Newsletters

GHS Connect #23 Monday 18th March

Mia's notes

It’s starting to feel as if we are on the ‘home straight’, as we head into our final 2 weeks of term - the fact that they are not quite 2 weeks will undoubtedly help!

Thank you to everyone for the excellent parents’ evening last week, and also for all of the planning that is going into Raising Achievement Day. 

We still continue our push on Year 8 and 9 behaviour. Myself, Amandip and Lou have spoken to every child who has engaged in foul language and rudeness to staff over the course of a week, and I’m pleased to say that each one has been reflective and responsive. We will continue to do this, so please continue to log any incidents.

This week, we will be interviewing for the Deputy Head in charge of Behaviour post, so thank you in advance for your understanding if I am not around much on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Have a wonderful week,

Mia

The week ahead

Monday
Normal Day

Tuesday
Year Team Meetings/Pastoral Time 3.15pm - 4.30pm
RAD Prep

Wednesday
Briefing 8.15am in the library.
Action Research CPD 3 3.15pm - 4.15pm

Thursday
Normal Day

Friday
Normal Day

Notes
Year 10 Interim 3 due

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...  

Whole School (Oracy CPD Carousel)

Back by popular demand, the GHS CPD carousel will run on Wednesday afternoon from 3.15-4.15pm. All teaching staff should attend. For those colleagues who haven’t taken part in this before, it’s like a mini teachmeet where teachers from across the school run short, 15-minute sessions to share learning and teaching ideas and approaches. This year’s CPD carousel will be centred around all things Oracy so that you can continue to use strategies to develop quality talk in your lessons. 

Colleagues will have the opportunity to visit two sessions.  All staff should head to the ground floor of D block at 3.15pm and sign into the first session they wish to attend.  This will be first come first served; once a room has 15 colleagues signed up, we would ask you to join a different session so that all our presenters have a lovely full audience. After 15 minutes, one of the L&T team will signal (with the loudhailer!) that it’s time to move to another session. This is the moment for sharp elbows to get yourself to the next session of your choice before it fills up.  Please sign in with initials as you enter.

Tea and coffee will be available beforehand in the lobby area of D block from 3pm.

The CPD carousel is always a fantastic celebration of pedagogy at GHS. Thank you in advance to all those who have planned a session and to colleagues for being supportive participants.

Amit

Inclusion Updates

SEN

Just a reminder to support our SEN students further, if you are showing a video in your lesson, please add the subtitles. This not only helps to improve students’ literacy, but also supports our students with a hearing impairment to follow the video. 

CP Updates

Financial Exploitation

Children and young people can be targets of financial exploitation. The popularity of online gaming and social media amongst school age individuals can make pupils particularly enticing victims for criminals. Shops, cashpoint and fake job opportunities for those in the last years of schooling can be equally risky. To learn more about the ways that financial exploitation can affect children and young people click here.

Inclusion Heroes

A huge thank you to the Teaching Assistants, Deborrah Smith, and Fay Hudson for leading the Year 9 Parent/Guardian Options Workshop.  This was well attended and the feedback from families was positive.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Gurvinder 

Bright Spot

Manpreet Jass has done an excellent job updating the ‘KS4  Subjects’ section of the school website so that everything is in place for the Y9s to receive detailed information and guidance while choosing their options.

He always works with a calm efficiency and can be relied upon to complete tasks on time, or even ahead of time!

Adam Bush