Newsletters

GHS Connect #1 Monday 6 September

From the Head

Thank you for what felt like such a positive start back last week. Thank you to everyone who took part in all of the INSET, and thank you to everyone for all of the work that I know is already going on in departments. 

A couple of things from me. Please do push the ‘bounce back’ agenda with students and please remember to focus on some of the things that were mentioned in the INSET in relation to Teaching and Learning. The quality of learning in books, ‘Show My Homework’, scaffolding, modelling and questioning are all going to be important priorities this year.

We have had some issues with classlists; please bear with us while these are sorted out, and please be patient as we all adapt to students outside of zones, moving around freely. It will take them a bit of adjustment as well, inevitably. 

Please also note that, in this crucial year of ‘bounce back’, if you are under allocation on your timetable, you will be asked to undertake either ‘intervention’, a ‘support’ period, mentoring or similar. SLT will contact those who this applies to shortly.

Obviously, we don’t know what the next few weeks will bring in terms of Covid, with the school operating back as normal, but rest assured, we will react swiftly if we need to, should cases rise. Please help us to keep Covid out of the school by being sensible, and staying off, if you develop any symptoms. Get a PCR test straightaway and come back in if it comes back negative.

Have a great week!

Mia

Monday
P1 extended form time - hand out timetables

Tuesday
Meeting: Year team meeting (3.15pm - 4.30pm)
Year 11 Expectations Evening (5.30pm - 6.30pm)

Wednesday
Meeting: PSHCE drop in (optional)
Year 9 Expectations Evening (5.30pm - 6.15pm)

Thursday
P1 PSHCE lesson - resources here 

Friday
Normal day

Learning and Teaching

Spotted!

For those new to the school, each week in ‘Spotted!’ we celebrate good practice from around the school. It’s often HODs, Lead Practitioners and TLR holders who notice examples of brilliant teaching and learning but it doesn’t have to be. If you spot a colleague doing something amazing in the classroom, please snap a picture and send some brief details to Kelly at kmccarthy@greenford.ealing.sch.uk. 

Learning and Teaching: what we're focusing on

Thank you for bringing such positive energy to our training session on the first day back. After a couple of years of only giving messages about distancing and facemasks, it was joyful to hear colleagues chatting about learning and teaching. 

A reminder that the key areas we will be looking at developing this year are:

• Do Now Tasks and Prior Learning
• No ‘Opt-Out’ Questioning
• Closing the Lockdown Vocabulary Gap
• Scaffolding and Modelling
• Labelling homework with one of the four purposes: Essential Prep; Build Knowledge; Practise; Create.

Lastly, please make sure that your MINT Class seating plans are set up before you teach each class. A great deal of SEN information is now available on these plans which will support the scaffolding and modelling mentioned above and all of the ‘Life Before Caution’ tips Mark and Jo gave us last week. 

Kelly McCarthy

Inclusion Heroes!

We are going to have a weekly spot where we champion the pastoral and inclusion work going on across the school. This week’s Inclusion Heroes were all the staff who helped to welcome Year 7 on Friday and make their first day of big school such a success! Thank you for ensuring that this important academic stepping stone was such a positive one.

Greenford Pastoral

Welcome back to the Inclusion and Pastoral section of GHS Connect! I hope everyone had a lovely weekend and that you weren’t too shattered after the first few days back…

There was a lot of information to take in last week, so I will keep it brief today - just a few key things to remember:

1. Stick to the systems that Jo and Mark went through on Thursday;

2. Think back to Rich’s training on establishing a positive learning environment, before we get anywhere near issuing a caution;

3. Use Corrective Conversations where you need to;

4. Support you SEND students in the classroom with the strategies Caroline and Gurvinder talked you through;

5. Award Character Points, channelling Andrea and Nobes’ session!

Links to those presentations can be found here. 

Have a good week! 

Lou