Newsletters

GHS Connect #3 Monday 25 September

Mia's notes

I hope it’s been a great weekend for everyone.

A big shout again to WIll and the media team for such an impressive start to the year with the Media Awards evening.  Thank you also to everyone who has already run a trip and to Kathy and the team who are busy with D of E preparations. On a more academic front, many thanks to everyone who has supported the launch of Studio 11 and Key Stage 3 Study Space - it’s great to have these things started.

Now that term is fully underway, we will be starting some department learning walks with SLT accompanying HODs. As ever, please don’t be concerned by this. This is just an opportunity for us to look at the great practice that is going on and share this amongst ourselves as part of our priority to better evaluate and share what we do well as a school. The focus will be on ABC.

Have a good week, everyone.

Mia

The week ahead

Monday
Normal Day

Tuesday
Department Time - 3.15pm - 4.30pm
KS3 & 4 TLR Holder meetings - 3.30pm - 4.30pm

Wednesday
Briefing - 8.15 am in the library

Thursday
Normal Day

Friday
Normal Day

Notes
Year 13 Mock Exams all week.

Behaviour for Learning Update

Punctuality 

Thank you to everyone for supporting our push on punctuality. Feedback from HoDs was overwhelmingly positive about the bells system and the way this has created a calmer and more focused start to lessons, with improved punctuality! Thank you for your patience with some early snags with the system; we are working hard to get these remedied. 

Remember:  

L - late to lesson P1, P3 = Lunchtime detention on the same day 

L - late to lesson P5 = Lunchtime detention the following day 

Uniform 

Thank you to all staff for relentlessly challenging and following up on students’ uniform infractions. Jayne is doing a brilliant job of getting uniforms for students who need it. Please continue to monitor uniforms when doing 50/50 at the start of lessons and when on Duty. Please keep logging any uniform infringements and the year teams will continue to monitor this for persistent uniform issues. 

Respect 

The low-level disruption strategies and Charlie Taylor’s checklist can be found on the behaviour section of the VLE here: 

You can also find the completed communication strategies document and the intrinsic motivation ideas that we collated from staff after the September CPD session in the hall. Please use these resources as you get to know your classes and utilise the data available to you (e.g. SEND, reading ages, PP, EAL and so on). 

Red Card Protocol 

Thank you to everyone for embracing supporting our students by using life before caution. Please remember to PIP (praise in public) and RIP (reprimand in private). Should you need to send a student to a red card room, please make sure they arrive by sending a sensible student to accompany them or emailing the red card room teacher. Also, please make sure that the red-carded student has sufficient work that they can access for the duration of the lesson.  

Behaviour Working Party 

We would like to open up the behaviour working party to all staff who wish to input and reflect on how things are going. The first one will take place on Thursday lunchtime on 5th October. More details will follow about this on the VLE nearer the time. 

Mark

Learning and teaching: Embedding Excellence

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

Kathryn Thomas using mini whiteboards to check the basics before introducing more complex ideas with Year 8.

Resource of the Week.

Student Engagement and Motivation

Have you tried using a ‘gamified activity’ in your lessons this term? To retrieve information? Or to motivate students?  Here is a template to adapt for ‘Connect Four’.  Liz Ayres uses this template to get students to create a sentence using the words in the circle to claim it.  This could be completed in teams too.  A good way to encourage students to use specific vocabulary in context. 

Please download the resource and adapt as appropriate. Enjoy!

Inclusion Updates

Pastoral Support Workers  
Just a note to say that coverage of PSWs is currently low; we are recruiting and should be back up and running with a full team shortly.??A huge thank you to Tevin and Jesse who have been scooping up students from all year groups during this time. 

Mental Health  

Youth Mental Health Day was celebrated on the 19th of September 23. A huge thank you to Niloo who has shared form tutor resources and organised assemblies to deliver key messages to students. The theme for 2023 is #BeBrave 

To support staff and student mental health well-being, Niloo is running a drop in for students on Tuesday lunch times and for staff on Tuesday after school. Please pop in and guide students to Niloo if you have any concerns. 

Please can we also ask all staff to complete this Well-being Survey. This only takes a few minutes but will really help guide actions for this year. 

Counselling services are now up and running for students.

CPOMS 

If you are having trouble logging in, drop in to see Monika Sierkowska in AF20 or email her on msierkowska@greenford.ealing.sch.uk to get support with this.

• A huge thank you to all those logging concerns and actions on CPOMS. The child protection email is no longer working.
• Please include CP team in all incidents reported on CPOMS
• Please can you also write student names in initials, as often external agencies will ask to see this information.

Gurvinder