Newsletters

GHS Connect #20 Monday 2 March

From the Head

The media seem to still be obsessed with coronavirus and every latest instalment. Here at Greenford we will continue to follow advice and carry on as normal, whilst being vigilant to any concerns. Please see my staff announcements for government advice. I will continue to update everybody if anything changes.

I’m sorry if I have seemed rather distant and confined to my office during the last week or so. I’ve been undertaking a fair amount of interviewing, which is perhaps one of the best uses of our time, even if it eats up such a huge amount of it. Getting the best staff in to teach our students and also work well with existing colleagues is one of the most crucial things we can do and it’s important to me to be in every single interview if I can be. Over the last week or so, we have appointed our first NQT for next year, a Maths teacher, and we have also appointed an English teacher. We are continuing to interview for English and Maths teachers this week, as well as for a Health and Social Care teacher. Well done to Dipesh who has been appointed as the permanent Head of Key Stage 3. We will continue to advertise and recruit to internal roles over the coming months.

A highlight for me again last week was Hot Chocolate Friday where I met 4 delightful students from Years 8 through to Year 10. Simone, from Year 8 celebrated Harpal Sagoo saying ‘I’ve really progressed in PE’ and also wanted it noted that Mr Lewis was ‘very supportive.’ Nissrin, from Year 9, nominated Dan Siskin as being ‘very supportive and someone who believes in me’. Abuzhar in Year 10 told us how Mr Chapman inspired him to get into Science how he is ‘really cool.’ He also described Dr Bashforth as ‘super kind’. Abuzhar is the first student to decide to also come up with a list of ‘honorable mentions’ for his teachers including Ms Barrett, Ms Topiwalla, Mr Levitt and Mr Clare. Finally, Harneet from Year 8 nominated Ms Haneefa as ‘she has taught me Maths and now I understand it so much.’ and said of Ms Phull: ‘you are an amazing form tutor. There is no word in a dictionary that would describe you!’ What a wonderful way to remember how much of an impact we all have on our students.

I hope that you all 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…

> Jamie Rosser using positivity, praise and humour to engage the students in a small literacy group.

> Rupinder Chana thoroughly teaching vocabulary in an English lesson: ensuring students understood the new words by pre-teaching them; checking retention during the lesson and returning to consolidate the vocabulary at the end. 

> Lisa Panford’s exemplary marking in her Year 10 Spanish class with excellent use of ‘margin marking’ and clear IWB instructions for Learner Responses.

Coming up… L&T Marketplace

In just a few weeks’ time (17th March) we’ll be holding our now annual Learning and Teaching Marketplace.

For new colleagues, this is a CPD session where teachers from across the school deliver short workshops exploring something they’ve been working on in their own classrooms. Teachers will select two of the sessions available. It’s like a pick ‘n’ mix teachmeet where you can direct your professional learning to your own interests.  

The photos below are from last year’s brilliant sessions.

Thanks in advance to colleagues who are already working on the training.  There’s more detail to follow but we’ve already confirmed sessions on metacognition, socratic questioning and one entitled: I Can’t Live Without My IPEVO!

Watch this space!

In focus: 'The Teenage Brain' by Jeremy Jones 

Please find Jeremy’s next fascinating instalment about the teenage brain below. This week, he is focusing on sleep. 

Sleep

Sleep really is a strange thing. Why is it that we effectively spend a third of our lives unconscious, vulnerable and nearly totally unaware of our surroundings? A person living to 80 years of age will literally spend the best part of 25 years in this state of limbo. If we don’t get enough, then we suffer more from heart disease, depression, colds, strokes and even some forms of cancer. Neuroscience at least gives us some answers.

The thing about sleep is that it happens in 2 main cycles; first there is NREM sleep (deep, without dreaming with the body capable of movement); then REM sleep (‘dream sleep’ where because you are dreaming your body is paralyzed, a good thing for those of us that have vivid dreams). NREM sleep appears to be involved in synaptic pruning, an essential way of getting rid of those memory connections that you no longer need (what you wore on any given day or indeed most of what happened in that TV programme you watched 2 days ago). REM sleep is ‘dream sleep’ because it is when memories are consolidated and memory pathways are strengthened. As you can imagine, sleep is essential as it gives the brain time to form healthy memories and get rid of unnecessary memories. If you are interested, it is the GLIAL cells in the brain that perform these essential functions.

The other thing to remember is that Neurons are living cells. They respire all day, keeping you alive and just like all biological cells they produce waste products (imagine running a great distance; at some point you will get tired muscle cells and will need to sit down and rest). Sleep is the only time that you rest your brain enough so that it can carry out the essential cleaning out of those potentially dangerous waste products. No wonder then we succumb to sleep so often and for so long. From a neuroscience point of view it is absolutely essential, and yes 8 hours a night really is the magic number! Try to get that amount every day if you can, for a healthy mind and healthy body.

Finally, to make ourselves sleepy, we all produce a hormone/neurotransmitter called melatonin. For most people, this reaches a peak at about 9:30pm to 10pm, which is why we want to go to bed at about 10:30pm. For some reason, in adolescents, the body produces melatonin an hour later, so teenagers get tired an hour or so later than adults. Of course it follows that they then wake up an hour later as well. Perhaps have some sympathy for the tired teenager in your early morning lesson; their brain/body clock is literally a little out of sync with yours….

Sleep is a wonderful and vital biological adaptation; please make sure that you get enough!

Jeremy Jones

Coming up...

GCSE PPE 2 - all week.

Tuesday 3 March: Tuesday meetings

Department time: 3.15pm - 5.15pm