Newsletters

GHS Connect #3 Tuesday 20 September

Mia's notes

I hope everyone had a good long weekend.

The next couple of weeks will be jam packed for me, meeting with HODs and TLR holders to discuss exam results. These meetings are always a really good opportunity to hear about our plans for raising achievement, and I want to thank everyone for all that they are already doing to ensure the best strategies for this year’s Year 11s and Year 13s.

Last week saw us running a series of Expectations Evenings, which all had an excellent turnout. Thank you to everyone who was involved in these. Thank you also to everyone who has been so active at break, lunch and in the corridors. It really makes a difference. A reminder, that if you are stationed to go to a block at the end of break or lunch, please ensure that you get there before the students arrive.

Thank you to everyone who has nominated a ‘bright spot’ to me. The idea behind this is that we will share 2 or 3 each week in Connect, so if you have already nominated someone, and you don’t see the name mentioned in the section below, don’t worry - it will appear later! Please keep the nominations coming for anything that has brightened your day. The first 'Bright Spots' is below.

Finally, from me, look out for a couple of roles that will be coming up - ones we didn’t have time to advertise in the Summer. They will be advertised on the VLE as normal.

Have a great week everyone,

Mia

The week ahead

Monday
Bank holiday

Tuesday
Meeting: Department time 3.15pm - 4.30pm

Wednesday 
No meeting

Thursday
PSHCE P1: resources here. 

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... 

Sonia Yamoah circulating the room to check on students and taking a bright orange felt pen to ‘live mark’. Students loved getting a ‘Miss Yamoah is proud of you’ stamp. 

Learning and teaching: drawing the class back

This week I was reminded of the importance of knowing when to draw the class back together if a number of students cannot access the task set. When circulating to check students have understood, we can sometimes fall into the trap of re-explaining repeatedly to different students when really what is needed is some more input from the teacher. Melanie Rosen in DT did this brilliantly last week. On realising that some students were finding it difficult to access the 2D design software (picture below), she drew those students back together and gave them a further demo so they could access the task. All students were then able continue their design work independently.

Kelly

Bright Spots

A new section for your shout outs - send yours in to Mia.

Allison John and Angela Thomas
Allison and Angela have been nominated by Niloo Adhami for all the support they gave her during her time away last year. Niloo wants to thank Angela for brightening her days through wellbeing check-ins throughout the day, every day, and for visiting her at home and for picking up work in her absence. 

She also wants to thank Allison for her daily prayers and wellbeing check ins and for keeping her in the loop with all she was missing in school. 

In Niloo’s own words, “these guys reached out to me every day, rain, or shine, and with crazy busy days, they never failed to check in with me.”

Shaun Channer
Shaun has been nominated by Malaika Hussain who supports him in lessons. Malaika has nominated Shaun because he is a hardworking and caring teacher who keeps his lessons interesting and fun for the students. He is popular with the students (everyone knows him!) and the students are always telling members of staff and other students how much they enjoy his lessons. He always checks in with students in and out of the lesson, as well as helping them with anything they need. Shaun is always there to support and cheer both students and staff up! 

In Malaika’s own words, “we should celebrate and appreciate how much Shaun does for the school and the students from the big things to the daily little ones that make a difference.”

Thank you Angela, Allison and Shaun, and thank you to Niloo and Malaika for nominating! :)

PP Boys

As a school we do tremendously well with our PP boys, however there is still some work to do. Now, that we have all had some time to get to know our classes, please can we ask you to do the following for the PP boys in your classes:

• Boys learn best when they feel cared about, safe and valued.
• Boys need thinking time to process.
• Boys needs words as tools to talk about academic learning and feelings.
• Boys need structure and help with organisation.
• Boys need praise and positivity.
• Boys need a mentor/role-model.
• Transparent curriculum which has purpose and shows representations of them.

Thank you for everything you do with our vulnerable cohorts!

Jess 

Clubs and societies

Great to see Chess Club up and running in the Library - every Thursday after school:

Inclusion Heroes!

This week’s award goes to all the Year Teams and staff who held or took part in one of the many Expectations Evenings that have been held over the last couple of weeks. They were really well attended, and we’ve had some great feedback, so a huge thank you to everyone who stayed late on those evenings and helped out in so many different ways.