News, Messages & Stars from John & the PHS Team 21st July 2023

Hi all, Happy End of Term!

Well, we’ve arrived at the end of term here, and what a year it’s been! There’s been so much going on, it’s impossible to sum up. I just hope that you and whoever you have at the school have had a happy time overall and made some progress. There are I suppose always a lot of ups and downs in the course of a year – people have illnesses and difficult times in their lives and all sorts of situations arise. All that matters is that the right things have generally happened in terms of targets, social situations, educational outcomes and the quality of every pupil’s life and experience here. Thanks for working with us through everything. We’ve been working hard on all sorts of aspects of the curriculum, such as reading and Personal Development, as well as some more difficult aspects like attendance and of course, as always, safeguarding

It has been great to see so many of you in school in recent weeks – for assemblies, the Summer Fayre, the Leavers’ Assembly and of course the Prom. Thanks for coming in. The only way forward is for us to keep working on our partnership, through easy times and difficult ones – and that’s why the Parent Award we are working towards is important to us, and why the FoPHS, and visits here are all so crucial

Have a great break, and all the very best. There is work going on in the school over the holidays with painting and our amazing Rebound Centre – but much more of that later….we have a training day on the 4^th September and will see everyone again on Tuesday 5^th. There is Eileen’s blog too, and Maria’s, and lots elsewhere on the PHF website with all sorts of stories and pictures, so please do go on over to those to have a look too if you have the time

And of course, all the best wishes and luck in the world to our 17 students who are leaving us. The Leavers’ Assembly was special. Keep in touch, well done and all the best

All the very best for a lovely summer

😊 from John & the PHS Team 😊

Resilience and Transition Day – Learning 

Louse B is leaving us this month, but here is a lovely contribution from her about our Transition Day which has also fed into to Resilience Project. Have a read and look at the pictures

What another exciting day supporting transition – all our students are having to deal with moving up a class or having new people join their existing class. Some older students of course are also moving onto pastures new and we wish them all well in their future endeavours. Any change or transition can bring up a mix of different emotions: apprehension yet with it maybe some excitement, some normal nervousness and worries about the newness of different staff and maybe a change being in a new part of the building. These all bring about new routines which as we know for many of our students can be a struggle. We do all we can in school to help minimise any anxiety for students but change typically brings some uncertainty which is quite normal.  Learning to manage this is a part of life and a skill we learn even from being small. After all, who hasn’t felt this same uncertainty even when we have chosen to move house, live in a different area or move jobs and so, as part of our Resilience Framework work and days, our learning is to develop skills which are important for growing older and preparing for adulthood.

Our transition day this week was called ‘We are resilient about transition’ and links specifically to the ‘Learning’ strand in our Resilience Framework. The focus is on making school and learning as good as possible, using helpers, planning out your future, organising yourself, developing life skills and highlighting achievements. Today many children have completed a handout about how they feel about the move and why. It documented what they were looking forward to, what they were worried about and who they could talk to about this. They shared some information about themselves and what they liked about their old class before thinking about their new class. This allowed them to list questions for their new teacher, state what they like/don’t like, what they find hard and how they feel they can be helped. These aren’t easy things to delve into and again we are astounded at the bravery of the pupils as they share what helps or what they are fearful of. If you can have conversations with pupils at home about some of these things if they crop up, that is useful as it does allow change to be explored and acknowledged. Part of the afternoon allowed for all students to visit their new classes. I made my way into many classes and saw some super team building activities, including music and instrumental sessions, board games, quizzes, listening to stories, Q and A sessions, reflecting on adult futures (the leavers) and more getting to know me activities.

To support the needs of students across the engagement pathway, there have been handovers between staff to provide information about student need. This attention to detail for individual needs is critical to providing the personalised consistency and equilibrium that help these students feel safe and comfortable so they can relax and make the most of their school day with class and therapy activities. All students in school have also received a transition goody bag today and we haven’t forgotten our leavers as they move into the bigger world – indeed there is one in their bags! The bags all have a small Resilience Framework in them and as the RF was also kindly adapted earlier this year by Sally Carr using widgets to increase visual and symbolic access to the framework, some students have these included too.  I hope you like the photos of some of the cards put in the bag and more importantly that you consider that your child had a good day😊. Please do get in touch with staff if you do have any queries. I cannot emphasise enough how massive a task it is considering different class compositions with so many variables to accommodate so we believe that the decisions made are those in the very best interests of your child

And Claire was instrumental in the Transition Day work too. Below is a great picture from Claire and a few words from her and some pupils too.

Over the summer term, our Year 8 students have been preparing for their move to Upper School. They have been participating in the KS4 assemblies, lunch time clubs, break times in the social area and have had weekly meetings with the KS4 Appropriate Accreditation Department Lead, Claire to help prepare them for their transition. In our meeting last week, we asked the students for their feedback on the transition preparation this year. They all agreed that it has been helpful, and that they felt ready. When we asked them what they have enjoyed about the transition process they said 

Jess – It’s made me feel more excited and not worried

Joshua – Enjoying the lunch time clubs

Taylor – Learning about the stuff  (the daily routines and the similarities and differences between upper and lower school)

Shaye – Clubs

Brandon – Lunchtime clubs

James – The meetings on a Friday

Kayden – I’ve been enjoying spending more times with my friends and spending time with someone who knows so much about upper school and it’s nice that they shared it with us

It’s always best when we can some of the pupils’ voices into these things so that’s really nice, thanks again to all

Summer Fair

On the 13^th July we held our upper school Summer Fair for parents and carers.  Pupils from KS3 upwards took part in enterprise projects through their employability lessons to create their own stall selling items or making games to be played.  Pupils worked to design their own stalls, with advertising and price list.  The money raised from the day went towards to Prom which this year was held for both upper and lower school.  We raised a total of £250 which was an excellent addition to our Prom budget.  Thank you to everyone who came and supported out pupils hard work

This was a really nice event that benefited hugely as a lot of you guys came too – thanks so much for coming. The stalls and the atmosphere was really nice, and it was for good educational and other reasons. Loved it! And David’s taken a few pictures too, so let’s  enjoy those

What a nice occasion this was – the enterprise aspect was excellent in itself! But it was great to see so many of you too – thanks for coming!

Safeguarding

The DSL Team have sent out their termly Safeguarding Update in the form of a newsletter. Please do have a read on the other blogs as it has some crucial and really important categories and aspects in it, to do with safety and what’s going on in our society at the moment – some of it not good at all. But thank goodness we are all considering these things and thinking about how best to keep our children and young people safe wherever they are

We have a very good DSL team and a lot of staff training around all of these matters 

MOVE Fest

I wanted to leave MOVE Fest in this week, at least to remind people. It was such a great occasion!

This year’s national MOVE Day was themed MOVE Fest. This gave the pupils three days of lovely outdoor activities, with our ‘This is me’ festival on Friday 7^th. Each station (10 in total) were linked to a festival theme and were located across the grounds of Percy Hedley School (see map). Some activities included throwing wellies, chilling out in the chillout zone, feeling mud and straw, reaching to weave a coloured fabric of their choosing into a mesh, shooting water pistols at rubber ducks, standing to step over hurdles, playing Connect 4 and Kerplunk …. the activities were endless!  Everyone seemed to have lots of fun with each station providing different activities for all our students with a range of abilities. The pictures show all the fun enjoyment all the students had, some students even achieved some of their communication and social interaction targets as they worked with their peers to undertake games and compete against each other!

Well done everyone!

Thanks

MOVE Team

Had to leave this picture in too!

This is Me Festival

We were so happy to see all of our young people enjoying the activities and coming together to march to celebrate everyone for their own unique wonderfulness!!!!!  Next year we aim to go even bigger and better again, with more singing, dancing, acts and visitors to our special day. We want to thank everybody involved for all of their help and support in putting this day together, and we look forward to next year’s event

True Colours!

True Colours were in! This is from Sophie

Last Thursday the children who have been taking part in the True Colours workshop got to perform in front of their friends and family. The performance was a mix of signing to songs and a drama routine of how we can change red emotions into green emotions. They showed courage and resilience during the performance, it was enjoyed by all! Well Done Everyone!

School Dinners

I hope you all saw the letter we sent out this week about school dinners next year

It’s obviously been difficult to move away from what the school has been doing for several years, and we do appreciate that this change may provide difficulties for some of you. Apologies for that. Unfortunately, we have been left with no choice but to do what we’ve done, given costs across the board. As you will have seen from our letter, which we posted elsewhere on the site last week, we have done our best to stagger the costs to you, and to think carefully about the more complex meals produced, which we will continue to address and problem-solve in the autumn. Again, thanks to so many of you for your support in this and other matters that are difficult, as we do come across sometimes in our work

Eileen is also available for support and help.

Friends of PHS – FoPHS!

Great things happening with FoPHS!

The Bayvox Choir night at Whitley Bay was amazing – a great turnout and a really nice night. Bayvox Choir were superb, and our own choir, the Songbrids, sang beautifully as well. It was so nice for so many people to support us – thanks to the great people of Whitley Bay!

Here Hannah is now talking about the photos too

Please look out for the school photo order forms which are being set out this week.  Beth has taken some absolutely beautiful photographs of your lovely children and we hope you like them!  If you are happy with your photos, all you need to do is return the form to school with your donation.  Remember – it’s ‘Pay as You Feel’ and all money raised goes straight to FoPHS to support enrichment opportunities for our students. Please return the forms to school by Tuesday, 18^th July, ensuring that your preferred email address is written clearly.  We’ll get the images to you as soon as possible, via email, in a high resolution format for you to do with as you please.  Thanks so much for your patience with this – it’s appreciated!

The Friends are always looking for volunteers for events!  If you can offer any support, please contact Eileen at e.robinson@percyhedley.org.uk

LPPA – Leading Parent Partnership Award (LPPA)

Contact t.smithson@percyhedley.org.uk and the Team for anything about this – it’s good!

Stars Of The Week

Teamwork – my favourite one of the three!

Taylor!

Taylor is caring, considerate and kind and a total STAR!!! Taylor showed great teamwork skills this week, helping a peer who was having a tricky day and became upset. Taylor comforted and helped them. Well done Taylor – from the Blackbirds

Respect and Teamwork

Danny!

The star of the pathway this week is Danny from Pufflings! Danny has had a calm week and has worked well in his sessions, especially when bubbles are involved! Danny worked with John-Joseph to colour in a flower, using his VOCA to identify which colour he wanted to use. Well done Danny!

OUR SECOND PROM WAS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There was pictures on our social media and website regarding the proms, and I’m sure you have pictures of your own too. Over 50 students attended our Senior Second Prom, and it was an amazing night. All the students looked great – the music was good, there were awards, there was food, dancing and just an lovely atmosphere

Our second prom, following last year’s inaugural one, was a combined celebration of our 70^th birthday celebrations as well as celebrating our leavers and achievers. It really was a great night! Everyone involved did such a great job, and it was so nice to see people arriving with their folk. I’m looking forward to next year’s again already!

OUR JUNIOR PROM WAS ALSO AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

And the junior one was fab as well!!!!!

The gym was prepared by a dedicated team of staff, and there was a lot of sweets eaten, running around, great music and fun. I really enjoyed this one too! Well done and thank you to everyone who attended or who were involved in any way

Makaton Signs of the Week

End of term signs below: start, finish, school, summer, holiday, sun

Some useful signs for the last week of term and the holidays!