Newsletters

GHS Connect #1 Monday 7 September

From the Head

It was wonderful to see everyone back in school last week. I must admit that at times it has felt as if that day would never come. It was really lovely to start off the year welcoming back Year 11 into Year 12 and seeing our new Year 7s come in for the first time. Thank you all for your patience as we work through the various steps we have taken to try to ensure safety on site. It is new for all of us, so please bear with us as things bed in.

During the first INSET day, I outlined some of the school priorities, but limited quite a bit of information as there was so much going on.  However, I want to take a moment to remind people about some of the other key aspects we will be working on this year:

Black Lives Matter and Equality

Back in the Summer, I met with Lisa Panford and Noble Laryea following on from the Black Lives Matter meeting that was held in school. I am meeting Lisa and Noble again this week, and hope to move forward with work around this asap. I have already been notified about the opportunity to take part in unconscious bias training, something I have signed us up to. I’m not sure yet of the timescales on this. Noble will be leading as ‘Whole School Equality Champion’ as part of his SLT remit, and Lisa will be leading on a Curriculum Review. Thank you to both of them.

Learning and Teaching Strategies

This year, we will continue to work on metacognition, modelling and literacy strategies as part of our learning and teaching focus. If students end up working from home again, these will be more important than ever as they all support students in learning how to work more independently.

Associates Programme

In the Summer, I explained that we would be developing a new leadership programme for Middle Leaders, to enhance the previous Associates Programme. You can find initial information about the Associates Programme on the VLE at here.  More info about how to apply will be provided in the coming weeks.

Finally, from me, I thought I’d let you know that amidst all of the exam results nightmare, we managed to get a large number of our students off to Oxford and Cambridge, as well as some other excellent universities. This involved quite a lot of pleading emails, nagging and reminding, and even led to James Murray, MP writing to the universities on our behalf. Although this final push was crucial, it was ultimately your ongoing work with these students that got them there. Thank you, as ever, for your commitment to addressing disadvantage. It’s probably going to be even more important this coming year!

Mia

Learning and Teaching

Many thanks to colleagues for watching all our pre-recorded training this week. It was a very odd experience to hear our voices echoing around the corridors in the different blocks!  Your comments have been really useful in thinking about how we might continue to use and develop this method while we have to socially distance, so, if you’d like to offer some feedback, please email kmccarthy@greenford.ealing.sch.uk

September brings….seating plans!

The brilliant thing about working at Greenford is the tireless way teachers find solutions to challenges. Instead of being dismayed and feeling trapped at the front of the room by the social distancing requirements,  some colleagues are already planning to rotate seating plans to give students some ‘face time’ in the front row. A few thoughts on this innovative approach:

> MINT Class has an easy function to support a rotating seating arrangement-Clare will be sending out some information on this in the coming days. 

> Consider not rotating students too often - everything is different for us all at the moment and perhaps we all need some stability in the first few weeks.

> If you are new to Greenford - or indeed teaching - don’t feel under pressure to adopt this approach; give yourself plenty of time to get to know your classes before you start mixing it up!

> Please make sure you take note of students with SEN and medical needs and that these students always retain accessible positions in your rooms. 

*If you are new to GHS, keep hearing the name ‘MINT Class,’ and have no idea what we’re on about (!) please don’t worry!  Everything about our seating plan software will become clear in the New Staff Training on Monday at 1pm. Any staff who feel they need a refresher are welcome to join but must book in with Clare by 12pm on Monday on the following email: csecombe@greenford.ealing.sch.uk

Kelly McCarthy

Inclusion & Pastoral

A big Inclusion welcome back! And, I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend after the first few days. I know we are saturated with information and probably still reeling from actually having to get up at a decent hour in the morning, so I will keep this brief. There are just a few Inclusion/Pastoral bits and pieces to remind you of:

1) Tutor Group Google Classrooms - please make sure these are now set up and that codes are ready to share with your groups, if you've not already done so;

2) What to do once these classrooms are set up - I will start sending suggested activities for this, starting with one for the end of this week. Please feel free to offer suggestions of what might be covered, or areas of concern that you are detecting from your tutees, once this system is up and running. We will also be looking at how we can factor in some physical time to meet with your tutees and I will forward these plans as soon as they are finalised;

3) Meeting tutor groups this week - I know some staff with tutor groups in Years 8 - 11 were wondering how to fill the time you will have with your groups. I will send out some ideas in a bit!

4) PSHCE dates - a couple of staff have asked where these are - you can find them on this google document link.

5) Child Protection Training - due to the hit and miss nature of email alerts on Friday, some staff knew this was now available to look at, but not all. Many thanks to those of you who have already sent back your declarations, and for those who didn't get the email, this training can be found on the VLE on the main 'Start of term - all you need to know' page (scroll to the bottom and open the PDF attachment). Prizes available for being the lucky tenth, twentieth and so on person to email me. And, a new special prize for the best caption to accompany the photo of the CP Team...

If there are any issues with any of the above, just let me know. Here's to our first full week!

Lou Grimley