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GHS Connect #30 Monday 15 May

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GHS Connect #30 Monday 15 May

Mia's notes

Well, this is the crunch week for a lot of our students with the first ‘big’ exams taking place, although lots of exams have, of course, already happened. They seem to get earlier every year!

Maintaining positivity with Year 11s and 13s is even more crucial this week, as many of them will suddenly panic and feel like they are not ready. A bit of positive psychology can work wonders…

Talking of positive things, I was delighted to see the chess competition in full swing last Thursday afternoon. I’ve never seen so many chess sets and so many excited and focused teenage boys in one room! There were also a few girls involved too, which was lovely to see. Thank you so much to Will, Noor and Kapilan for their infectious enthusiasm for this club and initiative.
 
Thank you also to everyone who has run a trip so far in May - so far, this month we have had students visit the Natural History Museum, Notting Hill and Ealing High School, West Ealing Mosque and Oxygen Acton. Thank you to Jeremy, Alistair, Christabel, Sonia, Trish, Jamie and Tracey with their support for these trips.

Mia

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The week ahead

Monday
Normal Day

Tuesday
Department time 3.15pm - 4.30pm

Wednesday 
Briefing 8.15am.
No meeting after school

Thursday
Normal Day

Friday
Normal Day

Notes
Year 7 Interim 3 due
GCSE and A Level Exams - All week

Learning and teaching: Spotted!

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

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Rav Dhindsa using explicit means of participation during modelling to manage cognitive load and support SEN students to access the task.

Inderjeet Lall promoting digital literacy by embedding the use of online learning platforms during lessons for revision activities.

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Shem Parry developing subject specific literacy by discussing the way in which words vary in meaning between disciplines and ensuring students say-it-again-better for accuracy.

Finola Doyle using sensory activities to explore rocks prior to learning about them. This made the abstract concepts accessible and relatable.

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Learning and Teaching

At this time of year we begin to reflect on whether learning and teaching initiatives we started in September have become embedded in lessons.
 
Over the next couple of weeks learning walks will be taking place in years 7, 10 and 12 to see if our students are able to better access their learning in class, work independently for short periods of time and retain what they have learnt.  Every week Connect is packed with examples of colleagues innovating with the ABC strategies in their own classrooms, so we are really looking forward to having examples of great practice to share across the school.  

As a reminder, please make sure that if students are dealing with any text in lessons that you have supported their reading by:
Linking the reading to wider or prior knowledge

  • Pre teaching vocabulary
  • Using dual coding

If you have any students with SLCN please also bear in mind the training we received last week from Fay and Gurvinder which gives further top tips to help these students, the powerpoint can be found here.

Kelly

Inclusion Heroes

This week’s Inclusion Hero has been nominated by Phoebe – she would like to give the award to Naomi Foot, for all of her amazing work with her Girls’ Achievement tutor group. This is what Phoebe said:

‘Can you shout out Naomi Foot please for her work with girls’ achievement form please. She has worked so hard with them and shown genuine care for the girls and has put so much effort into personalised care packages for each student in her form. This includes handwritten notes wishing them luck in their exams.’

And, I would also like to say a huge thank you to everyone for their nurture and support with all of our exam groups in these last few vital weeks – as always, the students at GHS are lucky to have you!

Lou

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12 May 2023
Year 11 drop-down sessions before exams
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