Newsletters

GHS Connect #19 Monday 10th February

Mia's notes

One week to go until half term and I hope everyone manages to have a good rest.

Thanks this week to the Year 10 team who did such a great job with Parents’ Evening and also to everyone who is working so hard on the final push for Year 11 and Year 13. Please remember the core messages to raise achievement:

Set purposeful revision for homework and importantly, check it is done! You don’t need to necessarily mark it, but students find it helpful to know you will check they have done what was set.
Remember what Phoebe said in briefing - be positive and count up, not down!

Thank you for everything you are doing to support students to achieve great results once again.

Mia

The week ahead

Monday
Normal Day

Tuesday
Department Time 3.15pm - 4.30 pm
KS3, 4 & 5 TLR Holder Meetings 3.15pm - 4.30 pm

Wednesday
Briefing in the library - 8.15am

Thursday
Normal Day

Friday
Normal Day

Notes
Year 11 Mock 2
KS3 Book Look

Learning and Teaching - Pride in our Routines

Language experience has been shown to be a powerful predictor of future educational achievement across the curriculum, not just in those subjects most closely related to language – Cambridge International Education.

This week, Kiran Thandi shares her top tips on developing oracy through exam questions:

• Linking oracy strategies directly to exam questions prevents the oracy vs. content dilemma.
• Standardise question-specific sentence starters so that the use of these becomes habitual.
• Include opportunity for retrieval from previous units to draw links between ideas.
• Probe student responses to develop these further.
• List tier 3 terminology that you want students to include in answers.
• Provide hints and clues to guide students towards high quality answers.
• Insert strategies into centralised resources to support minimal additional planning.
• Be consistent with implementation.

What are the common challenges and misconceptions around oracy? Find out more here.

Behaviour Policy Changes

As mentioned in briefing last week, there are some upcoming changes to the Behaviour Policy. This letter has gone out to parents:

As we continue to develop our students to be active, responsible and environmentally friendly citizens, we are undertaking a drive on keeping our community tidy. We are therefore asking our students to refrain from eating food inside the buildings, unless they are in the dining hall or in our new dining hall extension, both of which now provide ample space.  We ask for your support in reinforcing this point to your child. 

We are also reviewing some aspects of our behaviour policy, and want to emphasise that community service plays a vital role in fostering responsibility, empathy, and a sense of belonging within our school community, in line with our core character strengths. 

If you have any comments or suggestions about this, or about our behaviour policy more generally, please email the school office with your thoughts. Your feedback is invaluable in helping us create a supportive and effective environment for all students.

A reminder to those on duty at break and lunch to encourage students to put all their litter in the bins and keep our school tidy.

Ajay and Rav

Inclusion Updates

Child Protection

Insights into the 'Keeping Children Safe' Policy - CPOMS Blog

The UK Government published its new policy paper Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive in November last year. The paper lays out the latest steps in social care reform in the UK. The proposed changes are deemed to impact how schools and safeguarding professionals work. Part of this new policy is aimed at keeping families together within the sphere of social care. The CPOMS blog has published an article on these changes aimed at making them easier to understand. Their article was written by John Trew, a highly experienced safeguarding trainer specialising in E-Safety and working with fathers. His insight on these changes is well worth a read. If interested, please follow the link below:

https://www.cpoms.co.uk/keeping-children-safe-helping-families-thrive-key-points/

SEN

Word Aware

This article highlights simple methods to help children become more word aware.  The 4 principles are:

The STAR approach outlined:

• Select: Select a word or concept that is embedded within your curriculum
• Teach: Highlight which words are important
• Activate: Opportunities are given to ‘bring the word to life’.
• Review: This is essential to ensure the words are frequently encountered

Although primarily aimed at younger pupils, it ties in with the Learning and Teaching strategies used in our school.

Thank you for your support and ongoing work with our vulnerable cohorts.

Gurvinder

Bright Spots

The first of this week's Bright Spot is Lydia Hamblin, who has been nominated by Nital Patel who says:

Please can I shout out Lydia - her work with the KS4 students has been excellent this term, especially with those who struggle with their resilience in lessons.

From the History Department, Arron Poole has nominated Ljiljana Krneta, saying:

She has used excellent synoptic knowledge retrieval with Year 11 to challenge and support all students in her class. Well done!

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