Newsletters

GHS Connect #27 Monday 24 April

Mia's notes

Welcome back to an (almost) full week! I hope that all of our colleagues who have been celebrating Eid had a wonderful time over the weekend.

As I said in briefing last week, we are going to have a number of broken weeks coming up which might cause some anxiety and disruption for some students. Please be aware of this as we get through these crucial weeks especially for Year 11 and Year 13.

With a number of missing lessons coming up, it is also going to be even more important to ensure that there are plenty of opportunities for students to learn independently, so please ensure you are making good use of Google Classroom to share resources and SMHW to set independent learning tasks. This does not mean you have to set work on strike days, and it also does not mean you have to then do lots of marking. However, just uploading key lessons, quizzes, exam questions and resources and alerting students to them, will make a huge difference to our examination classes.

We had some great news from the MFL Spelling Bee Regional final towards the end of last term. From over 3000 year 7 students across London, Ruby Taylor, Heer Matha and Sofiia Jiric made it to the last 51 in the regional final at Rokeby High School in East London. A huge congratulations to Ruby, who not only made it to the final 4 students but WON the overall Regional competition for Spanish. She will compete in the National Final at Cambridge University in July with regional finalists from across the country. Well done and thank you to Elizabeth Ayres for her commitment to this initiative.

Thanks also to everyone who ran a trip in the last 2 weeks of term. There were so many that I will struggle to list them all here, but a massive thank you to everyone who gave up their time to do this, whether it was a reward, curriculum or just enrichment based trip, what a great experience our students are having here at GHS!

Have a great week,

Mia

The week ahead

Monday
Normal day.

Tuesday
Department Time 3.15pm - 4.30pm

Wednesday 
Briefing 8.15am.
Action Research CPD 3.15pm - 4.15pm

Thursday
NEU Strike - see VLE for further details

Friday
Normal Day

Notes
MFL speaking exams Tues, Wed, Fri

Learning and teaching: Spotted!

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

Learning and Teaching Reminder

On Wednesday after school, we’ll have our next Action Research CPD session. This session will focus on discussing the successes (and struggles!) of the teaching strategies we’ve been putting into place in our own classrooms so please re-familiarise yourself with your personal aims and come ready to share what you have learnt. 

The last session of the year (June) will be the popular carousel session. If you are interested in sharing what you have been working on this year with others please let your research lead know; it’s a great development opportunity and always much appreciated by colleagues! 

Year 9 Options

Last half term, the Year 9s followed a comprehensive programme of information, advice and guidance for their KS4 Options, that included twice-weekly presentations and activities during tutor time.

A big thank-you to Year 9 FTs for delivering this and for the additional support you provided on RA Day.

And another big thank-you to the HoDs and TLR-holders who produced up-to-date videos and course outlines for the website to inform students and their parents, which can be found here.

For those not aware, alongside English language, English literature, maths, double science and (in most cases) a foreign language most students will be able to select up to three more subjects.

You’ll see that there is a very wide range on offer, in keeping with our commitment to provide a broad and balanced curriculum, and it includes: art, business studies, child care, computer science, DT product design, DT food and nutrition, drama, economics, geography, history, ICT, media studies, music, photography, PE, psychology and religious education.

A small group of SEN students will be following an alternative pathway that includes English and maths functional skills and workskills, alongside one option choice – Gurvinder has been liaising with parents to explain our reasoning for this.

Students have received a link to on online form where they can select their three first choices along with two reserve choices and this needs to be completed by Tuesday 2/5.

So please support them over the next week as they make these important decisions!

Adam Bush

Post 16 International Day - Wednesday 26th April

On Wednesday, Post 16 students have arranged to celebrate a country that is dear to their hearts. A bit of light relief before we enter full exam season. It is a great opportunity for us to all recognise the wonderful diversity and cosmopolitan nature of our school community.

This is an event run by and only for Post 16 students (not to be confused with International Day for lower school students). We hope, however, that this event will bring smiles to the faces of many.
 

Bright Spots

A HUGE thank you and well done to Alan Masters for everything he does to ensure that so many aspects of the school run smoothly but in particular for the amazing work he did in the last two weeks before Easter.

Alan managed most of the administration, data, and communication to parents for Mock Results Day, RAD and the intervention sessions for Y11 & 13. All these crucial activities needed to take place before we broke up and as always Alan rose to the occasion. Alan always works highly effectively to have such a huge impact across the school but at the same time manages to do it in a calm and supportive way.

Inclusion Heroes

The first Inclusion Hero of the Summer Term goes to Sarah Williams for arranging a theatre visit on our first day back to support with staff wellbeing. 10 of us went to see Medea and although the subject matter was an emotional challenge, to go into the centre of London on a school night, and see some of our finest actors on the stage was a real privilege. Thank you, Sarah – it was a fab way to start the term!

Lou