Newsletters

GHS Connect #35 Monday 30th June

Mia's notes

My super-massive thanks this week goes to Dan and Maya who accompanied our music students to the Royal Albert Hall for the ‘Ealing Together’ performance on Tuesday. A large scale event with over 36 schools participating, it represented a wonderful experience for our students in such an iconic venue.The planning, organisation and time dedicated to these sorts of events is huge, and Dan and Maya did not get back until around midnight. Dan then followed up with stints at Welcome Evening and the Year 11 assembly so has been a real trouper as usual! 

Thanks also to Joseph Ellis and Claire Rodway for taking Year 10 on the BP Workday visit and Richard, Gina, Kristal, Parissa, Virginie, Andre, Jay and Hebe for the Year 12 (in full) UCL visit extravaganza!

Of course this week we see the start of Year 10 undertaking work experience which has been another very time consuming but exceptional piece of work by Will Halsey, Simona, Claire and the team. This is a great opportunity for our students to have a taste of the big wide world, and to have almost every child in the year group out on a placement, is simply quite incredible.  Well done and thank you so much to everyone who is involved. 

It’s almost July so we’re on the home straight - have a great 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
New Staff Induction (1st July)
Year 10 Work Experience
School Centred Placement Teach First

Learning and Teaching - Discussion Guidelines

This week’s focus: Implementing discussion guidelines
 
Discussion guidelines support rich, meaningful discussions in the classroom and are most effective when thoughtfully embedded into the classroom.
 
Top Tips:

• Drip feed – Introduce guidelines one or two at a time, ensuring that each student has grasped them before moving on. This allows you to model what ‘good’ looks like for each principle.
• Combine – Consider how other oracy scaffolds and resources can be used alongside guidelines to support discussions - for example, Talk Tactics or the Listening Ladder.
• Display – Guidelines are most effective when they are visible. Think about where you can display them in your classroom to keep them accessible and front of mind.
• Consistency – Refer to the guidelines regularly, such as during targeted praise or peer assessment, to reinforce their importance.
• Role – Use guidelines during paired talk, small-group work, and whole-class discussions to ensure consistency and shared expectations.

How can we encourage critical thinking skills through classroom discussions? Explore here.

Curriculum Update

Timetable

Thanks to the expertise of our timetabling wizard, Alan, HoDs have already received first drafts of next year’s timetable, significantly ahead of schedule. They’re in the process of tweaking the details, and it’s their involvement throughout the process that has made a big difference. There’s no such thing as a perfect timetable – for a start, there’ll always be a Friday period 6 – and there are various trade-offs whatever decisions are made, but, hopefully, it will do its job in facilitating great teaching and learning.

Rooming will be done next – giving plenty of time to get classrooms ready for September. We’ll let you know, via the VLE, when staff timetables are finalised on SIMS.

Assessment Calendar

We’ve undergone extensive consultation with union reps and HoDs to put together the 25-26 assessment calendar. While there are no drastic changes from last year, we’ve tried to address some of the workload issues that staff have raised, along with useful suggestions so that it aligns better with the meetings calendar. Again, HoDs have received a draft to support with next year’s planning and the final version will be posted on the VLE shortly.

GCSE Options

The Year 9s submitted options choices very promptly this year so a big thank you to the Year 9 team and FTs for all their work on this. The five most popular subjects were, in reverse order: 5. Psychology; 4. RE; 3. History; 2. Triple Science; 1. Business Studies.

But, as you know, we offer a ‘broad and balanced’ curriculum and our comprehensive range of courses and qualifications that cater for different interests and abilities, of varying cohorts, is something we highly value.

The provisional class lists will be distributed to HoDs and the pastoral team this week so they can check student combinations. Then, students will receive an email with their confirmed choices in the penultimate week of term.

Curriculum & Assessment Review

You’ll be aware that the government has commissioned a ‘Curriculum & Assessment Review’ that is due to be published in the Autumn. The interim report stated that it was guided by an “evolution not revolution” approach; that it supported the continuation of a “knowledge-rich” curriculum; and that it was “strongly committed [to] progress performance measures.” Also mentioned was a “renewed focus on digital and media literacy” and the importance of responding to the “opportunities & challenges presented by AI” which, as you know, we’re already starting to do as a school. And, for those of you who think that, like Christmas, the exam period seems to get longer every year, there’s good news that the final review will: “consider carefully whether there are opportunities to reduce the overall volume of assessment at key stage 4.”

Whatever is decided, we will have to act on it in a timely way so please bear that in mind next term.

Adam

Inclusion Updates

Safeguarding Updates

In order to continue building on our professional development and to ensure staff are all up to date on Keeping Children Safe in Education guidelines, we will be asking all staff to complete the 30-35 minute Prevent Training online.

We will be asking staff to complete this training week beginning the 30th June, either in department time or in gain time.

Once you click on the link and go through the training, answering questions and reading the explanations, you will be given a certificate to evidence completion of the training.

We will be asking all staff to download the certificate and email this to Monika Sierkowska and complete this Google Form to evidence this has been completed.

Please see the link: Awareness Course

Keeping Children Safe in Education

Please see below for the Keeping Children Safe in Education poster.

Gurvinder 

Bright Spots

The first of this week's Bright Spots are Kapilan Raveendran and Noor Al-Musawi, nominated by Amandeep Phull, who says:

I'd like to thank both Kapilan and Noor for their dedication and support for the St Mary's residential. This trip could not have given our students the experience they had if we didn't have staff willing to go over and beyond.

Kapilan drove us there and collected us, meaning he sat in traffic and gave up some of his own time on Friday afternoon, when he could've been relaxing, starting his weekend.

Noor supported the activities and intervened to ensure all those feeling nervous were supported.

The students were very grateful for their experience and really flourished over the three days.

The next Bright Spots have been nominated by Amit Pall;

A huge thank you to Dipa Pindoria, Maya Popovic and Jen Williams for allowing Alex and I to visit their forms to film them delivering excellent PSHCE lessons. They allowed us to record their PSHCE lessons for the purpose of teaching and learning training. The filming process went extremely well considering the lesson topics were around healthy relationships! Thank you!

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