Newsletters

GHS Connect #24 Monday 22 March

From the Head

Welcome back to another week everybody, and well done for making it through the last two! Just a week and a bit to go, before we can have a break from what has been an intense start back in school. Last week felt like a good one - it was great to see so many students working hard in lessons, getting into class on time and being mask-compliant. Thank you to everyone for all of your support with this. Hopefully, you will have noticed some improvement in corridor behaviour, as we are really trying to keep the corridors well staffed. Thank you to everyone who has been out and about helping with this - we will continue to do this, in order to keep the students in good habits.

You may have noticed that a number of new roles have been advertised - a Deputy Headteacher in Inclusion and Student Personal Development, a Mental Health and Child Protection Leader and a Leader in PP and Disadvantaged Students. This is part of the commitment to further develop our pastoral care, and further improve student engagement and behaviour longer term. Our school has grown considerably over the last few years, and we have also had a change in intake, leading to quite a different feel in some year groups. We need to respond to this and will also be advertising for some additional capacity over the coming weeks. Please do speak to Mia if you have any questions about any of this.
Finally, in more news about ‘Catch Up’, Adam would like to thank Chloe and the English department for a very impressive launch, on Thursday after school, of the next round of catch-up intervention. 

Dozens of Y10s began their weekly online English GCSE tuition programme via MyTutor that will run until the end of the academic year, ably supported by numerous staff at various points, including: Indy, Jess, Helena, Ifra, Dan, Joe, Adam, Emmet, Amit, Steven and the ICT team.

The students responded really well – a great start that could make a real difference to this cohort over the long term in all kinds of ways.

Thanks, also, to Georgia, Oli and Carl who have started running after-school intervention for Art, Photography and Drama students in their final few weeks of their GCSE courses to ensure they achieve the best possible coursework grades.

Have a lovely week.

Mia

Learning and Teaching

Spotted!

A round up of some of the great learning and teaching strategies we’ve noticed being used around school recently…
 
> Jacob Chapman using live marking as an opportunity to correct students’ understanding and language about physics concepts. He gave easy to understand examples of how they could improve the phrasing of their answers: “You can’t say … because…” “Instead you could say…”
 
> Buchi Anyamah making excellent use of whiteboards with Y12 BTEC to check students’ understanding of tricky substitution reactions (which were taught over lockdown). Lots of deliberate practice meant their confidence grew, and her careful checking meant she was able to target misunderstandings on the main whiteboard.

> Hanad Mohamed using his phone and wireless headphones to live stream his whiteboard and teacher explanations to some students who are isolating.

> Harpal Sagoo motivating his students during a circuits class with the Baywatch theme song on the playlist (simultaneously lifting the spirits of all the staff who were listening!).
 

Learning and Teaching: Assessment for Learning

Many of us are  trying to work out what it is that students know and don’t know after the recent remote teaching period. Some of the latest research into the impact of lockdown suggests a likely outcome of the disruption to learning  is an increase in the range of learning needs within each class.  As a result, AfL becomes an ever more important part of our daily practice.

We’ll all have strategies we naturally lean towards but whenever we incorporate AFL in to our teaching, we need to remember to ask three questions:

> What is it I want to find out about my students’ learning?
> Which is the most effective/efficient method to achieve this? 
> What will I do with this information once I have it?

In asking ourselves these questions, we ensure we avoid filler ‘feedback’ activities and instead genuinely use AfL to drive forward learning and progress. Please share your most successful AfL strategies with the learning and teaching team!

Inclusion & Pastoral

Last full week - wooohoooo! I know it seems ridiculous to be counting down when we’ve only just really come back, but everyone I have spoken to over the last couple of weeks seems to be feeling more exhausted than usual. Although in agreement that it is great to have everyone back! 

It’s our last PSHCE lesson of the term on Monday, P1 - Keely sent out a reminder with the resources last week, so hopefully everybody knows what they are doing. If there are any questions, please do ask. Next term we will be starting to look at our Relationships and Sex Education lessons (although not straight away!) and Keely is currently in discussion with the borough about some training sessions for this so that every feels confident about delivering them - we will let you know as soon as dates and logistics are finalised.

On the subject of PSHCE, we have got the St Giles Trust visiting on Wednesday to do some sessions with Year 8 on gang exploitation and radicalisation - I apologise for the late notice of this but we were offered this freebie last week and it was too good an opportunity to turn down. The same group visited last year to talk to a whole load of our students and were excellent. Due to Covid, we are having to deal with much smaller numbers this time round, and won’t even be able to cover all of Year 8, but we will get the message out to as many as possible. As soon as the Year 8 Team and I have worked out numbers and timings, I will let staff know.

Lastly, this week’s Virtual Tutor is all about prompting students to think about RAD and the sort of things they might want to talk about when they have their virtual meeting with you. I will steer them towards reflecting on how they feel they are doing in their subjects along with how they have coped with the return to school and how they are doing generally. This will then be repeated in VT next week so that students have plenty of time to prepare. If there is anything that anyone would like to include in next week’s session, please do let me know. 

Don’t forget about all the intervention running, and Jo Morgan here to support any staff who would like to get in touch - her email is jmorgan111.307@lgflmail.org.

Have a good week, everyone!

Lou Grimley

Behaviour for Learning

Each fortnight in Connect, Mark and Jo will be sharing behaviour for learning tips designed to help manage behaviour in the unusual circumstances of Covid-19.

Behaviour for Learning #10: Managing students’ anxiety

Living through a pandemic isn’t easy and many people have found their anxiety has increased as a result. This is true for many of our students who might not have the support at home to process such an unprecedented situation or they might living in poverty because family members have lost their job which often creates its own state of insecurity and is exhausting in every way. Covid-19 has brought about a whole host of challenges, losses and worries for everyone.

Anxiety can impact a student’s educational performance, and result in issues like: 

> High absenteeism rates due to anxiety amongst students and families as well as students having to isolate (track and trace).
> Difficulty processing and retrieving information because of the amount of time students have been out of school and the classroom. This means that they might have gaps in their learning and/or haven’t been able to practise the skills they need, including good learning habits.
> Sleep deprivation and unhealthy life-habits.
> Fractured relationships with peers and staff.
> Irregular completion of work; this can be classwork, homework or remote work.
> Like staff, students have little to look forward to, e.g. trips, sporting events, cultural events and so on.

We know that students’ behaviour can sometimes be challenging at GHS and we will continue to work hard to support students and staff to change students' behaviour. Lou has set up a lot of in-school support and provision to help students with their mental health which closely aligns with what we are doing. 

In light of the challenges we all face, there are a few things that we can do in our classroom to help our students:

> Greeting students from our desks in a warm and positive way
> Really know your students and make notes on your MINT seating plan – this might be about their academic and/or social needs/interests
> For excellent behaviour management, substitute ‘the behaviour conversation' for one that focuses on the learning
> Avoid “Shhh” and instead use a calm but assertive countdown
> Ensuring all Covid procedures are followed to ensure consistency across the school: it is imperative that all staff ensure that students are wearing masks indoors at all times, including lessons. The only students who do not have to wear a mask have a lanyard which shows that they are exempt. Students who pull their mask down persistently or refuse to wear one must be patrolled. Please use the patrol button on the VLE to call for patrol if this happens. 

If you have any questions, please get in touch with us.

Mark and Jo