Newsletters

GHS Connect #21 Monday 1 March

From the Head

Hi Everybody,

Myself and the rest of the SLT have been busy drawing up plans for a safe return to school. We have an added complication this time around; the small task of having to undertake around 6000 lateral flow tests in the next 2-3 weeks!

However, we are confident that we can achieve this and resume ‘normal’ life back in school quickly. I will be setting out detailed plans around the return to school once I have spoken to union reps this afternoon. I hope to be able to share plans with you tomorrow. We will then run a Google Meet session which will also provide opportunities for Q&A on Wednesday 3rd March at 11am. You can join the call at meet.google.com/qme-pgvv-ajx.

I won’t, therefore, give out lots of details now, but I will say that we are beginning the testing of students on Thursday and Friday of this week, which will ease everyone’s transition back into school in a far less stressful way. Teaching staff are obviously not expected to be involved in this and in the main, we are using agency staff to support us with this. A big thank you to our Covid testing lead team, Arshdeep Dang, Monika Siek and Katie Menia who have set up a whole range of safe and effective processes around testing. They have been doing a fantastic job.  

On Monday 8th March itself, we are also planning to give some lead in time to staff in the morning so that teachers are not straight back in the classroom on the first day back.  

Other key points to be aware of include our plans to suspend all live teaching as from Thursday this week, so that students who are being tested are not affected, and so that staff can have some time for planning ahead of this week, so please plan for using Google Classroom only as from Thursday. More detailed info will be up on the VLE tomorrow. 

On a totally different note I just want to share some more info from Hebe and Trish around National Careers Week 2021. They have put together 5 Easy Ways to Promote Careers this Week, some of which which I would urge you to try out:

1) If teaching a new skill, tell students why they will need this skill in the world of work eg. Trigonometry is helpful to engineers and architects when they design and build structures. 

2) Look out for our second episode of "Futures in 15", our series of inspirational careers interviews, and promote it to your classes. This week we feature an investment banker who talks about how students can get their foot in the door in the finance sector!

3) Encourage your tutees to engage with the National Careers Week posts on Google Classroom.

4) Try and incorporate a careers-based starter activity into one of your lessons. e.g. In Hebe's Year 10 English lesson last week students brainstormed careers that require good speech and language skills before continuing a live lesson on speeches.

5) Use a careers-based example in a lesson eg. If debating, start a debate about the gender pay gap or positive discrimination.

Have a lovely week everybody and try not to be too anxious about our return to school. I am confident that we will manage it smoothly and in a stress-free way, as much as that is possible!

Mia

Learning and Teaching

Spotted!

Do let us know if you hear or see any excellent remote teaching and learning in the last week before we're back in school...
 
> Ellie Roome, running a competition for year 7 historians where students design their own Coat of Arms.

> Marline Shaheen, determinedly motivating Maths GCSE Resit students and running live lessons each week, no matter how many attend. 

> Sabrina Thurairajah, supporting 11x3 brilliantly by breaking down complex problems and building their confidence in attempting higher paper questions. 

Learning and Teaching: Celebrate Effort!

It’s very easy to get caught up with all the worries about what students haven’t done over the last six weeks.  

However as we prepare to return to classroom teaching in school, perhaps consider how you might celebrate the hard work and effort that many students have been putting in since Christmas. Maybe some certificates for students as the MFL department have been doing throughout lockdown? Or a quiz/competition with some kind of reward when students return to school? Or just simply praising students publicly on your classroom stream or during a live lesson.  You’ll know what will work best in your subject!

Inclusion & Pastoral

I hope everyone survived the first week back and has enjoyed the beautiful sunshine!

Firstly, I want to say thank you to everyone for delivering last week’s PSHCE lesson and a big thank you to Christine for sending round a recorded presentation. It was an important message to get out to our students and Christine’s delivery made it even more resonant and accessible. Our next PSHCE lesson will be P5 on Friday 12th March and Keely will be posting details about that lesson very soon.

On the subject of PSHCE, I spoke to governors last week about starting our Relationships and Sex Education lessons in the Summer Term. These are now statutory and will be delivered through PSHCE - there will be some training sessions for those staff who would like some guidance on how best to run these lessons. Watch this space for information on dates and logistics, once we have finalised those details with the borough. 

I have also been talking to our Clinical Psychologist this week about the return to school and supporting both staff and students through this - I will be talking about this in Virtual Tutor this week for students and there will be some support materials coming through from our professionals over the next few weeks. If anyone is worried or concerned, either for any of your tutees or students in your classes, or are feeling anxious yourself, please do let me know or contact our school counsellor, Jo Morgan, on jmorgan111.307@lgflmail.org.

That’s it from me this week - enjoy the last week of WFH and look forward to seeing people in the flesh from 8th March onwards!

Lou Grimley

Character strengths at GHS

As we look to transition back into the classroom, we wanted to celebrate some examples of students showing our GHS Character Strengths during lockdown.  

Those who had the courage to turn on their cameras and share ideas in ‘live’ lessons.

Those who are checking in or helping others in the community to make sure they feel connected. 

Rav shared one example with me this week: Alaa Alnono called another student who was struggling to access live lessons. Alaa was able to translate in Arabic and help the student understand what he needed to do. 

Those who took the responsibility to complete their work and regularly engage with teachers. 

Here is one of our mini school students diligently working through a task set by their teacher:

Impressively, over 1000 postcards were sent home to celebrate those who are showing outstanding engagement:

The focus on Character is one way to help our students transition back into the classroom. They will need to show courage by coming into school from 8th March, value our GHS community and take responsibility for their actions/learning.  

If you spot any examples of Courage, Community and Responsibility, please share them with us. 

Noble and Andrea