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GHS Connect #12 Monday 4th December

Mia's notes

I hope everyone has managed to stay warm this weekend!

As we enter December, we will inevitably feel like we are on wind down towards the end of term, but it’s important to remember that everyone in schools - students, staff and parents alike - all benefit from consistency in terms of routines. Students will all behave and achieve better if core aspects of their day remain the same, whether that be in relation to the systems around punctuality and uniform, excellent teaching and learning and consistently high expectations. In my experience, this also then has a positive knock on in terms of our own wellbeing - if students are not ‘all over the place’, then we tend to have better days too.

Can I please therefore ask everyone to keep a strong focus on good teaching and learning and routines, right up until the very end of term. As soon as students start engaging in more passive things, we tend to start seeing problems. No videos, therefore, until the very last day please!

Many thanks for everything that has been going on that continues to make our school so great. Last week saw a continuation of mock exams, an athletics competition and netball match, Post 16 mock medicine and dentistry interviews, an apprenticeship talk, a geography trip, a parents’ attendance workshop, parent workshops with Ealing Safer Parenting Team, Year 10 sessions on mental health and Year 8 parents’ evening. Thank you to everyone who was involved in all of these things!  Thank you also to all pastoral staff involved in the respect, bullying and attitude to learning workshops that have taken place and been so successful.

Have a good week,

Mia

The week ahead

Monday
Normal Day

Tuesday
Whole Staff Meeting - 3.15pm - 3.45pm.

Wednesday
Briefing 8.15am in the library.
Action Research CPD 2 - 3.15pm - 4.15pm

Thursday
Normal Day

Friday
Normal Day

Notes
KS4 Mocks Week 1 (from Wed)
Year 11 Mock Exams (Ebacc)

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...  

Parental Engagement

This academic year, we continue to improve our methods of parental and community engagement. You will have noticed our parent connect biweekly newsletters, year group specific newsletters, questionnaires and then various in-face parental events. So far, our face to face parental engagement events have included:

• Expectations evenings.
• Parents’ evenings. Thank you to all year teams, Alan Masters and Sukey Mathadu.
• Year 7 tutor evening and social media training. Thank you to the Year 7 team, Kelly McCarthy and Jess Humphries.
• Somali parents coffee morning. Thank you to Fuad Mohamed.
• Ealing safer parenting workshops to support parents with children who have additional needs. – Thank you to Monika Sierkowska.
• A ‘helping your Y11 child to prepare for exams’ workshop.’ Thank you to Amandip Johal, Jeremy Jones and Allison John.

As always, we welcome feedback from staff and would like to know if anyone can suggest or host additional training/ workshop sessions. Parental engagement is a school improvement priority, and we will continue to improve throughout the year and the years to come. I would like to offer an extended thank you to every member of staff who has been involved in one of the events above and to those members of staff who dedicate the time to write a post card or phone home. 

Phoebe

Inclusion Updates

CP Updates 

Thank you so much to all staff using CPOMS, it's great to have all information centrally and recorded in one place. Just a reminder to do the following: 

• Please make sure that if you are writing an incident on CPOMS- to alert the appropriate teams (this can be found at the bottom of the page).  If teams are not alerted, information may not be followed up. 
• Please also continue to add student names as initials to the platform.

Mental Health Updates 

Following up on Niloo’s messages this week in briefing.  Here are some posters focussing on mental well-being and anxiety.  Just a reminder to look at Stem 4 https://stem4.org.uk/ for additional advice and support. .

Inclusion Heroes:  

A huge thank you to the Teaching Assistants.  Their enthusiasm and support in leading form groups and offering assistance on the morning when the A40 was closed was immensely helpful.   

Gurvinder