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GHS Connect #6 Monday 13th October

Mia's notes

Just 2 weeks until we get to half term. Hang in there – we’re almost there.  After half-term, we have a shorter stint up until Christmas and also return on an INSET. See the VLE announcements regarding the start time of the INSET day.  

I will publish details of the INSET day shortly but it's important to note that unlike previous years where we have used a lot of the day for appraisal, this year we will not be doing that, and I’ll be asking line managers to dedicate a short part of a line management meeting to appraisal instead.  That will give us some time on the INSET day to look at some school priorities instead.

Thank you to everyone involved in the Careers Fair – it was fantastic and a great opportunity for our students.  Coming up this week, we have the Welcome to Year 7 Evening, so thank you to everyone who is involved in that too.

Have a lovely week,

Mia

The week ahead

Monday
Normal Day

Tuesday
Department Time 3.15pm - 4.30pm

Wednesday
Briefing in the library – 8.15am
CPD 3.15pm - 4.15pm. More details on the VLE

Thursday
Welcome to Year 7 Evening - 4pm - 4.45pm

Friday
Normal Day

Notes
Year 7 CATS and Baseline Tests

Learning and Teaching Tips and Strategies

This week’s 60 second strategy on Culture: Shared accountability of norms.

Shared accountability for classroom norms shifts the responsibility for maintaining learning routines from the teacher to the students. This creates a classroom culture of shared, collective ownership and builds student agency.

Top Tips:

• Frame your instructions to ask for leadership, not compliance.
   E.g. “X, you’ve got excellent focus. Can you share what ‘ready to learn’ looks like right now?”
• When routines slip, redistribute rather than correct.
   “Let’s pause and reset. X, what should our noise level and focus look like during group work?”
• Narrate the purpose, not the rule.
   E.g. “X, remind us how listening carefully during discussions shows respect and helps us learn from each other.”
• Time reminders for transition points in the lesson.
   E.g. “We’re about to shift into paired work. X, remind us of our expectations for noise and support.”

Shared norms can turn routines into habit, and habits into a positive classroom culture.

Want to know more? See here.

Oracy in the Classroom

1. Build Structured Talk

• Plan opportunities for purposeful talk in every lesson.
• Use routines like Think–Pair–Share, Concept Cartoons, Always, Sometimes, Never or Talk like a Scholar.
• Provide sentence stems to support confident, respectful speaking.

2. Model High-Quality Talk

• Demonstrate clear, confident communication.
• Use and expect subject-specific vocabulary in speech.
• Model how to agree, build on, challenge, and summarise ideas verbally.

3. Create a Safe Environment for Every Voice

• Establish ground rules for respectful listening and participation.
• Use strategies to ensure equitable contribution (e.g. talk tokens, rotating roles).
• Celebrate student voice — make talk a valued part of learning.

Take a look at the summary of the Talk Tuesday strategies, see them here

Amit

KS4 homework top tips:

Thank you for all of your support with setting, monitoring and logging homework with KS4 so far. A reminder of some top tips to help our Key Stage 4 students.

1. Set homework on an online platform, such as Seneca, Mathswatch, Educake or the department equivalent. Online homework can be used as flip-learning or for AO1 recall and retrieval. Online quiz platforms also help to prevent students using AI for answers, to a written exam question or essay, for example.
2. Set a reasonable amount of homework per week: Be realistic about how many questions are being set. 20–30 AO1 questions, that will take students around 30 minutes. This is ideal as it seems more achievable to our students, especially if students are getting 3 pieces of homework a day. It allows time to revise their subjects too. Have a set day to set and monitor homework, helping students to form a routine.
3. Make it uncomfortable for students not to complete homework: PIP the students that do well in their homework, have a tracker and run a competition for the highest percentages achieved and always explain the ‘why’ it is being set. Contact home, log on SIMS and if you want to, keep students with you straight away to complete the task.

Phoebe

Pastoral Reminders

Child Protection

Please see this article about how people are turning to AI for relationship advice.

Question of the Week

“If a child discloses something worrying to you, what are the two most important things you must (and must not) do in that moment?”

Here's one answer, what's wrong with it?

"I’d reassure the child and promise to keep what they say secret so they don’t lose trust in me. Then I’d ask lots of questions to get all the details and jot down the main points before deciding whether it’s serious enough to tell the DSL later."

Answer

Never promise secrecy

You must never promise confidentiality. You must explain that you will need to share the concern with the DSL to help keep the child safe.

Don't ask lots of questions

We are not investigators. You should only listen and, if necessary, ask a simple clarifying question. Asking too many questions risks confusing or muddling the child’s account.

Don't summarise ‘main points’

Don’t rewrite in your own words. Record factually, as soon as possible, using the child’s exact words.

Don't consider the seriousness yourself or delay reporting

It’s not your role to judge whether it’s “serious enough”. Always pass it on to the DSL immediately using the school's procedures.

Correct Approach

• Listen, reassure, explain (you must share with the DSL).
• Record in the child’s words.

Report immediately to the DSL.

Mental Health Week

I wanted to share with you the range of therapeutic mental health provisions in school.  The support is available for both staff and students.

• Ealing Youth Counselling Service
• London Young Counselling
• Walk the Walk (post 16)
• Well-being drop-in – ADH - AG16

Inclusion- Form Time Activities

• The Child Protection Team have organised a range of Form Time Activities around Child Protection and Mental Health concerns.                                    
• We should be on Week 6 of the activities focussing specifically as a Catch-Up week. Please play the video and then discuss the questions on Deep Fakes if you have not yet covered this.

Thank you so much for your continued support. Hope you all had a lovely weekend.

Gurvinder Nayyar

Bright Spots

This week Rav has nominated the Bright Spots, saying:

To every member of staff allocated in the internal exclusion room, a massive thank you for all your efforts. The atmosphere and expectations in there have been greatly improved, mainly due to all staff in there following the systems. We want the sanction to be a deterrent. So far, so good!

To the wonderful pastoral teams, thank you for your amazing efforts so far this year. In particular, thank you for each detention escalation, each IE day booked, each parental phone call, each preventive parental meeting and each child supported on a daily basis. Ben, Buchi, Harj, Justine, Abbie, Joe, Shem, Jarnai, Fraser, Avnish, Umair, Kelly, Ajit, Rhea, Noor, Sonia, Waris and Ljiljana – you have been amazing!

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