Newsletters

GHS Connect #9 Monday 7 November

Mia's notes

I hope everyone has had a great weekend.

A few reminders from me first today. 

Punctuality - A reminder that if a child is more than 5 minutes late to your lesson after break or lunch, they should be marked as L and have a department detention. This message will be conveyed to students in assembly and tutor time this week.

Lunchtimes - As from today, Year 7 will now be coming down to lunch at 12:30pm and Year 8 will be coming down at 12:35pm. Teachers should please continue to accompany them please. All students should now have their PIN for their lunch written in their planner. If any student does not know their PIN, they should see Tam Ashley or go to reception.

Year 8 Parents’ Evening - As explained in briefing, we will be running this as a hybrid model with some in person appointments and some online ones. Andrea Hetherington will be giving more information about this shortly in terms of logistics etc. I realise that this is a departure from the full online version that we have had in the last couple of years, but it is important that we allow those members of our community who wish to come into school to do so. For many of our parents, it will be the only opportunity they get to come in and talk to staff about their child. This should also help with parental engagement and parental relations - having an in-person conversation can help to build trust and support, and can often lead to a much better relationship if there are issues with a child at a later date, as we then have parents on our side. Thank you in advance for your support with this.

Finally, I look forward to meeting with those new staff, who have been emailed by Amandip, for coffee on Tuesday to get to know you better and to discuss what has gone well since you’ve joined GHS, and what else we might improve.  ECTs and Teach 1st will have a similar session later in the term, and more details on this will follow.

Mia

The week ahead

Monday
Normal day

Tuesday
Department time 3.15pm - 4.30pm (note: no meeting for Year 7 tutors)

Wednesday 
HOYs meeting; HODs meeting; teacher planning & marking time 3.15pm - 4.15pm

Thursday
Year 7 Tutor Evening 4pm - 6.30pm
Year 12 Interim deadline 

Friday
Normal day

Notes
Year 11 MFL speaking exams all week - details on VLE here
Year 12 Interim data collection

Learning and teaching: Spotted KS3 special

A round up of some of the great learning and teaching strategies we’ve noticed being used around school recently... This week, a particular focus on KS3 - thanks to Amandeep, Harpal & Ramya for sharing.

Learning and teaching: KS3 focus

The first half term provided our KS3 students with an excellent learning experience throughout the curriculum. It has been lovely seeing staff implementing the 3 things we were focussing on for KS3 lessons:

1. Engaging starts to hook students into the lesson 
Remember we only get one start to our lessons, make it as engaging as possible. You could try using the following: visuals, mini whiteboards, stories, discussions, videos, extracts to read.

2. Consider the use of group work throughout units of work
Remember the benefits of group work:     

• Students learn how to plan and manage their time.
• Exposes them to a wide variety of perspectives and ideas. 
• Learn how to work with others.
• Improve their social and communication skills.
• Giving and receiving feedback from peers.
• Students can utilise strengths of each member of the group to give specific roles within the task.

3. Ensuring homework is meaningful and accessible for students
Some top tips for meaningful homework:

• Ensure it fits in with their learning journey.
• Start the homework in lesson where possible to resolve any access issues.
• If using online platforms for the first time, use lesson time to get the whole class logged on and familiar with the platform. 
• Ensure homework has been set on SMHW.

Amandeep, Harpal & Ramya 

Bright Spots

Year 9 Form Tutors, nominated by Rav Dhindsa.

A group bright spot this week sent in by Rav who wants to say a massive thank you to Year 9 form tutors for their amazing effort on their form boards! Thank you to Pam Lewis, Abdullah Khan, Scott McCreath, Marike Littlefair, Sylvia Harbonnier, Serena Hayes, Phoebe Henderson-Barnes, Georgia Pawelko, Naz Tarafdar, Dan Oag, Danielle Walsh, Will Hirtzel and Elizabeth Ayres: we really appreciate the effort you have all put into instilling such creative ideas with your form. They are very lucky to have you all!

Harpal Sagoo, nominated by Phoebe Henderson-Barnes.

Phoebe simply wanted to say thank you to Harpal for being such a fantastic team player! Thanks Harpal!!

School calendar

If you have a school event or announcement that needs adding to the calendar, please send it to Manpreet in the Helpdesk team (mjass@greenford.ealing.sch.uk) 

We have two calendars:

Staff calendar on VLE
This is for internal events, deadlines, meetings etc.

External calendar on school website
This is for events that parents, students or visitors to the school need to know about.

Send your events to Manpreet to keep the calendar as up-to-date and useful as possible to the whole school community.

Digital Learning – Top Tips & Ideas Part 1

The last couple of years have seen us leap forward in our use of all things digital to support students' learning, as well as adapt our approaches to many aspects of our work.

Ably supported by the expertise of Ramya, Harpal and Jacob, I am currently working on a way of pulling all this together into a coherent strategy for Digital Learning at GHS. 

There will be more on this as it develops, but to kick things off, here is part 1 of a list of Digital Learning ‘Top Tips’ from Ramya, Jacob, Harpal from their own experiences, as well as from observations of the best practice of others. Part 2 will follow next week.

• Seems obvious, but take time for the basics, it’ll pay off in the end! Spend lesson time showing students how to locate things or log in to software/websites (either on the IWB or using laptops). And make sure they’re easy to remember! You can book out the laptops or a computer room to use the opportunity to log into and demonstrate various online platforms.
• Similarly, Laptop lessons using Google docs allows for ongoing formative assessment throughout the lesson.
• Do you have access to a tablet? These can be wirelessly connected to the Active panels, which then allow the teacher to teach from anywhere in the classroom. JAF, CRM, LAL, SEO and ELS, amongst others, use this regularly in lessons.
• There are cameras available that can be used to film yourself teaching a lesson (or part of a lesson). This can then be uploaded to Google Classroom and linked to the relevant work for students to access for revision or a reminder. This will also help those who may have missed a lesson to catch up.
• MINT class has quite a lot of functionality for teachers. Groups are much easier to separate on MINT than SIMS and you automatically see additional data. Random name generators etc.
• SMHW can give you an easily accessed report of who in your classes has logged in and when (and which parents!), very useful in conversations on the phone.

Paul Manby

KS3 update

We had a brilliant half term with KS3 students. They seemed to have settled down well. Just a reminder about the following:

• Meet/greet and end/send
• Use STARS during the lesson, especially when you can see a little bit of fidgeting. Some students do find it hard to sit still, so gentle reminders of STARS is a great way to just re-focus them.
• Try and start homework in lessons so there is a clear expectation and students have the opportunity to ask any questions
• Year 7s have purple folders for their homework - these seem to be used really well.

What’s new this half term:

Laptop Trolleys
As mentioned in briefing, we have a new system for booking the laptops in I Block to make it easier for staff to access them. You can find it on the VLE under the Operations menu. There is a short video that Manpreet has kindly put together, so you know how to book the laptops. Here are a few things to be mindful of:

• Both trolleys (ground floor and first floor) must be kept on their respective floors
• Staff must book laptops via the system up to 24hrs on the day so that their request is approved
• Trolleys must be returned to their base (first floor- staff workroom, ground floor-staff room)
• Keys to be collected and returned to Sarah Packman

KS3 Study Space
This half term is the start of the new KS3 Study Space.

This is a space for all KS3 students who need somewhere quiet to work, have no access to devices (or may have to share) or just need some guidance on their homework.

We have named this 'KS3 Study Space' so that this doesn't feel obligatory or interferes with the compulsory homework clubs that may be running based on any concerns highlighted via interims.

The aim is to be proactive and encourage students to do the same so that they take ownership over their homework, ask for help and get support that they need.

This will be run by a team of post-16 volunteers Monday- Thursday (3:10pm-4:10pm) in CG13 (see images below). I have run an induction with the post 16 students, so they are aware of the expectations. Thanks to Kristal and Richard for their support on this. The students have been really engaged.

Thank you to all KS3 form tutors who have promoted this with their tutees.

Inclusion Heroes!

This week’s Inclusion Hero is Jo Cole – as part of our Anti-Bullying Strategy, we are going to start running workshops with key students, and Jo has put together a module of work for this, spending hours on the resources which are bound to make a big difference to both the perpetrators and the victims of bullying. Thank you, Jo!

Lou

Mental health: Stress awareness

Following on from National Stress Awareness Day last Wednesday, this week is International Stress Awareness Week.

This is a major annual event focusing on stress management and campaigns against the stigma associated with stress and mental health issues. It was created in 2018 to raise awareness about stress prevention.

What is stress
Stress is the body’s way of responding to excessive, or too many pressures and when this becomes overwhelming stress occurs, as the body experiences the fight or flight or stress response. This means that stress is not good for you and is an unhealthy state of body or mind or both.

7 Positives for A Better Life

1. Change the thought – Change the outcome (reprogramming your brain by replacing an unhelpful negative thought or belief with a new positive one)
2. Self-belief starts with you (empowering way of taking more control in your life, do something fun or caring for yourself today!)
3. Don’t just do what you did last year (Repeating what you always do will bring you the same outcome, so if you didn’t like all that happened last year make plans & set new goals)
4. Deal with difficult decisions now, not late (Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today, prioritise & do the difficult tasks first)
5. Find reasons to say “yes”(I would love to but….” here comes the negative reason why you can’t! It can be a positive experience to just say yes)
6. Renegotiate (Look at learning to develop & use your assertive skills)
7. Flip it! (There are always two sides to every situation, sometimes more)

ISMA
The International Stress Management Association [ISMA] is a registered charity and the lead professional body for workplace and personal Stress Management, Well-being and Performance. Their theme for this year is Working Together to Build Resilience and Reduce Stress. 

For further information on the above and much more, please visit www.isma.org.uk

Niloo