Newsletters

GHS Connect #15 Monday 11 January

From the Head

Well, I really didn’t think I would be writing this January version of Connect in the midst of another lockdown and school closure! Challenging times once again, to say the least.  

Thank you for continuing, just as you did last time, to offer such a high quality remote learning provision to our students. I have been in school this week so I have had the pleasure of being able to see the outstanding provision that has been put in place for students who are busy working through their learning in our ‘Lockdown Mini School’. I was very impressed to see so many recorded and even some live lessons taking place right from the very start of the remote learning period, some taking place from Period 1 on Wednesday!

We are busy setting up our processes to support students during this time. We already have lots more laptops distributed and Kelly’s system for following up on students who are behind with work is about to be launched as I write. Thank you to our fantastic support staff team who have been here helping us to sort out so many administrative aspects which we need to get into place - it really is much appreciated.

A particular thanks to our ‘Lockdown Mini School’ team who have been here supporting our students as they work through their remote learning in school. They have all been absolute stars and have established a highly productive and focused working environment. We have had around 35 students in school each day so it has been much busier than before, and could well increase further. 

One important point that has been thrown up by having students in school is that lessons are not always following the times of the school day. It’s really important that we are consistent with this, so that our mini school students can access the lessons too. If they are out at lunch or break and a lesson is going on, they are then missing some of it. Kelly will give more info about this below.

Thank you once again for all of your hard work in getting remote learning up and running again. 

I hope everyone is managing to stay safe and well. Please remember that we are here in school if you need us.

Mia

Learning and Teaching

Spotted!

Thank you to everyone for the energy and enthusiasm with which you have approached this next round of online learning.  The response has been so positive that it’s almost impossible to pick people out to mention, but here are a few we’ve heard about on the grapevine...
 
> Sajjad Jaffer setting up more than just his IPEVO at home to remotely teach Maths!

> Don Smith, elated that his live lesson with his post 16 students involved a discussion as good as if they were in the classroom.  
 
> Hebe Westcott, Annji Kinoshita-Bashforth, Anaam Zakria and Rachael Fowler experimenting with Jamboards:

> Anneka Mehta teaching herself how to record over ActivInspire slides and training other members of the Maths team to do it too.
 
> Georgia Pawelko developing a ‘time lapse’ lesson to help students with their ‘Day of the Dead’ Art Project (see it on YouTube here).
 
> Madeline Secombe and Elaine Grundy being determined that students will still get the most out of Accelerated Reader even in lockdown, communicating with students and showing them how they can still be reading and quizzing at home.
 
> Katharine Hobbiger switching units around creatively to try and give students the best possible curriculum when learning remotely. 

Learning and Teaching: Maximising Student Engagement in Online Learning

Just one key item this week which is essential to get us up and running. From next week, watch out for a series of training videos to help us develop our online L&T to new heights….

Please watch this short video explaining how we would like teachers to record that students have not engaged with online learning, that they have IT access issues or, more positively, that they have been an absolute superstar for you.
There is a brief glimpse of the spreadsheet with student information on so please don’t share this link with anyone (students or people outside of Greenford) and then no one but us will see it!

The link to the Online Learning Tracker Documents folder is here.

Top tips: you can filter the sheet by form group and band to make it a bit easier to find students in years 7-11; you can also use the CTRL+F function to find students by name. 

If there are any issues or questions with this, please do contact me!

Normally we will ask teachers to fill this information in (on the correct week’s tab) by Friday so that calls can be made on a Monday morning. However, for this week, teachers have until Tuesday morning at 10am to enter data for last week (w/b 4th Jan).

Any questions, please do get in touch!

Kelly McCarthy

Behaviour for Learning

Each week in Connect, Mark and Jo will be sharing behaviour for learning tips designed to help manage behaviour in the unusual circumstances of Covid-19.

Behaviour for Learning tip #5: Remote teaching behaviour management!

Living through a pandemic isn’t easy and many people have found their anxiety has increased as a result. This is true for many of our students who have struggled with the changes to and restrictions placed upon their lives. Covid-19 has brought about a whole host of challenges, losses and worries for everyone.

We are now entering an extended period of remote teaching and learning. Remote teaching and learning presents its own behavioural challenges, for example: anxieties about working online or not having access to a suitable device, reduced motivation, not sleeping properly and completion of work. You might find this online book helpful - How to Stay Calm in a Global Pandemic by Dr Emma Hepburn.

To try and understand and overcome some of these problems, we conducted a student survey after the last lockdown and students said that it helped if:

> Lessons are pre-recorded and/or live because they still get a sense of “relationships” with their teachers – the joy of live is being able to take a register and have an emotional check-in;

> PowerPoints are narrated to support students with their learning, which many staff will choose to do. If you upload these to You Tube and post the link on your Google Classroom, rather than just linking the PowerPoint, students will be able to access them on any device, including their phone. This will help families who are sharing a laptop between siblings. Here’s a reminder about how to do this.

> There are clear routines for online learning, for example, students really need work to be scheduled to be sent to them on the day and at the time of their normal lessons;

> Work is set using the “assignments” function on Google Classroom (rather than using the stream) so they can see what they have got to do and when it’s due; 

> Not too much work is set – everything takes much longer when completing it remotely and;

> Instructions are short and are easy to follow.

Pastoral teams will be supporting our students and there will be systems in place for helping to support those youngsters who are struggling and those who aren’t sufficiently engaged. More information about this will follow. 

Good luck everyone. We hope you have a safe Spring term!

Mark and Jo

Inclusion & Pastoral

Welcome to the first Inclusion and Pastoral bit for GHS Connect in 2021! I hope everyone has just about survived the first week of Lockdown 2, both from a professional and personal point of view. And, that you found some time at the weekend to do something for you, albeit in these restrictive times…

I wanted to do a quick update about how things are going to work while school is closed to most, so that you are aware of what is going on behind the scenes:

Lockdown Mini School

This is fully up and running and is open to the children of key workers, those with an EHCP or social worker and those we deem vulnerable. We’ve had around 35 students in school, from Years 7 to 13, and I expect this number will grow. They are following the work set by their classroom teachers, with some tweaks to timings, so there should be no issues with this little cohort getting on with their work. A huge thank you to Gurvinder, Lucy and the Learning Support Team who are running this, along with Tevin, Jesse and Steve who are looking after them all at break and lunch.

Connecting with students

I will continue to put together a weekly Virtual Tutor so that you have something to post to your Tutor Group Google Classroom. Please encourage your tutees to look at this every week, as there will be top tips on online learning, how to look after themselves, and other bits and pieces so that they stay informed. And, sane! There will also be some recorded assemblies coming out from the Year Teams to say hello to everyone. During last lockdown, we also had some great ideas from staff about how to reach out to them, so if you are inspired, or see something that colleagues from other schools are doing, or something for your own kids (I have already stolen a few ideas from my lot’s school), please let me know. Heads of Year will be in touch with those we are most worried about, and the Admin Team are going to be contacting those who are not engaging with work. 

Wellbeing

There are still various professionals working with key students, so please make this clear to your tutor groups. Help is there if they need it. But, this also applies to staff - Jo and Tash, our counsellors who joined last term, are very keen to let staff know that they are there for anyone who may need to talk. If you would like to get in touch, Jo’s email address is jmorgan111.307@lgflmail.org. I will also be putting regular information (as and when it comes through to me, or I come across something in my own reading or pottling around on social media) about how to get through all of this on the VLE, the students’ VLE and for parents too!

That’s it for this week - you know where I am, both in real life and virtually, if there is anything you are concerned about. So, stay safe, stay in touch and look after yourselves.

Lou Grimley

Character strengths at GHS

Thank you for all your feedback before the Christmas Holidays. 

Your responses show that Character Strength is something that is being encouraged. Many of you used words like ‘often’ and ‘frequently’ when reflecting on when you refer to Character Strengths in lessons, whether on a daily or weekly basis. Now, back in lockdown, can we continue to remind all our students to show courage, take responsibility and value the community.  

The IT department summarised the way they encourage Character Strengths within lessons: 

“We regularly and intentionally emphasise the importance and the impact of showing Courage and Responsibility to our students as well as modelling to them what good character will look like in different situations. Students are challenged to think about their actions by reflecting on how they approached a specific situation.”

Our next step will be to decide on the next two Character Strengths we, as a staff body, believe are important to GHS. 

As always, if you have any examples of students showing excellent Character Strengths or examples of how your department is developing Character Strengths please share.

Noble and Andrea