GHS Connect #1 Monday 5 September
Mia's notes
A warm welcome back from me to our first full week.
Thank you all for your engagement and energy on the first two days back. It was lovely to come back to such a positive environment. Thank you to everyone who delivered the INSET, which I thought was great, and thank you to everyone for taking part. This week is all about new beginnings, resetting expectations, ensuring that students know we mean business, and being positive and upbeat about the year ahead. I’d ask you please to continue to be mindful about the key messages from last week:
- Knowing the challenges and knowing our students;
- Making it easier to overcome the challenges,
- Connecting.
Some great ways to start with this is to get those seating plans sorted where you can, ensure that you gather information about students from SIMS and check in on students’ work during the very first lesson. It’s amazing how much we can glean from a quick look at a short paragraph that students might have written (or tried to write!) during their first lessons with us.
Can I also please remind everyone to start as we mean to go on with Meet and Greet and End and Send? As I said in my talk, this is non-negotiable this year, and we will expect to see everyone standing at the door being present.
Another key thing to remember is the changes to break and lunchtime. Break will now run from 10:35am – 11am. The sheer number of students we have to get into lessons means that teachers will need to be ready at their doors at 11am. Some students may arrive a little later than this – it’s impossible for them all to arrive at the same time as there are so many trying to go into the buildings at once.
Lunchtime will run for 40 minutes from 12:40pm to 1:20pm. Again, teachers will need to be at their doors at 1:20pm. Please note that some students may be a little late, for the reasons given above.
- Year 7 teachers will need to escort students to the dining hall at 12:20pm and stay with them until 12:40pm.
- Year 8 teachers will need to escort students to the dining hall at 12:30pm and stay with them until 12:40pm.
Thank you all so much in anticipation of what I am sure will be an excellent start with all our students this week.
Mia
We will be holding our Y7 Induction Day on Monday 5th September. The induction programme consists of an array of activities such as – walking around the site, how to get organised, getting to know the forms and form tutors etc. We hope that this will give the Y7 cohort an opportunity to settle into school and make the transition from primary school as smooth as possible.
We have our first PSHCE lesson of the year on Thursday, P1 - Reena, who is now heading up this area, has already put an announcement out. You will 
There is no denying that you, as a staff body, have collectively set these young people up for future success. The real show-stopping figure is… *(insert drum roll)*… 218. That is the number of our students that will be starting university this Autumn… and the mix of courses & institutions couldn’t be broader and more beautiful… from Biomedical Engineering at Imperial to Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence at King’s to Fashion Marketing and Consumer Behaviour at University of the Arts, London. Highlights include: