Newsletters

GHS Connect #29 Monday 12th May

Mia's notes

Thank you for hanging in there with Year 11. While most are behaving very well, I am fully aware of a core group who continue to create issues. Thank you for your patience and please continue to log everything. Unfortunately, some of our students suddenly realise that they have left things until the last minute and their poor behaviour is symptomatic of that. Study leave will be welcome and it is good that we are sending students out before most schools locally, so we don’t clash - most finish the following week.

As we head towards the final half term, which is coming around alarmingly fast, we look forward to lots of events and trips in school, including our annual international day, which is not compulsory for staff to dress up for, but everyone is welcome to join in if they would like to. I would like to thank Dan Oag for his ‘warm up act’ at Gifford a couple of weeks ago for their international day - it was very well received and the school were very grateful for our input.

Once again, thank you so much for everything that everyone is doing. It feels like a slog towards the exams, but we are almost at another half term.

Have a good week!
 
Mia

The week ahead

Monday
Normal Day

Tuesday
Department Time - 3.15pm - 4.30pm

Wednesday
Briefing in the library - 8.15am

Thursday
Normal Day

Friday
Normal Day

Notes
Oracy Working Party - Wednesday after school. DF05

Learning and Teaching - Pride in our Classrooms

This week’s 60-second strategy to try: What’s the Link?

This strategy strengthens mental models by encouraging students to explicitly draw connections between concepts.

Strategy:

1. Display three images on the board.
2. Group students in pairs or trios and ask them to identify as many links between the images as they can.

Top Tips:

1. Provide provisional language sentence stems (e.g., might, could, perhaps) to help students explore ideas without the fear of being wrong.
2. Offer Tier 3 vocabulary to guide students away from general talk and towards more specialised academic talk.

Learn more about this strategy here.

PSHCE Top Tips

The final in our series of Top Tips for PSHCE comes from Dipa Pindoria:

• Ensure you have high expectations for form time in genera l- e.g. Planners and pencil case out.
• Look at the PSHCE lessons in advanc. 
• Everyone must participate- I go around table by table - there is no opt-out.
• Circulate to ensure you have seen each table. 
• Pause videos and give students time to answer questions and fill in workbooks.

Trish

AI - What useful tools are out there?

Digital learning and the world of AI is evolving in education. With so many AI tools out there, where do you begin? The Digital learning and AI working party have been trying out a few AI tools to help aid our jobs as educators. The table below summarises a few tools out there that you can try to help you get involved in the world of AI.  

If you are using an AI tool that isn’t on the list above and it is really helping your practice, please let me know and if you require any support or guidance with any of the tools above, please email me: hsagoo@greenford.ealing.sch.uk

There is always room in the ‘Digital learning and AI’ working party. If you wish to join just drop me an email.

Enjoy the world of AI.

Harpal

Inclusion Updates

Safeguarding Updates

How would you explain 'contextual safeguarding' in one sentence?

Child A lives in a quiet rural village. Child B lives in a busy urban area. How might the contextual safeguarding issues differ between the two children?

Contextual safeguarding recognises that young people can face risks outside their home, such as in schools, peer groups or communitities.

For example, a 12-year-old boy living in a rural area might be affected by online exploitation, isolation and limited access to support, exposure to harmful community norms, or lack of anonymity. However, a 12-year-old boy living in a busy urban area might be more affected by peer group violence, gang affiliation and exploitation, radicalisation or unsafe public space.

Potential Issues (use these ideas as a discussion starter - these issues are certainly not only to be found in these stereotypes. Always ask to what extent this is a true reflection of our GHS cohort).

SEN Updates

Just a reminder that the SEN department will periodically run focus groups. Please ensure that when invited you attend. It is very useful for the department to update staff on any changes based on the Educational Psychologist or CAMHS reports to help students progress.

Please note there will be a reduction in TA support in classrooms as we head towards summer examinations. The students that require TA support due to varying needs will continue to receive this support.

Mental Health - Exams Stress Support

Please direct students to this website for exam stress.

Thank you for your continued support.

Gurvinder

Bright Spots

The first of this week's Bright Spots is Bal Jassal, who has been nominated by Amandeep Phull, who says:

Over this year, Bal has been brilliant in stepping in to support both staff and year 7 students in I block. She is always ready to provide advice and solutions with any issues whilst nurturing the most vulnerable students.

Bal will always support with the line-up, cover colleagues on duty or just offer an extra pair of hands when we really need it. Whenever you speak to Bal, she will always great you with a warm smile and make your day that much better. Thank you Bal for all your hard work!

Next, Andrea has nominated Sarah Williams, saying:

Sarah did a brilliant job at organising and facilitating a Greenford Read for the year 12 cohort. There was energy and buzz in the group – what a great way to engage our cohort in reading for pleasure!

On hearing that his book The Offing was read, author Benjamin Myers said:

"Hello and thank you from me! I hope you enjoyed it!"

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