Newsletters

GHS Connect #13 Monday 9th December

Mia's notes

Just under 2 weeks to go. We can do this!

A reminder that in the run up to the end of term students inevitably become more excited and so it is even more important that we keep them in a routine. To reiterate some of the messages given over the VLE, please keep students in lessons as much as possible and don’t allow them to go to the toilets near to the end of lessons.  We also want to keep learning as active as possible, and although it may feel counterintuitive as students might seem like they need a rest, passive lessons are not helpful and usually lead to poor behaviour.

Please avoid passive, occupying tasks such as wordsearches, crosswords etc and focus on delivering lessons that remain as active and engaging as normal.

Thank you to everyone who supported with Year 8 parents’ evening last week. We had a great level of attendance on what was a grim evening weather-wise!

Final push this week and next!

Mia

The week ahead

Monday
Normal Day

Tuesday
Department Time - 3.15pm - 4.30pm

Wednesday
Briefing 8.15am in the library.
CPD 3.15pm - 4.15pm

Thursday
Normal Day

Friday
Normal Day

Notes
Year 11 Mocks Week 1 
KS5 Folder check

Learning and Teaching - Pride in our Routines

The Do Now is multifunctional: it supports our behaviour management routine, it consolidates prior learning and it serves as retrieval practice. And it sets the tone for the rest of the lesson. That’s a lot of responsibility for a 10-minute activity!

This week, Paul Stokes shares his model and top tips for Do Now activities:

• Sticking to the same format each lesson ensures that students know exactly what to do.
• Using low stakes retrieval provides an opportunity for interleaving content.
• Printing the Do Now gives you time to set up.
•  Creating it on a slide and ‘duplicating’ makes printing easy.
• Peer assessment probes ‘would you give the mark?’ discussions.
• Creating a ‘league table’ spreadsheet of marks motivates students through competition.
• Prizes for league table winners supports a positive classroom climate.

The overall approach encourages students to feel a sense of pride in their learning.

How do we quality assure the Do Now? Craig Barton shares his thoughts here.

Year 11 Achievement Update

Year 11 have had an amazing start to the year and have been working well. We have a busy term and have put in place lots of intervention to support Year 11 achievement:

Highlights this term so far are:

• A focused Year group culture and behaviour for learning.
• Studio 11: the intervention that runs Monday-Thursday to support the Grade 5s.
• Department interventions: Computing, D&T, Psychology, Geography, English and Maths.
• Exam meetings with key staff regarding how we can maximise lesson time and push our students even further.
• We had our first theme week ‘Boost your grade fortnight,’ post-assessment week where students focused on specific topics in their subjects with the aims of grade boosting.
• We have Mr Harvey’s Boys’ group, who meet once a week to support in raising their aspirations.
• We send our weekly Y11 achievement newsletter to families.
• We produce weekly Y11 achievement slides in assembly and form time.
• Elevate session -Time management and memory. Elevate are an external company who come in and deliver study skills.

Phoebe

SEN Department Updates

Young Carers - Who are they and why do they need support?

A young carer is someone 18 years old or under, who helps look after a relative with a disability, illness, mental health condition, or drug or alcohol problem. This could be a parent or a sibling. Some children begin giving care from a very sound age, and others become carers overnight. Caring for someone can be very isolating, worrying and stressful. For young carers, this can negatively impact their experience in education. Over a quarter of young carers aged 11-15 regularly miss school. This can have a lasting effect on their life chances. Action for Children have written an excellent article on this vital issue - click here.

SEN update

New article from the Education Hub: How we're improving support for children and young people with SEN.

Inclusion Heroes

I wanted to thank all the Pastoral Support Workers and Year Teams for the vast amount of work they do monitoring the data, organising parental meetings and setting clear expectations to students.

Gurvinder

If there are any concerns about Equality and Diversity (staff)  at GHS please contact A Johal (DHT)