Newsletters

GHS Connect #33 Monday 15 June

From the Head

Well, here we are, about to tentatively reopen to just a few students, some 12 weeks after first being told we had to close! I want to say a really massive thank you to everyone who is coming in for the next few weeks on various rotas, and also to everyone who has been involved in the planning, organisation and discussion about how we best do this. This has been a real team effort and will continue to be so. I will update everyone with how things go in next week's Connect.

Last week, alongside all of the planning for re-opening, we also managed to get the Centre Assessed Grades sent off to the exam boards, following a mammoth effort by Hardeep and Alan, both of whom deserve huge praise and thanks.  Thank you also to Amandip, Paul and Jeremy who were involved in the process, as well as Helen who did a lot of work around the BTEC grades.

On an entirely different note, I want to thank Buchi for contacting me to suggest that we need to do more for our staff in reacting to, processing and considering next steps in relation to George Floyd’s death and the wider ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement. We will be in touch over the coming days with some suggestions on how we might move forwards as a staff in response. I welcome further suggestions from staff.

Finally, Lisa Panford has reminded me that food banks are still in urgent need of our donations. Here is the latest from Ealing foodbank from Lisa:

Thank you for continuing to support Ealing Foodbank with food donations. Last month we received 31.7 tonnes of food, which helped feed 4026 people!

Wednesday (10am to 4pm ) is our donation day at the warehouse in St Mellitus Hall, Hanwell, W7 3BA or you could put your donation into any of our permanent collection points as we collect from these every week:

> Waitrose - West  Ealing and Chiswick; Sainsburys - West Ealing and Boston Manor; Tesco - Hoover Building and Ealing Broadway Centre; Co-op  - Pitshanger Lane and Greenford Avenue; Asda - Park Royal; Morrisons - Acton

Please note we have mountains of Pasta and won't need any for a long time!

June Shopping List:

- Savoury Biscuits / Crackers
- Tinned Fruit & Vegetables
- Peanut Butter
- Ketchup & Mayo
- Vegetable Curry / Chilli - tins
- Tinned Meat – beef, lamb, chicken, ham 
- Baked Beans – yes, really!
- Shower Gel / Hand Wash / Bars of Soap
- Shaving Foam & Razors
- Nappies - Sizes 3 & 5.

Have a lovely week, everybody.

Mia

Learning and Teaching

Spotted!

A round up of some of the great remote learning and teaching strategies Greenford staff are using currently…

> Jo Cole running a live seminar with her year 12 students to discuss the events surrounding the murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement and related sociological and historical issues. 

> Louisa Tall adapting her lessons to apply Psychology to the events surrounding George Floyd’s tragic death.

A follow up on using ‘Mote’

This week, lots of staff have been using and experimenting with the Google Chrome extension ‘Mote’ which allows you to leave voice comments in Google Classroom. Here is a link to last week's Connect if you missed it the first time and here's a YouTube demonstration video for Mote. 

Usefully, Mote transcribes what you say in your voice comment, however you do need to be a bit careful with the transcription and make sure you edit it before posting!  Here are some examples of the ‘mistakes’ that have required editing this week:

> Georgia Pawelko apparently told her students to ‘slaughter’ - of course she edited that!  And Mote heard ‘Van Gogh’ as ‘mango’! But overall, Georgia has found it really useful, especially in saving time when giving students feedback.

> Stephen Conlon had to change ‘pelvic paragraph’ back to ‘PELEC paragraph’!

> Jamie Rosser said: ‘Well done Lamees, this is a really good letter’ and it was picked up as ‘Why don’t you waste this really good letter’ which he obviously had to edit!  He also said ‘If I were a Year 6 student…’ which got transcribed as ‘I get sick student’!

Mote is a useful edition to Google Classroom; it allows a connection with your students and definitely saves time, but do have a quick check and edit before you post the transcription along with it!

Georgina Stevens

Staff Shout-outs

Thank you to everyone who sent in shout-outs to colleagues last week. If you want to send a thank you to someone, please send a postie to csecombe@greenford.ealing.sch.uk 

Inclusion update

Firstly, a huge thank you to everyone for your continued pastoral support for all of our GHS students - I know that tutors have been working hard to connect, that there have been innovative and creative ways of reaching out and checking in with your groups, and that lots of remote nurture and hugs have been given out to those who are struggling for all sorts of reasons. It will be making a huge difference! The Year Teams will continue to work with the most vulnerable in each of their year groups, based on both what they have had to pick up during the week, and concerns passed on from staff, and will feedback to staff on how those kids are getting on. I hope staff find the weekly updates on how that small cohort are doing useful, but if there are any further queries or concerns, just let us know.

You will also be aware that I am planning to invite in some key students with whom I would like to catch-up before the summer holiday - ideally, I would like to see all 1800 of them (well, most of them) but this is a way of ensuring that our most vulnerable have a 1-1 in the flesh. It may seem an impossible task to narrow this down to the key students in your tutor group or classes, depending on how the Heads of Year have asked you to flag up those who you think should be invited in, but we need to ensure that these students coming to school is safe and manageable and doesn't compromise the plans for the Year 10s and 12s. As soon as the list and plans are finalised, I will let everyone know.

Lastly, I would like to thank those of you who have passed on all sorts of Inclusioney bits and pieces over the last few weeks - I have had loads of staff email ideas on how to approach different issues, let me know about training they have undertaken, send me links to websites, articles and blogs and recommend various apps. I have incorporated as much as I can in my newsletters to the students and to the pastoral teams, and have really enjoyed the contact. Please keep them coming!

Stay safe and well, and I look forward to seeing more and more of you, and our students, in the next few weeks.

Lou Grimley

This week's Speakers for Schools

Speakers for Schools are continuing their programme of virtual talks and have created an online library of previous talks in case you want to set one of these as a lesson or extension activity. 

The video library can be accessed here.

The schedule of talks can be found on the Speakers for Schools website here.