Newsletters

GHS Connect #23 Monday 14 March

From the Head

I hope everyone has had a nice weekend.

This week is STEM week, and it is great to have such a wonderful STEM department in our school; an area that is neglected in many schools is really thriving in ours. As Hiba has already announced, Year 12 Computer Science students have planned a series of computing activities that they will be running from Monday to Friday during break time and lunchtime. Please take this opportunity to visit our new STEM room in B Block which was kitted out as a result of the £25,000 won by our students in a competition a year or so ago. It’s a very innovative space, and well worth a look.

Other things going on this week include a talk by Andrez Harriot of The Liminality Group, at 3:30pm on Wednesday. I heard him speak last week, and the talk was excellent. Although optional, I would highly recommend going along if you can.
We also have various events going on for Sports Relief. Thank you to Phoebe and the PE department for organising these events. I look forward to seeing the photos!  Don’t forget that staff will be having a coffee morning at 10am on Raising Achievement Day to raise our own money for Sports Relief so do schedule a break in your appointments to allow this to happen.

Thank you for your continued work, after so many challenges in the last few months. I know it is particularly difficult to keep Year 11 and Year 13 calm and focused, after the difficult two years they have had, but I am sure that your subject expertise and ongoing pastoral care for them will be making all the difference.

Enjoy your week!

Mia

Monday
Normal day.

Tuesday
Meeting: Department time 3.15pm - 4.30pm.
TLR holder meetings 3.30pm - 4.30pm

Wednesday 
Gang Prevention Training (Pastoral Teams & PSWs).

T&L CPD Groups 'The Teenage Brain' and 'KS4 Achievement through T&L' -postponed from earlier in the term.

All other colleagues should undertake activities as directed by their HOD. 

Thursday
Data deadline: KS4 PPE results (required for mock results events).

Friday
Normal day.

Notes
Post 16 data meetings.

Careers Week

National Careers Week saw a flurry of activity across many departments with starters and plenaries initiating conversation with students about soft skills and careers linked with the curriculum. 

See Rupinder Chana challenging her Y9s to consider the careers mentioned in a chapter and Rhomey Aras-Payne's student work considering a career in journalism:

DT led the way in promoting National Careers Week outside the school day with a Food Enterprise project and Health and Social Care students should be commissioned to make school resources from now on!

Sixty Y8s, in the very capable hands of Clare Rodway, produced posters identifying what options science lovers might have beyond GHS and what skills they need to develop to make it in the field! Have a look at their beautiful posters below.

Thank you to everyone who got so brilliantly involved.

Hebe Westcott

Learning and Teaching

Spotted!

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

• Joe Moors setting up vaults with different levels of difficulty for his Y9 class. All students could access at least one of the vaults, and they were able to move up the levels as they gained confidence. The boys were so supportive and encouraging of each other, a lovely atmosphere all round:

• Dan Oag using mini whiteboards for his quickfire recap questions at the start of his year 7 lesson. This allowed him to check AfL across the class and notice if there are any gaps in their learning as they held up their boards. This is a great way to promote memory recall for students, especially in creative arts as they see their classes once a fortnight:

• Annji Kinoshita Bashforth (below left) using the visualizer to model to P16 students how to better link their sentences together. She then had students apply their improved skills to extracts from their recent PPE papers. The students were able to use what Anjji had shown them to make improvements and will carry these improved skills into the final A-level exam.
• Kelly McCarthy (below right) using every minute of her day to help students make progress. With one eye on the Y10 basketball, she still managed to help a student understand how to develop their writing.

• Ellie Navarro and Christabel Haines making use of mini whiteboards to check student understanding throughout a teaching phase. The constant back and forth between their teaching and their checking of understanding meant they could pick up (and fix) any misunderstandings quickly. 

• Dan Siskin scaffolding and modelling an activity which was exceptionally clearly explained, with any likely misconceptions addressed before they happened, and targeted questioning to check students’ understanding. 

Learning and Teaching: Mid Year Reviews

Please take the opportunity as you have your mid-year review with your PM appraiser to consider what progress you have made with your own classroom practice this year. Perhaps you have re-adopted teaching strategies that were lost to us during Covid? Maybe you are using more research to inform your practice as a result of the work in the CPD groups? Hopefully everyone has had some success in developing ways to help SEND students learn more effectively as this is a key performance management target for teaching staff this year. 

Kelly McCarthy

Inclusion and Pastoral

Well, we are half-way through the half-term - yay! Hope everyone is enjoying the lighter mornings and evenings.

Not too much to report on this week - a reminder to record incidents on SIMs using student initials and non-emotive language, in case we need to show records to parents/carers at any time. And, a reminder about some of our big-hitters and what is in place for them at the moment:

Year 11

• Mo Raja - full-time off-site provision.
• Laksika Basheer - full-time off-site provision.
• Simrandheep Jhall - full-time off-site provision.
• Jasmine Rehal - will be returning next week but staff will have been informed of what has been going on in Jasmine’s life, so she may come out of lessons.
• Katie Pitcher - a reduced timetable with online monitoring and leaving school site before lunch.

Year 9

• Shakira Akbari - full-time off-site provision.
• Rishti Sharda - has moved out of the area but still no new school so working from GC.

Year 7

• Harry Mullery - to start off-site 1-1 tuition very soon, working towards a change of placement.

Thank you to everyone for your patience with working with these, and other, very challenging students - finding the balance between inclusion and exclusion is not always an easy one, and it sometimes takes families a while to accept that full-time mainstream provision is not right for their child.

I realise that a lot of staff are having to pick up students with mental health issues - there was an interesting article in The Guardian on Friday about how much school staff are having to pick up which you can find here. If you do have any concerns, or are in need of support, remember to talk to the Child Protection Team and/or get in touch with our school counsellors at scp@greenford.ealing.sch.uk 

Have a good week everyone, and hope the sun keeps shining!

Lou 

Inclusion Heroes!

My Inclusion Hero this week is Chloe Altman - not only did she put together a fabulous presentation for International Women’s Day for the whole of the school, she also works tirelessly with some of our most vulnerable young women in Year 11. Keep it up, Chloe - they are lucky to have you!  

Behaviour for Learning: Coaching, Uniform and Duty

Coaching

Are you interested in developing your behaviour for learning practice? Would you like to try out new skills and strategies with a coach to support this? Would you like to develop bespoke behaviour management CPD for your department? Do you have a behaviour project you’d like to work on or support with a particular student/class? If so, please e-mail Mark and Jo detailing what you want to work on as we will be supporting and developing as many staff as possible over the next term and a half.

Uniform

A huge thank you to all staff for your support with the uniform drive this term. Please continue to address any student with incorrect uniform. If you become aware of any financial difficulties that a family may be experiencing, please notify the relevant year team. Please ensure that students are always wearing a blazer, unless given permission by you. Students will once again be reminded of our expectations during assemblies this week. 

Duty 

A reminder to all staff regarding duty. Please ensure that you wear your high vis jacket when on duty. This is to ensure that students can identify you when on duty, keeping our community a safe one. Be active, talk with students and arrive promptly. 

Behaviour Drop-in surgery

Thank you to those staff that have been attending the behaviour drop-in surgery. A reminder that this is open to all staff. Please feel free to pop along to our next one on Wednesday 16th March, in GG13.

If you have any questions or want any support regarding the things discussed in the behaviour for learning section of connect, please get in touch.

We hope you have a wonderful week.

Mark and Jo