Newsletters

GHS Connect #9 Monday 9 November

From the Head

I hope everyone had a good weekend. 

I wanted to start by thanking everyone for all of the amazing work that is already going into planning the catch up for students and tweaking the curriculum and interventions to ensure that students continue to do well in spite of the circumstances of last year. I have been extremely encouraged with what the data has shown and very impressed with the strategies, interventions and the sheer amount of work that is already underway. This has been very clear in all of the Raising Achievement meetings that I have been in so far. As ever, our students are in very capable hands - THANK YOU.

It’s been a very busy start back to this academic year, and I thought it might be revealing for us to try to note down as many things as possible that we have achieved. 50+ of these things are listed below, and a quick skim read will show just how much we have all managed to do - and these will, of course, just be a snapshot… Please scroll down and have a quick read. I hope that this list will remind us all of just what a fantastic job everybody is doing. In spite of the challenges, we have still achieved absolutely loads!

A few specific thank yous now… Thank you to Niloo, Tara and Dipesh for running the Year 7 tutors evening so successfully. Thank you also to Hardeep and the subject teams for running such a successful set of PPEs over the last few weeks. Thank you to Alan for delivering the training for the Year 13 Parents’ Evening software - this should really help us with parents' evenings going forwards.

We have heard that Jenisha Bajracharya from the Year 10 Oxford Inspire group won a competition last week with her winning essay which can be found here.  Congratulations to Jenisha and also to Jacob Chapman who has been working with this group since last year.

In case you missed it on the VLE, huge congratulations to Louisa who has given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Fearne Aida Beatrix, weighing 7lb15oz (right). Congratulations to Katharine Hobbiger who has taken over as Head of Psychology in Louisa’s absence.

Have a lovely week everybody, and don’t forget to keep smiling!

Mia

50+ Things We Have Achieved Since September - Well Done GHS!

Learning and Teaching

Spotted!

A round up of some of the great learning and teaching strategies we’ve noticed being used around school recently…

> Indy Lall using YouTube videos to demonstrate, in a memorable way, the impact of increased thinking distance on overall stopping distance.

> Jacob Chapman dissecting what the mark scheme says and what it really means for his GCSE students.

> Sarita Puri modelling to her students how to calculate resultant forces before students practised this independently.

Learning and Teaching: The Rise of the Visualiser!

With the increased restrictions on our teaching methods this year, many colleagues are finding visualizers to be an essential bit of kit in the ‘new normal.’ 

Here are just a few of the ways they are being used around school:

> To model how to answer exam questions, talking through the process so that students understand the thinking and can apply this in other exam questions;

> To develop shared writing as a class;

> To ‘live mark’ student work and demonstrate strengths and areas for improvement;

> To annotate texts and diagrams;

If you don’t have a visualizer in a room you teach in, or, if you would like some top tips on how to get the most out of your IPEVO, contact myself or one of the LPs.

Kelly McCarthy

Inclusion & Pastoral

I hope everyone survived their first week back… And, didn’t lose too much sleep waiting for the results to come from the other side of the Atlantic!

Just a few bits and pieces to remind you of this week, and a couple of new interventions we are starting. Tomorrow, Tuesday 10 November, is our next PSHCE lesson and everyone will be working with their classes during P1 on the third lesson on the system. I am hoping everyone has had a chance to look at it but If there any questions, or anything that you feel uncomfortable with, just ask either myself or Keely. Andrea and Noble have also sent out a Character slide to show to your classes at the start of the session, as we continue to embed our Character Development initiative across the school. If you want to check future PSHE dates, they are on the VLE here.

Over the last few weeks I have talked about factoring in some tutor sessions - the first of these will take place on Tuesday 24th November, during P3. Unlike PSHCE, this session will be spent with your tutor group so that you have the chance to catch up with them. There will be an online assembly to watch and some key messages to talk about. Information on the logistics of moving everyone around the school in their bubbles will be circulated well in advance of the session. 

Schools counselling partnership

Our Schools Counselling Partnership therapists, Jo and Tash, were in school last week, sorting out their rooms and resources - please watch Jo’s introductory video on the VLE if you’ve not already done so. They will start working with students from this Tuesday, but remember they are also here for staff and for parents/carers, and will be sending out information about how these elements of the service can be accessed soon. We have also started another new initiative, Rediscover, which replaces Teens and Toddlers. As I have mentioned before, for obvious reasons, we can’t have our lovely teens visiting the toddlers in local primary schools, so instead the mentors are coming to us to run 1-1 sessions with a handful of students. 

Lastly, in the new year, we are looking at starting a resilience and mental well-being programme with half a year group, a project that has been fully funded by John Lyons. We will also be looking for staff who are interested in taking part in the project. I know everyone is super-busy at the moment, but if you think this is an area you might be interested in, please let me know and I can tell you a little bit more about the project.

Have a good week!

Lou Grimley

Character strengths at GHS

This month we are focusing on COMMUNITY: encouraging random acts of kindness for others; showing respect for the environment.

On Tuesday 10th November, to compliment thoughtful discussion in PSHCE, we have created some prompts to link COMMUNITY to each topic (KS3 - KS5).

As always, if you have any great contributions or witness any behaviour that reflects our Character Strengths - send their names to us so we can celebrate!

Noble and Andrea

Wellbeing on the VLE

Don't forget there is a staff wellbeing section on the VLE. You'll find details of Workplace Options which gives staff access to plenty of services such as counselling and advice.

There is also a new link on there from the ASCL union informing schools of the Education Support charity which also offers support to school staff.