Newsletters

GHS Connect #9 Monday 10th November

Mia's notes

A reminder that we have our occasional day on 21st November this year, so only just under 2 weeks to go until we have a mini break.

Lots has been taking place over the last week, not least hosting Big Zuu for the Teach 1st filming event, which went very well, thanks to everyone’s vigilance and sensible management of the day. Special thanks to Peter Mather for his organisation. Obviously I haven’t heard of Big Zuu, although my husband has  - not sure what that says about my ability to keep up with what young people might be interested in, as compared to my husband when he doesn’t even work with young people! 

On an entirely different note, thank you to everyone for the Year 10 Information Evening and also for the tutor time activity around Post 16 for Year 11 students. These might seem less exciting than having a film crew on site, but are undoubtedly more important.

Finally, thank you to our brilliant social team who have organised the Xmas social on 12th December. Don’t forget to get your ticket through Parentpay.

Have a lovely week, everyone.

Mia

The week ahead

Monday
Normal Day

Tuesday
Year Team Meeting/Pastoral Time - 3.15pm - 4.00pm
Directed time from HoY to form tutors - 4.00pm - 4.30pm

Wednesday
Briefing in the library – 8.15am
HODs Meeting
HOY/DHOY Meeting
Teacher Mark, Plan & Collab
SEND Focus Group
All 3.15pm - 4.15pm

Thursday
Normal Day

Friday
Normal Day

Notes
Yr 11 Mock 1 (EBACC)
Year 12 Assessment Week (in class)
Yr 9 expectations eve (Tues) 5.30pm - 6.15pm 

Learning and Teaching Tips and Strategies

This week, Jacob Chapman’s strategy for live marking:

• Prepare enough practice questions to allow you time to circulate around the room.
• Begin with an accessible first question so all students can engage immediately.
• Include one question that targets the key knowledge or skill you want to assess through live marking.
• As your circulate, focus your live marking on this specific question.

This strategy ensures that every student works at an appropriate level of challenge, while your live marking remains focused and efficient and provides you with useful data.

Want to explore how to tackle common concerns around live marking? Nisreen Mohamedali shares thoughts here.

Pastoral Reminders

Safeguarding

The Government has published lots of information recently about educating students on how to decipher fake news and navigate the online world.

Internetmatters has put together some key reports on how young people consume reports from social media, how distressing stories via AI, misinformation, impact the well-being of our young people. They have also put together some recommendations to support young people.  To read the full report please click on the link below:

internetmatters.org

SEN

Next week Fay, Andrea and I will be popping into KS3 lessons to sample a few books.  This is so we can share best practice and celebrate the work that you are all doing in this area.  We can also look at how we can also support our SEN students in ‘taking pride in their books’ to encourage a purposeful learning journey.

Inclusion

• Currently we only have 2 Year 11 students on Alternative Provisions (one on a school-to-school placement and the other working off-site with Remedy tutors).
• We have increased the level of internal mentoring.  The Pastoral support workers continue to mentor students. Ms Dein-Sheikh is running two programmes on social skills and executive functioning.
• We are currently running a KS4 Lion Project (with Youth Justice Services).  They are working with a small cohort of students each week on a Thursday, developing key skills and their understanding of exploitation.
• We are continuing to encourage students to take part in a school-to-school placement and continue the discussions with families.
• The SEN department is working with the Local Authority to support and transition students to alternative places.  This is sadly a timely process, and we will continue to keep you updated.
• CLA students do have varying timetables, to support and enable them to engage with education.  THM is supporting and working with external professionals daily to encourage students onto the school site.

Gurvinder Nayyar

Bright Spots

The first of this week's Bright Spot comes from Jo Leaver-Cole, who has nominated the MFL Department, saying:

A massive thank you to the MFL department. Thank you to David and Oumayma for taking the time to help me prepare the resources for the jumbled sentences task. Thank you to the whole MFL team for showcasing effective live feedback during the jumbled sentences CPD task. The activity was really well received, and the room was buzzing, thanks to their expert live feedback during the task.

Andrea has also nominated a number of staff, saying:

Thank you to all the staff involved in the Teach First shoot on Thursday. Teach First and the production team were very impressed with both our students and our facilities – they had a fantastic day filming their advert and had high praise for our school. Thank you to Steve who helped to manage the production team on site so that they had minimal impact on lessons, Sarah Packman, who gave up a lot of her time and Stuart who had his eyes in the sky to make sure that the site was safe. I want to particularly thank Ayesha, Ljiljana, Sam, Joe and Naomi for allowing Teach First to film them delivering a lesson, assembly and playing table tennis. I also want to thank Muireann for the amazing work in getting the students ready for their cameos and keeping them focused throughout the day. Finally, can I thank Peter for helping to organise the day in advance and supporting the shoot throughout the day – it ensured that the day was seamless!

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