Newsletters

GHS Connect #36 Monday 11 July

From the Head

It’s going to be a hot one at Sports Day. Thank you in advance for all of your support with this, and make sure you have plenty of water!

Huge thank yous to everyone who supported all of the amazing events last week. Special mention to Amanda, Will and Maya who worked so hard to ensure that Spelling Bee, The Media Awards and International Day were such a success. Of course, I know that they had lots of people supporting them too, so a massive thank you to everyone who was involved in everything. It was wonderful to return to a busy and active school, and see so many smiles on the students’ faces. It was also excellent to welcome Speakers for Schools back - thank you again Helen.

Congratulations to the following people who have been appointed to the following positions as from September. More interviews are to come this week….

• Ben Dupres and Harjit Bhullar (joining us from Featherstone) as Deputy Year Leaders.
• George Lanigan and Joe Wilcox as Boys’ Achievement Leaders
• Virginie as Deputy Head of Business and Economics.
• Reena as Faculty Leader
• Hebe as DHOY - Post 16.

You will recall that we undertook a consultation about reducing breaktime and extending lunchtime and staff were overwhelmingly in favour of this, so as of September, we will move to a 25 minute break, and a 40 minute lunch. We are also planning on having Year 7 come over to the dining hall for lunch and will give more info on this in September.

If you are doing a leaving speech for someone, don’t forget to get it done - just over one week to go until the end of term!!

Mia

Monday
Sports Day Years 7-9.

Tuesday
Meeting: Department time 3.15pm - 4.30pm.

Wednesday 
No staff meeting.
ECTs: ECF Module 6 Seminar 2 (ECTs only) - Online
GHS Summer party!

Thursday
Normal day.

Friday
Normal day.

Learning and Teaching

Spotted!

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

• Karen Brown using games for learning to engage her class and build their confidence in speaking. The students were having a great time and sounded fantastic when practising their newly learned vocabulary (below).

Learning and teaching

Check out the teaching and learning noticeboard in the staffroom. It’s now complete, with images of wonderful GHS teachers employing our Bounceback and ABC strategies. 

Kelly

Inclusion and Pastoral

Last full week! We are so nearly there…

There’s not too much to report on this week other than to say a big PSHCE thank you to everyone! We will be keeping the same model next year, but have looked carefully at the survey results to see how it can all be improved. I would also like to say a MASSIVE thank you to Keely for setting this up this curriculum from scratch and for being the driving force behind this now being embedded in our school ethos - you have been amazing!

As we come towards the end of any term, some students begin to feel anxious about the routine and safety net of school being removed and this can than manifest itself in a number of ways. As a result, the various teams who support with this will be even busier than usual so another big thank you in advance to Pastoral, Child Protection, Welfare, Learrning Support and Attendance. If you are concerned about a student, for whatever reason at all, please let us know. I will also be sending out some summer guidance and support for everyone via SMHW. 

Lastly, just to say that this will be the last week for most of our external professionals this academic year so a big thank you to everyone for letting students come in and out of lessons as this team have supported them in so many ways.

Have a good week, everyone, and enjoy Sports Day!

Lou 

Inclusion Heroes!

My Inclusion Hero this week has got to be Maya Popovic. And, we all know why. Thursday was just wonderful in so many ways - thank you for uplifting the whole school community, Maya!

Character strengths at GHS

Firstly, I want to celebrate Maria and many of our year 12s who have started to think about life after GHS and shown courage by attending open University days. 

As we approach the summer holidays, now is the time to celebrate the courage, community, compassion, responsibility and resilience of our students. Why not send home postcards to recognise their character strengths? 

If you need more postcards, please ask!

Andrea and Noble