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GHS Connect #17 Monday 26th January

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GHS Connect #17 Monday 26th January

Mia's notes

You will recall that we undertook some work with some consultants in the Summer, looking at who we are as a school and I fed back their feedback at the staff meeting in September. Follow up work has taken place with the consultants and the Governors, and we’ve now decided on a short strapline to replace ‘Learning to Succeed’.  The new strapline is very simple and ties in with lots of the work we have been doing already this year. It is ‘Ambitious for All.’

In these words, we feel we have captured the essence of what Greenford is and what it wants to be in the future. We are incredibly ambitious for our students and for our community as a whole. We also try to be ambitious for staff, and encourage development and opportunities where possible. 

We also felt that ‘Ambitious for All’ captures our real commitment to inclusion, as we are ambitious for everyone, and we felt it would be helpful in providing simple, easily accessible language to use with students and parents about everyday matters, such as reinforcing ambitious expectations of behaviour and ambitious expectations about learning.

I will be updating the website and doing further work on this over the coming months.

We know that ‘Learning to Succeed’ is embroidered on the uniform! We’ll just have to accept this for now, and phase it out, as we obviously wouldn’t want our community to have to purchase brand new uniform.  We will embed the idea of learning to succeed elsewhere in the vision so it remains part of our broader messaging, for now.  Going forwards, new uniforms will just be blank.

Have a good week,

Mia

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The week ahead

Monday
Normal Day

Tuesday
No meeting due to Thursday's Subject Evening

Wednesday
Briefing in the library – 8.15am

Thursday
Year 10 Subject Evening. Check your appointments on the School Cloud here.

Friday
Normal Day

Learning and Teaching Tips and Strategies

This term, we will be sharing top tips and strategies to support students to take pride in their workbooks.

Week 3: Visualising Learning

Visual representations help students to organise and connect ideas. This makes abstract ideas easier to understand.

Top tips to support visual representations:

  • Use diagrams, timelines or flowcharts to represent processes, systems or sequences. Use tables to structure categorisation and evaluation.
  • Link ideas and map relationships between ideas (e.g. arrows, concept maps, annotations).
  • Use simple codes to draw attention to key knowledge (e.g. highlighting, symbols, boxes).
  • Use knowledge organisers to model how to structure and organise thinking for complex topics.
  • Visually model any subject-specific thinking to share expert schema and scaffold the organisation of this knowledge (e.g. worked examples, structured notes).

Excellent Books – Shout Out

Arron Poole encourages students to draw attention to key knowledge when notetaking.

Retrieval and The Testing Effect – Why it Matters

One of the most robust findings in learning research is the testing effect: pupils remember more in the long term when they try to retrieve information from memory, rather than simply re-reading or going over it again. Importantly, low-stakes testing doesn’t just measure learning, it can help create learning by strengthening memory and revealing gaps early. 

What this can look like in classrooms 

Retrieval doesn’t require new resources or platforms. It just requires students to be encouraged to learn a topic (this could be a homework task) and then be given the opportunity to work independently to complete an activity or questions that require them to retrieve key information.  For example: 

  • Science: complete a short explanation or diagram from memory 

  • English: write a quotation from memory that illustrates a theme or character 

  • Any subject: answer a small set of mixed questions on prior learning 

These activities are short, low-stakes and followed by feedback or correction.  

Key Takeaway 

Retrieval works because pupils attempt to remember. The format can vary, but effortful practice followed by feedback builds durable learning. 

Haydar

Inclusion Messages

Safeguarding Updates 

Explicit Images:

Just a reminder, if you are under 18, it is against the law to:

  • take, have or distribute a sexual photo, including selfies.
  • have or pass on indecent images of someone under 18.
  • encourage or incite someone to take or send 'sexts' or 'nudes'
  • take a photo of your own genitals, whether the image is shared or not.
  • When a student is reporting an incident to you, please do not ask students to share images with you or view the images.
  • Please report to the Year team and on CPOMS so we can support the student and perpetrator if known.

Interesting Article: BBC Article X

SEN

In order to support Exams Access Informatio, please see the new simplified Google Form to upload and let the SEN team know about students that require extra time.

Google Form

  • Identify if there is a continued need for additional time
  • Scan evidence of the student's work, evidencing the use – and need – of extra time (for all Y13 & Y12 students on this list, this will be clearly identified by the use of a purple pen on their mock exam papers this half term)
  • Complete the single Google Form for each student (there will be an option at the end of the form to upload your scanned/ photographed evidence)

I hope you all had a lovely weekend.

Gurvinder

Bright Spots

This week's Bright Spots nomination comes from Tom Baker, who says:

Thank you to Vikita and Marwa for organising, resourcing and running intervention for Y11 Business students. Fantastic to see it so well attended. It's obvious that the students really appreciate your support and no doubt it will help them reach their potential.

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

For the latest X feed from @ghsofficial, click here. For Threads, click here.

For the latest Instagram feed from @greenford_high_official, click here

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