Newsletters

GHS Connect #20 Monday 21 February

From the Head

I hope everyone has had a restful break and did not get too affected by the storms. I somehow ended up being the only person on our road to have my car hit by a falling tree, so had an eventful afternoon involving a saw, and a lot of help from my neighbours!  Fortunately, the damage was very minimal, due to the way it landed; it could have been much worse!

I must dedicate some of this week’s Connect to the events of last half term’s final week - our Ofsted inspection. It was a hard thing for us all to go through, in the last week of a half term, with quite a lot of people still absent, and after another very hard year so far! While I cannot pass on the judgement or any real specific details at the moment, I can repeat some of the things I said in briefing on the Friday.

Overall, inspectors were really impressed with the way department areas are planning and delivering the curriculum with very strong subject knowledge and lots of great examples of excellent teaching.

Pastorally, inspectors felt we were very inclusive, were doing brilliantly with all of our clubs and additional opportunities, PSHCE, tutor time and assembly etc and they were very complimentary about many aspects of careers, the sixth form, SEND and the fact that character education is in development.

There were many other very positive points which we will celebrate when things become official and, of course, there are some things to improve which we are already working on, but will continue to look at further. The important thing to remember, however, is that the inspection team only saw a miniscule snapshot of everything that goes on in the school, and they were never going to be able to fully appreciate the enormous influence that every single member of staff has on our students, every single day. 

As I have reflected over half term, I have repeatedly reminded myself of what an amazing job you all do, and what an incredible impact you have on the life chances of our students. So whether or not we are ‘flavour of the month’ with Ofsted, is in itself not the be all and end all. What’s really important is what we are doing to help our students do the very best that they can, in what remains a very challenging set of circumstances for us all.

On that note, enjoy your week, and remember what an amazing job you are all doing!

Mia

Monday
Normal day.

Tuesday
No meeting due to Parents' Evening on Thursday.

Wednesday 
No meeting due to Parents' Evening on Thursday.

Wednesday New Staff (ECTs and Teach First) CPD: Understanding Neuroscience (with Jeremy Jones).

Thursday
PSHCE P1: resources here.
Year 7 Parents' Evening 4pm - 6.30pm.

Friday
Normal day.

Notes
KS4 mocks from Wednesday 23 February. 

Learning and Teaching

Spotted!

A round up of some of the great learning and teaching strategies we’ve noticed being used around school recently... 

• Amanda Hill using bedrock learning with her year 8 English intervention group to help them bridge to independent work and help them improve their attainment in English.

Learning and Teaching

A huge thank you from the Learning and Teaching team for everyone’s efforts during the inspection in the last week of term. Thank you not only for planning great lessons but also for supporting others with their teaching, reassuring colleagues in the early years of their career and helping HODs prepare for meetings. A fantastic team effort!

Observations

And a reminder! Quite rightly, we suspended all observations in the last week of term as we were otherwise occupied (!) but now can we please reschedule any observations not completed and make sure they are done over the next two weeks. If there are any lesson observations that have been done but not yet entered onto the Google Form, can these be updated by Friday please. 

Kelly McCarthy

Inclusion and Pastoral

I hope that everyone had a lovely half-term and got a chance to recover after that crazy week…

There’s very little to say this week except a big thank to everyone for building those amazing relationships with our students, as I said in our Post-Ofsted briefing last half-term, and to keep up the fantastic work. This half-term will bring its inevitable ups and downs - respective year teams will be in touch about a few bits and pieces that have cropped up over the half-term and we will start immediately with some more tweaks to key students’ timetables. Again, Year Teams will be in touch.

Don’t forget it’s PSHCE this week so make sure you check the resources in advance and if you have any questions, just ask. I will also be giving out more Year 9 laptops so apologies in advance for the minor disruption to lessons. If you know of any Year 9 - 11 students who are still in need of a device, please let me know and I will see what I can do. And, we have a police visit tomorrow afternoon to talk about anti-gang affiliation to key groups. Details of who will be affected by this will follow as soon as the police have got back to us.

Have a good week, everyone!

Lou 

Inclusion Heroes!

This week’s thank you goes to Steve, Dan, Kelly, Mark, Rich, Fuad and Hibo for all of their help with a particularly tough afternoon at the end of last half-term. They were all brilliant!

Character strengths at GHS

This half-term, our focus will be RESPONSIBILITY.

We want our students to be accountable for their actions and learning. Discuss responsibility with your form this week - what does it look like?

When looking at our Character Points, responsibility has always led with points but can our students give examples of responsibility? 

Why not challenge your students to show they can take more responsibility this week?  

If you see students taking responsibility, reward them with Character Points. You can also share examples with us to celebrate.

Andrea and Noble