Newsletters

From the Head

Last week brought some challenges - a few more behaviour problems and CP issues than we would hope for, a number of reintegration meetings, a handful of fixed term exclusion letters signed.... This, along with a meeting with primary colleagues about the crisis in teacher recruitment, an announcement about a general election (what next?!) and the darker evenings, means that things can start to feel a bit miserable. Thankfully, there’s enough positivity around school to keep us all smiling! A few highlights for me last week included:

> Watching our highly skilled pastoral and behaviour teams deal with said challenges above with the utmost professionalism.

> Observing the commitment, empathy and friendliness displayed by our Year 7 tutor and wider i-block team at Meet the Tutors evening last Thursday.

> Witnessing Shem Parry teaching the science of magnets in a way that made Year 7 come alive with enthusiasm for learning (right).

> Being reminded by Will of our moral purpose and how well we seem to constantly achieve it. Following a survey of his Year 13 form, Will was struck that NONE of the tutor group had parents who had gone to university. This probably applies to many of our students, and yet we get so many of them there, year after year.

> Scrolling through our Twitter feed to see the full complement of photos from our recent trips abroad along with Georgia’s lovely snaps of student artwork. See ‘Out and About’ for more.

> Observing Joe Wilcox playing table tennis with Year 7 just for fun!

This week brings our first round of PPEs this year. Thank you in advance for the invigilation, the preparation, the breakfast revision sessions, and of course the marking.

Have a lovely (and hopefully, positive) week!

Mia

Learning and Teaching

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

Spotted!

Four this week... just too many great examples of L&T to leave anyone out! Plus a focus on the RE department:

> Phil Crampton making sure that his students knew the basic principles of direct proportion before building up to inverse proportion - a very clear learning journey for all.

> Joe Wilcox using questioning strategies such as ‘cold calling’ and ‘wait time’ to get the best out of his students. 

> Trisha Soneji creating a safe environment for students, enabling them to feel like they can contribute.

> Reena Bharadva using the visualizer to support students in developing model answers for their exam. 

Mint Class: part two

Last week, we focused on the additional SEN information that is now available on Mint Class (currently Y7 and Y11, Y8-10 following soon!)

But did you know that Mint can do a lot more than just seating plans?

> You can email all the teachers of a student.

> You can see the reading age, current grades and target grades for your whole class.

> You can get a quick snapshot of who is SEN + what learning need they have.

> You can get detailed SEN info + strategies for Y7 and Y11 (others coming soon)

> There is a classroom timer

> There is a random name generator

> You can colour tag your students (e.g. tag a key cohort, or highlight students that owe you h/w)

> You can link your form to your account and view them like any other class.

> You can see leader boards for achievement + behaviour points, top reasons for BP, Girls vs Boys etc. 

Clare Secombe

In focus: The benefits of scaffolding

Sometimes we think of a scaffold as a tool to use with SEN students but a great scaffold can work wonders for both low and high attainers, supporting low attainers to access and improve their work, and challenging higher attainers towards new concepts and ideas.  This very brief read in the TES gives a few pointers as to what makes a successful and unsuccessful scaffolding experience for students.

The two images below show two great examples of scaffolding in action for two very different purposes. 1) to stretch and develop initial ideas. 2) to hone in on the important requirements of the task. Thanks to Nargis Akhter and Rav Dhindsa for these.

Coming up...

This week - PPE1 for Maths and Science

Tuesday meetings 5 November

Department time 3.15pm

HOY/DHOY meeting 4.15pm

HODs meeting 4.15pm