Newsletters

GHS Connect #25 Tuesday 14th April

Mia's notes

Welcome back! Hard to believe it is April and we are into the Summer term.

Some of you may be wondering what has happened with Ofsted. The reports have been delayed for a number of schools - it seems that Ofsted may have bitten off more than they can chew with their new framework!

We anticipate getting the report this week and will then go through the process of looking at it in terms of accuracy and then go through the necessary steps in terms of feeding back to Ofsted. This then leads to further time passing.  I will update when I am able to share the full report, but this may well take quite a bit more time again.  In many ways, it all seems like so long ago already.

We are looking at various things we can do to consider how we might do some things differently in September and various consultations and info will shortly follow. Now that Ofsted has gone away for a few years (hopefully!), it’s an exciting time where we can start to think about the future of the school over the coming months and years.

Have a great first week back.

Mia

The week ahead

Tuesday
Department Time 3.15pm - 4.30pm

Wednesday
Briefing in the library – 8.15am
CPD - 3.15pm - 4.15pm

Thursday
Normal Day

Friday
Normal Day

Notes
Year 12 UCAS (Thurs/Fri) – no lessons

Learning and Teaching Tips and Strategies

This term, we will be sharing top tips and strategies around revision.

What do students actually do when we say ‘revise’?

Week 1 – Setting Up Revision

Independent revision is only effective if students know how to do it. When we set clear and structured revision tasks and model them in class, we can support students to build effective revision habits at home.

Top Tips:

• Reduce choice early on by guiding students on what exactly to revise.
• Model revision in class first before setting these strategies for homework.
• Set retrieval, not review tasks by getting students to work from memory.
• Repeat simple formats e.g. quizzes, brain dumps, and keep tasks short and achievable to build confidence and increase completion.
• Build in accountability by expecting students to share or apply their revision.
• Check in on revision regularly to show it is valued and also expected.

Dos and Don'ts:

 

Don’t	Do
“Spend 20 minutes revising.”	“Answer these 5 questions from memory, then check your answers.”
“Complete a mind map on X.”	“Create a mind map from memory, then add missing ideas in a different colour.”
“Read the textbook section.”	“Read once, then close it and write down everything you can remember.”
“Make flashcards.”	“Create flashcards and use them to test yourself, saying answers out loud.”

Here is the EEF’s blog on Why bother with retrieval?

Year 11 Final Push: Strategic Focus for the Next 3 Weeks

As we enter the final three weeks, our focus must shift from content coverage to mark-retrieval precision. At this stage, students often suffer from "revision fatigue," so our roles are to be the curators of their cognitive load.

• Prioritise "live modelling" of common and "walking-talking mocks" over independent past-papers. Past papers are ideal for homework and individual revision.
• Show students exactly how to decode a question's command verbs and where the "easy marks" are hidden in high-tariff questions. Use these last few hours to bridge the gap between knowing the curriculum and gaming the mark scheme; often, a 5-minute task on exam technique can yield more progress than an hour of re-reading notes.

Beyond teaching and learning, remember that we are the emotional anchors for our cohort. High-stakes testing creates high-stakes anxiety, which can lead to "cognitive shutdown" for our most vulnerable learners. Keep your classroom environment predictable, calm, and relentlessly positive. Explicitly celebrate the "marginal gains"—the student who finally mastered a formula or the one who improved their structure by one grade boundary. By projecting a sense of calm confidence, you provide the psychological safety they need to perform. We’ve done the heavy lifting; now, let’s help them cross the finish line with clarity and composure.

Top 5 Do-Now- revision focus: 

1. The Command Verb Decipher: Display three actual exam questions from different topics but with different command verbs (e.g., Describe, Explain, Evaluate). Students must highlight the command verb and list the exact ingredients needed for full marks (e.g., Explain = Cause + Effect + Connective).
2. Cops & Robbers: Give students 60 seconds to write down everything they remember about a topic in one colour (the Cops). Then, give them 60 seconds to "rob" one specific fact or golden nugget from a peer’s paper using a different coloured pen.
3. Be the Examiner: Show a student-style response that is almost right but would score zero or half marks (e.g., a missing unit of measurement, a vague pronoun, or a missed "because").
4. The Golden Five: Every lesson starts with the same five "must-know" facts/formulas for the week.
5. The 2-Minute Brain Dump: Students have 120 seconds to dump every keyword, date, or formula they would write on the back of the exam paper the moment they are told to begin.

Phoebe

Inclusion Messages

Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026 -  Updated since 2024

Click here to see a summary of the updates.

These are some of the important changes:

• Greater focus on unborn children, kinship care, special guardianship, adopted and looked after children (care planning and protection planning).
• Elective home education – information sharing working with the LA and communication is clear.
• New strengthened harm types now include domestic abuse (including coercive and controlling behaviour and teenage relationship abuse, child sexual abuse – greater prominence and multi-agency work with the child.
• Online harms focus on AI and online gaming and acknowledgement that children face harms simultaneously.

Operation Compass - Duty for the police to share information about a child's victim of domestic abuse with schools or LA.

National Referral mechanism – the formal government process of referring victims of modern slavery.

Cuckooing – This is the first time it is named in the document and focuses on when a person or group takes over a dwelling for criminal purposes.  A child cannot consent to this taking place in their home.

SEN Focus on Inclusion

Fay and I will be informally popping into lessons this week with a focus on Inclusion in the Classroom.  This will enable us to identify and share good practice. 

I hope you all had a lovely Easter break.

Gurvinder

Bright Spot

The first of this week's Bright Spots has been nominated by Hebe, who says:

André and Jay in the year 13 team – ceaseless perseverance shown to set our 13s up for success once study leave starts. Always supporting the students and the team – couldn't function without them! 

Next Amandeep has nominated the following people:

1. Alan for his attention to detail, organisation of all the RAD, parents' evening data and being so proactive in helping things run smoothly with all the above events.
2. Ben Dyason, Parental Ambassadors (Silva and Monika) and the year teams who have been brilliant in targeting our families for all the parents' evenings. We have seen a significant rise in attendance at these as a result.
3. Sarah Packman for supporting the day-to-day life of Iblock. Whether it's doing extra duties, opening the gate at the end of the day as well as the line-ups. She has a can-do mindset and will always look for solutions.

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