Newsletters

GHS Connect #13 Monday 5 December

Mia's notes

Welcome back from what I hope was a good weekend for everyone. As we head into the final few weeks of term, I just want to remind everyone of what an amazing job each and every person at GHS is doing.

Last week was quite a challenging week in lots of ways, and I was reminded of the struggles that many of our students face, whether that be mental health anxieties, poverty, family issues, absent family or something even worse…..  What I am also reminded of constantly, however, whether that be through reading SIMS entries, looking at CPOMs, reading emails that staff have copied me into, or simply through what I see when walking around school, is how much everyone looks out for, cares and supports all of our students. And this happens, without fail, day in day out, and is what makes us such a wonderful community. I know that Noble will be addressing the idea of compassion with students in the lead up to Christmas through his assembly, and we are so fortunate that this is something that everyone demonstrates so wonderfully to our students. I know they don’t always appear to be grateful (they’re teenagers!!), but I hope that everyone does realise what a massive difference we are all making.

In relation to Christmas, our end of term arrangements will be similar to usual, with Year 11 and Post 16 finishing a day earlier, and everyone else having assemblies and staggered finishes on the 21st. We do have a few staff who are leaving and want to celebrate the end of term together, so there will be a short staff gathering after students have been dismissed. Further information on this will follow shortly.

Have a lovely week,

Mia

The week ahead

Monday
Normal day.

Tuesday
Meeting: Department time 3.15pm - 4.30pm.

Wednesday 
Briefing 8.15am
No meeting after school.

Thursday
PSHCE - P1.
Year 8 Social Media Awareness Evening 5.30pm - 6.15pm.

Friday
GHS internal UCAS deadline.

Notes
Year 11 mock exams - options subjects.

Learning and teaching: Spotted!

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

Learning and Teaching: Action Research CPD

Thank you to everyone for attending the CPD sessions on Wednesday and to all the Research Leads for running such interesting and informative sessions. Colleagues have fed back again how nice it is to have dedicated time where we can talk about developing our pedagogy.

Once we’ve been involved in CPD, it’s easy to walk away and become consumed by the daily business of school.  This week, please try and find a time to focus on a small but concrete change that you committed to making last Wednesday so we can all take a small step forward before Christmas. 

Kelly

Bright Spots

This week’s bright spots go to Rav Kaur and Jen Williams, both who have demonstrated going above and beyond for colleagues or students.

Emma Harper has nominated Rav and says the following:

“Not only is Rav my colleague, but she has also become a wonderful friend. From the day I started working at GHS, we instantly clicked and knew we would make a great team; we bounce off each other every day and the medical room really is our baby! Not only has Rav been there through my work journey at Greenford, but she has been there through personal journeys too and for that I will be forever grateful! I genuinely look forward to coming into work to spend the day with Rav and not a day goes by where we don't laugh! So, Rav - thanks for bringing me all the love, Friday chocolates, tears, tantrums and daily belly laughs! I couldn't imagine us any other way.“

Will Halsey has nominated Jen Williams and celebrated her for hand delivering work to a student in the Internal Exclusion room a couple of weeks ago to make sure they didn’t miss out. In Will’s words: “Great for the student (and also great for the staff supervising in the IE room that day!)”

School communication review

We have been looking at improving communication processes over the last few weeks, and there has been consultation with HOYs last year, consultation with SLT and also, more recently, a consultation with HODs. The ideas that have come through have been really useful.

Common themes that have come up are connected to email etiquette and timing, communication about events and better communication / consultation between SLT and key groups of staff in the school. If you would like to contribute to the discussion and have any ideas about how communication could be improved, please drop Mia an email between now and the end of term so that it can be considered as part of the review.

Inclusion Heroes!

This week’s Inclusion Hero award is shared between a number of staff who helped out with two incidents last week. I would, therefore, like to say thank you to Mark, Steve, Niloo, Emma, Nuggy, Akeella, Hassnain, Christabel and Shem for the way you dealt with both incidents. Apologies if I have left anyone out here! Both incidents involved highly vulnerable students and were handled professionally, calmly and with a lot of care for those involved. Thank you!

Lou