GHS Connect #23 Monday 15 March
From the Head
I hope that everybody got through the first week okay and managed to get a rest this weekend. I know that I was exhausted and everyone I spoke to seemed to indicate that they felt the same. It was certainly a shock to be back with everyone in school, but it was also great to see the students and lovely to see all of you too. I do think, on balance, that it is better to have the students back for a few weeks, and then have a break, rather than coming back in for the Summer term in one hit. That really would have been a shock!
Although it has been tiring, there has already been so much going on, and for that I am very grateful. Thank you for teaching such excellent lessons right from the get-go and also for your support in helping us to manage the testing, as well as supervising students on duty and getting students into lessons quickly, so that they are not hanging about in blocks. We continue to be constrained by Covid restrictions, in terms of managing groups and behaviour, so please continue to be patient with this.
Adam and Emmet also want to thank all the staff who supported the return of after-school catch-up on Wednesday:
Despite it being the first full day back, we had dozens of Y10/11 students in the hall receiving 1:1 and small group remote Science tuition via MyTutor, ably supported and supervised by Indy, Dan, Joe, Adam, Allison, Amit, Buchi, Hanad and Noor, as well as the ICT team. An excellent collaborative effort and a very auspicious start for the next phase of the whole-school catch-up programme which, hopefully, won’t receive any more interruptions as we seek to make up for a year of disruption.
The lost learning isn’t something we can address overnight but it has been great to receive initial catch-up plans from HoDs over the last week or so – focussing primarily on their Y10, first year GCSE students – that acknowledge the scale of the task, but are also confident we can meet the challenge with smart, targeted, sustained intervention.
Have a great week everybody!
Mia
Thank you all for embracing Futures in 15, our weekly series of careers interviews, by sharing the videos with students and providing contacts for us to feature.
I would also like to say thank you for PSHCE on Friday - I’ve had some good feedback from those sessions so I hope that staff and students found them worthwhile. And, that it was clear which sessions you were delivering! This term’s timetable of lessons is in the PSHCE area so it should be clear. Our next PSHCE lesson is Monday 22nd March, P1 - I know this is a quick turnaround from the last one, but we are back to the beginning of the week on our PSHCE rotation. Have a look at the resources and let me or Keely know if there are any questions!
