Messages, News and Stars from John & the Team Friday 16th December
Welcome to Percy Hedley School's Whole School Blog
Hi everyone
Happy mid-December! It’s very nice and very busy here, with the end-of-term activities ramping up for Christmas and everything else. It’s a lovely time of year, and the best time, for me, in school, especially this year when we – fingers crossed – Covid free. Thanks to everyone who came to the ELTBA Coffee & Crafts Day that Sarah put on – that was nice! And it was amazing to walk up to the church with upper school to take part in the Christingle with Rev Sarah Moon. These are the magical times. Also the MOVE Team just keep on putting things on that are so great – we have dozens of pictures and at some point videos and pictures will all find their way to the website and social media – there’s just a flavour here today – but what a flavour! And if you only have time for one thing to read this week, read the Personal Development update!
Two lots of thanks too: for sending back the questionnaires for the Parent Partnership stuff that we are working on; and for all the donations. Our community is so great when it comes together, and it’s a pleasure to be part of
Have a great weekend – maybe see you next week
John & the Team 😊
MOVE – MOVE-ing in a Winter Wonderland
The MOVE Team have been at it again, creating their best one yet – a gorgeous Winter Wonderland, which was truly amazing! No wonder they earned that Gold Award and won that competition! Scroll down to have a look at how one class enjoyed lower down.
This is from Mary:
MOVE-ing in a Winter Wonderland
The students this week have been participating in lots of Christmas activities in the MOVE event. The students followed a lit-up pathway through the sports hall stopping at different stations with lots of activities such as posting a letter to Father Christmas, building a snowman, throwing snowballs, MOVing through a snowy tunnel and sorting out presents. They all loved it and enjoyed different aspects with varying levels of challenge.
Parent Partnership Award!
A huge thank you to everyone who took the time to complete our LPPA survey; the results from this will now be used to support us to write our action plan for the year to ensure that we achieve the award. Thank you to everyone who took the time to write positive comments and to those who wrote actions that you would like us to take to improve the way that we communicate and work with you, this allows us to clearly see where we need to work hardest to make improvements within school.
We will now be writing our action plan as a steering group and will begin collecting evidence from the work that we are doing in school. If you are accessing any of our Christmas events you may be asked to fill in a reflection or chat to a member of staff, if you have the time to do this it would be greatly appreciated and will all form part of the evidence base, we are collecting to help us with our award.
https://www.awardplace.co.uk/award/lppa
Reading – World Cup Challenge
Not long left to go now in Philip’s World Cup Book Challenge. I’ve really enjoyed this. It’s excellent. Let’s go to Philip for the update
The penultimate update for the World Cup Reading Challenge.
Well it has certainly been a hard fought week. The Guinness Book of Records (England) played a better game, but still fell short to Treasure Island (France); perhaps Long John Silver had had a quiet word with the referee…
With that game over, our semi-finalists had been decided
A huge congratulations to…
Little Women (Morocco), who would have thought you’d make it this far?!
Charlotte’s Web (Croatia), with some incredible penalty shoot-outs
James and the Giant Peach (Argentina), can Messi be stopped?
Treasure Island (France), a brilliant squad this year
Initial new copies of the semi-finalists now populate the shelves of our library, and perhaps the World Cup hype may entice a young reader to consider a classic like Charlotte’s Web (No matter how sad it is) the next time they are browsing
But there can be only one winner, and Sunday will see the decider between the two giants:
James and the Giant Peach (Argentina) vs Treasure Island (France)
Who will claim victory?
James Henry Trotter/Messi or Jim Hawkins/Mbappe
Can’t wait to find out.
Attendance – putting this in again as it’s important
We have been reviewing attendance recently in light of the new government guidance, which you can find here https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1099677/Working_together_to_improve_school_attendance.pdf
One of the big changes for us is that there is an expectation that we work much more closely with our host local authority, North Tyneside. We have begun this process already, having meetings and discussions about what this will look like and what this might mean for our families
Angela, our new attendance officer from NTC, has been in for our first attendance review meeting and the team all felt it was a very positive thing for us. As a result of this meeting with Angela, some parents will be invited in to school to chat with Angela early next term; the purpose of this will be to explore if there is anything more that can be done to help support your child to attend school more consistently. We know and understand that there are a wide range of reasons why pupils might miss school from time to time, some of which are unavoidable, but equally there are some circumstances that, with the right help, can be changed to enable better attendance, which is what we are all working together to achieve. We really do appreciate your support in this difficult area. We need to approach it as a team and provide as much support as possible
Personal Development
Jo and the PD Team have been doing loads recently; here’s a flavour! There’s some really good stuff in here!
Careers
We have been continuing interviews with Julie Dorey, our North Tyneside Connexions advisor in post 16 this week. Connexions provide free and confidential information, advice and guidance service in England to all 13 to 19 year olds and to young people with learning difficulties or disabilities up to the age of 25. They work to ensure that young people make a smooth transition to adulthood and working life
Enterprise Week
The Accreditation Pathway have been working hard this week creating winter-wonderful products in preparation for the Christmas Fayre next week. The Robins practised their sales skills while role playing on a pretend stall in class
The Grouse have been like Santa’s little helpers working on student-led products
Hannah has also been working hard in outdoor learning with KS3
SMSC, British Values, Citizenship & RE
SMSC facilitates growth of the human spirit (spiritual), consideration of what is right and wrong (moral), confidence of how to get along with others (social) and an understanding of heritage, tradition and identity (cultural). We define “British Values” to be: Democracy; the rule of law; individual liberty; mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith
On Thursday KS4 had a whole department trip to St John’s Church for Reverend Sarah Moon’s Christingle service. Students made their Christingles in school then enjoyed a wintery stroll down the road in the snow. Here’s a very Christmassy Claire in a photograph taken by our resident photographer Charlie
E-safety
I know that some of you get a lot out of Maria’s e-safety blog, so please do also pop over to that and have a read about what Maria has to say this week
Class of the Week
Christian has had a lovely time with his class, and doing lots of practical and outside work with them. Let’s hear what he has to say about the Award they are studying for, the OPT Award, which I’ve written about before (although if you want to learn more about it, contact him, Rebecca, or any of the others in that team)
As part of our OPT award post-16 students are doing lots of jobs to help others. We have worked with our friends at Dobbie’s Garden Centre already this term and we were really surprised when they contacted us to say that they would like to donate not one, but two Christmas Trees to our school. Millie, Owen and Oscar were able to choose which trees we would like and Paul from Dobbie’s helped us to carry them. One of the trees now has pride of place in the post-16 social area and the other has found its home in the Outdoor Learning area where it will be decorated for all to enjoy. Merry Christmas everyone!! From the post-16 OPT Award group.
What a lovely class. One of the trees is the picture at the top of the blog today. Here’s a few more pics to enjoy too (I’m sorry, I’ve had to include Christian in this too – but just look at the good bits instead, or the photos underneath!) 😊 – love ya, Christian!
Lesson of the Week – Winter Wonderland!
Leanne’s class – the Short-Eared Owls! – wanted to share some lovely pics of when they had a fantastic time ‘Moving in a Winter Wonderland’ yesterday. Thanks to everyone who made it so special – and the class wanted to say Happy Christmas too!
Trip of the Week! St James’ Park!
Well, any trip to St James’ has got to be a great trip. I tried to get to go myself! Looks brilliant! Here are a few of the things that the students who went said as well.
Charlie: I was afraid of the tall building but I stayed ‘zen’
Finley: The bar wasn’t open!
Harrison: I liked walking down the tunnel to the music
Santi: The tour was amazing, I learned a lot about St James
Charlie: That was so cool holding Wilson’s shirt
James: My best bit was all of it!
Callum: It made my day
Imogen: It was good fun
Robyn: It was good. I really enjoyed it
Another Great Class and another Great Trip!
Hannah is giving us a Trip Report! This is great – have a read!
Kingfishers enjoyed a trip to Plants Plus Nursery near Ponteland. We were excited to meet the two donkeys, called Rolo and Wispa. Their coats were so soft, and we watched them eating some delicious hay, but we thought they were quite smelly! We looked around the gift shop and chose some Christmas presents – we liked the wind chimes and the beautiful Christmas lights. We looked at the animals in the pet department and enjoyed watching the darting fish in the tanks, and trying to spot the cute hamsters, but they were too well-hidden! Of course, the best part of the trip was visiting the café. It was very busy, full of Christmas smells and tasty treats, and everyone loved watching the people come and go, getting ready for the holidays.
STARS!!! of the Week!!!
Based on our 3 School Values –
Resilience, Teamwork and Respect!!!
ELTBA
Resilience with Shaye!
Now then, the ELTBA star of the week is…Shaye from the Magpies, who has tried really hard this term with reading and spelling, Shaye has made amazing progress and tries hard every day. Shaye, you are a complete, 100% STAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well done for doing all of this!!!!!!!!! Have a look at this
ENGAGEMENT
Teamwork & Resilience with Leon!!!
He has completed some brilliant building work, stopping to check his progress, what an amazing imagination and what a STAR!!!!!!!!!
Appropriate Accreditation
Teamwork, Resilience & Respect from Charlie!!!!!!!!!
This week in the Accreditation Pathway the Star of the Week has been very well earned by Charlie! He has been working so hard on ALL of the values! Charlie showed Resilience – coping with all the Christmas changes; Respect – when attending the Christingle at the church; and Teamwork – better understanding the needs of his classmates (opening doors and running errands for them). Goodness me, what a complete STAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a hero!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Makaton Signs of the Week
Winter Weather signs this week from Julie!
Winter weather, cold, snow, ice, wind, sleet
……………..keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep signing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And finally…….
We have been inundated with donations for the homeless which is fantastic and just shows the kindness of some of our parents and staff. Helen took some of the students to deliver and they were so grateful and posted on their website straight away. We are going back to the Homeless next week with yet more donations. There are loads of photos on the Foundation page! There were actually quite a few things that weren’t even on our list so we also took those things round to the Salvation Army as well. Thanks so much
Christmas! – there are some new dates in here, so please do check them against your diary and see what you can get to – love to see you here!
- 16th December – Carols at Killingworth
- 19thDecember – Talent shows
- 20thDecember – Christmas lunch
- Also 20th – Icelandic Book Flood! (me neither!)
- 21stDecember – Christmas Fayre hosted by our Accreditation and P16 pupils (All parents invited)
- 22ndDecember PM – Engagement Pathway Christmas Assembly (Parents invited)
All the very best to all of you, from all of us here
from John & the Team