Newsletters

From the Head

It was a busy one last week with Open Evening and INSET day and everything else that was thrown into the mix in between! Thank you to everyone who did such a sterling job of showing our parents, governors and community what an amazing school we have. Thank you to Pam, Dipesh, Amandip, Jack, Josh, Neeraj and Tina who did so much of the background work leading up to the event, and Dan and Maddie for preparing our excellent student musicians and speakers. Thank you also to the KS3 Co-ordinators who did so much work on displays and everyone else who worked so hard to make the classrooms and corridors look so fantastic. Huge thanks to departments who invited so many guests into their classrooms - the work and activities showed exactly what a great school we are - see ‘Out and About’ for a few snippets.

Two ‘firsts’

I’ve had the pleasure of undertaking my first Hot Chocolate Friday with Bradley Mondiwa, Priya Nayyar and Shardae Baldeo-Sobah. It was lovely to hear how much they appreciated the relationships with their teachers, how their teachers had given them confidence, how organised they thought the school was and how supportive the staff were. They nominated Shirley, Allison, Ravneet, Richard and Jen as staff they especially wanted to thank!

My other ‘first’ was meeting Head Boy Asmit and Deputy Head Girl Amy. Both spent an animated 20 minutes telling me all about their distributed leadership model that they are bringing in for the JLT. It occurred to me that while Asmit and Amy are, of course, great leaders in themselves, so much of how they see their role will have been influenced by the modelling that they see every day by their teachers. We really do all have such a positive impact on young people’s lives - a point worth remembering as we start to enter the darker days of the Autumn term…

Have a great week everyone.

Mia

Learning and Teaching

A round up of all the great learning and teaching strategies we’ve noticed being used around school this week….

Spotted!

> Aansa Ali demonstrating the challenges of international trade to year 8 with an interactive group activity that really had students engaged.

> Annji Kinoshita-Bashforth creating a knowledge organiser with her year 13 Literature class: collating key words, quotations, critics’ interpretations on Othello and Iago’s relationship in Othello.  Then making them learn the ‘knowledge’ for a test the following week.

> Peter Mather foregrounding the importance of understanding subject specific vocabulary with his year 8 Geography class.
 

Have you tried…. recall and retrieval

In 2006, researchers from Washington University* conducted a study into the impact of different revision strategies. The study found that students incorrectly believe that just re-reading notes is a better strategy compared to more active methods of retrieval practice (such as quizzing and self-testing) which actually lead to more successful outcomes.  

Over the last year, different subject areas at GHS have been working on supporting students with recall and retrieval practice.  As spaced practice is much more effective than last minute cramming, it’s worth getting students going early with revision activities and it is an ideal homework activity.

*Roediger and Karpike, 2006, Psychological Science

In focus: i-Block 

The year has started off really positively in the i-Block with the first month back both challenging and exciting. The routines are established and appear to be working well and staff have been fantastic at meet and greets, which makes such a difference. The departments/members of staff that have really stood out for us, include:

- KS3 Science teachers are always at their door smiling and waiting to welcome their students.

- The Maths department have been fantastic in supporting all of the rules of the i-Block.

- The books in English are outstanding (again).

- The Y7 & 8 tutors who come to welcome and collect their tutees every morning, rain or shine!

- Richard always welcomes every student and puts his hand on their shoulder.

- Monica Siek shakes every single Y7 & 8 students hand as they go up to the first floor, that is 600 handshakes – impressive!

- Ena has created a lovely atmosphere in her form 7G1. Walking into the room is a treat for any visitor as you will not only get a welcome, but also a lovely question about how you are today. They are so respectful, all seem so happy to be there and it’s just a lovely, calm start to everyone’s day. I would encourage anyone to pop in and have a look!

- Dipa has created an amazing gratitude journal for her tutees and they reflect once a week about what they are grateful for

This week's lessons

Having been to some lessons this week, we just wanted to say well done and thank you to:

- Nadia and Ayan for wonderful lessons that stretched the students as well as supporting them to complete some complex tasks

- Naomi and Ellie for teaching Physics in a really engaging yet accessible way

- Neha, Sanna and Anneka for supporting their students so well with some difficult topics in Maths

A special thank you to Monika and Sarah for managing the reception area so efficiently and with so much warmth. We would also like to say thank you to the i-Block team:  Niloo, Josh, Suzanne, Shem, Bal, David, Ena and Monika Siek for being so proactive in supporting both staff & students.

Noble, Dipesh & Amandip
 

In focus: Mental health

Please take a moment to remind students of the key messages from last week’s assembly - be aware of the health needs of others, especially mental health.

Coming up...

Tuesday 8 October: Tuesday meetings

Department-focused CPD 3.15pm - 4.30pm:

In response to the renewed emphasis nationally on the importance of subject knowledge, pedagogical knowledge AND staff feedback suggesting that we need more subject-specific training events, we are dedicating the CPD time this week to departments. Thanks to all those colleagues across school who are developing exciting and interesting bespoke training sessions. Please do give us some feedback on this and how it works in your teams!

Department time: 4.30pm - 5.15pm (input KS4 interims)

Thursday 10 October: KS4 interim deadline