Newsletters

GHS Connect #2 Monday 12 September

Mia's notes

I hope everyone has had a good weekend.

I thought that last week was a very successful start to term. I know that the first week or so always feels like a bit of a honeymoon but 4 key things really struck me as making a massive difference:-

1. Everyone was out and about on duty, in place and on time.
2. The new capacity in the pastoral teams already feels very significant and impactful.
3. Meet and Greet was, in the main, strong. A reminder that this is non-negotiable please.
4. Learning and teaching in the classroom was exemplary.

If we can go just some way to managing this all of the time, there is no reason why the school can’t feel calm, positive and productive all of the time. Thank you all for working as such a great team and for ensuring we have had such a positive start!

Obviously, we have had significant and sad news as a country, but I know that everyone will have different feelings and reactions to the death of Queen Elizabeth II.  Lou asked me to share the following information which came through from our counselling team, which I thought was helpful. 

When a significant figure dies and the country goes into national mourning our own sense of grief and loss may be triggered.   If you have been impacted by this news or would like some help talking to your child about death please contact Joanne Morgan, our Therapeutic Lead in School, on Tel:  07785-798759.

On an operational level, the DfE has now confirmed that schools will be closed on Monday 19th September, for the bank holiday that was agreed this weekend. I will write to parents with this information today.

Finally, from me, please don’t forget to bring Year 7 and 8 down to lunch if you are teaching them P4 at 12:20pm and 12:30pm respectively.  Please do not bring Year 8 down before this time, as the Year 7s will still be eating.

Have a great week and thank you again for all that you are doing,

Mia

The week ahead

Monday
Normal day

Tuesday
Meeting: Department time 3.15pm - 4.30pm
Meeting: TLR holder meetings 3.30pm - 4.30pm
Y8 Expectations Evening 5:30pm – 6:15pm

Wednesday 
No meeting
Y12 Expectations Evening 5:30pm – 6:15pm

Thursday
Y9 Expectations Evening 5.30pm - 6.30pm

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... 

• Katharine Peters has completed all her Mint seating plans and has used the data to ensure she can check in easily with students who might struggle to access tasks.

Learning and teaching: MINT Class

Thank you to everyone who has already completed their seating plans on MINT Class for all of their lessons. Please remember that the deadline for these to be completed is Friday 16th September. 

Below, Jacob reminds us how to copy seating plans so that all our classes are filled in. 

MINT: Linking classes

Remember that every one of your lessons needs to have a seating plan. This means that if you teach a double lesson you will need to copy the seating plan across into the second period. Fortunately there is an easy method to do this across multiple lessons, it will also automatically update your classes whenever you change the seating plan.

1. Select the class that you have made a seating plan for and want to copy and then click “Manage Links”:

2. Then select the green button “Make the current lesson a MASTER” 

3. Finally select all the classes that you want to copy the lesson into. They will automatically update - there is no need to save anything!

    
Checking if you are missing any seating plans

You can quickly check if you have done every seating plan by going to your full timetable (click “Full Timetable” or select the “Timetable” tab in your dashboard).

Every lesson that has a seating plan will have a little green arrow in the top right corner.

Post-16: Class of 2024

The current, vital statistics read as:
 
Total student enrolled: 246
Internal : 155 (63%)
External: 91 (37%)
 
On the enrolment front, maths and the sciences have recruited large numbers... Computer science is surging up the leader board with unprecedented demand this year… But the Oscar for most in demand has to go to… Team Psychology! In keeping with an explosion in popularity at undergrad level, we are seeing A-Level Psychology – alongside Crocs – emerging as the must have item of 2022. 
 
BTEC numbers continue to be very healthy with one quarter of all P16 students that we enrolled studying one or more BTECs. 
 
Please do bear with us for the next week or so as timetable requests/ course switches (and every other query that you could possibly imagine) are ironed out. We will work to make sure that it is the best fit for both you and the students enrolled but I must pre-warn that class lists will be somewhat fluid for the next few days. 
 
If you have any issues, please email us (pastoralteam12@greenford.ealing.sch.uk) or, better still, come up & visit us on the top of B Block!

Richard

Behaviour for Learning: 

We hope you have enjoyed the first week back teaching! Just a few reminders from the CPD so that we have consistency across the school:

• Everyone must do 50/50 meet and greet at the start of each lesson and at the end of their lesson with end and send.
• Use the data on MINT seating plans so you really get to know your students:
• Remember to focus on life before a caution e.g., ABC strategies, reading strategies, a flyby comment to prompt a student to correct their behaviour
• When needed, follow the behaviour system: caution, yellow card, red card - follow-up yellow and red cards with corrective conversations (see the prompt sheet from the training)
• Please don't send students to wait in the corridor for you to speak to them - RIP and PIP!
• Frame behaviour conversations around our three school rules: ready, respectful, and safe.
• Always focus on the positives (more carrot than stick) e.g., positive postcards and phone calls home
• Appear calm and, when needed, use the de-escalation strategies shared in our training
• Lastly, please remember the red lines for patrol. These are – Damage to school property; Dangerous behaviour that puts students or staff at risk; Fighting; Swearing at staff; Leaving the lesson without permission; Refusing to go to the Red Card room or misbehaviour in the Red Card room. 
• Patrol should also be called for either Medical Emergency or Medical Assistance. 

All students have now had expectations assemblies by the Headteacher, so they know what we expect in terms of behaviour in school and around our local community. Further behaviour notices and expectations will be delivered to students in assemblies next week. We know that some of our students can be challenging and our increased capacity in our pastoral teams will be working hard to support you and our students to improve behaviour across the school. Consistency is the key!

 As soon as we have a time and place for the behaviour for learning fortnightly surgery, we will put a VLE announcement out. All staff will be welcome. In the meantime, please don't hesitate to get in touch with both/either of us.

Mark and Jo

Inclusion Heroes!

Our Inclusion Heroes this week are all of Team Year 7 and Team Year 12 for going out of their way to welcome our new students on Monday so that they were ready to be part of the community when everyone else got back on Tuesday. A great start!