will be more insistent after half term.
To finish, a few lovely shout outs from PE and Maths. Please keep the thank yous and shout outs coming - it's really important that we keep celebrating everything we are doing.
From PE…. “I did a learning walk this morning and was blown away by Sammy Ebzao’s lesson. He had a lower set of boys and was teaching football. Students were all on task and I was really impressed by his methods of engaging students, particularly the ‘Sky Sports studio’ mini-plenary, where students had to discuss strengths and weaknesses of their opponents, whilst their fellow students were ‘the hosts’ of the Sky Sports show. I was particularly impressed as Year 10 Core PE can be challenging, but Sammy has settled in well and has worked really hard to build positive relationships with his students.”
From Maths….. “Thank you to Dipa for her great CPD on IWB for the dept and her resilience in staying calm with some of the more challenging year 10 boys! Thank you to Marline, Rola and Jasmine, who have been really helping new staff to settle in and find their feet with all the changes. They have so much to do, but they have always given so much time to the new staff.”
Finally, I hope that everyone has some time for relaxation over half term, but can I remind everybody to be aware of the quarantine restrictions in place for certain countries. Everyone will need to be available and ready to come back to school from 2nd November, after what I hope will be a lovely break.
Mia
Today (Monday) is the day when we have our third PSHCE lesson of the term - it will take place during P5 and will be the second one on the system, given the bereavement lesson we started with this year. I hope it goes well! And, I also hope that students remember to bring their PSHCE booklets from their last session. They have been reminded but there will inevitably be some that forget... The pastoral teams have some spares and will be checking in with classes, where they can, so we should be able to get packs to those who need them. Moving forward for after half term, I will be circulating some new dates for PSHCE (not new sessions, just tweaks to accommodate mixed year classes), along with some slots for tutor time. Watch this space!
In your PSHCE lesson on Monday, make links between Health/Wellbeing and COURAGE.