News, Messages & Stars from John & the PHS Team Friday 9th June 2023

Hi all!

How’s it going? It’s good to be back here again and back into the swing of things for the last half term of the year, where our thoughts are starting to turn to September and what that means for everyone in terms of changes and new things……but until then we have lots of very nice things happening this term, with trips out, sport, outdoor learning and all sorts. Please do have a read of the Greggs trip, girls football, some theatre stuff and Louise’s excellent piece on the Coping Strand of the last Resilience Day

I hope your son or daughter is enjoying school at the moment, particularly in the nice weather at this time of year. Thanks for your support and all the best

John S

😊 from John & the PHS Team 😊

Resilience Day!

The Coping Strand 

Louise B and the team organized another day on resilience just before half term. I mentioned it then but here is a full report from Louise. It really was a good day. Thanks for supporting it and these kinds of things that we do.

At the end of May, we had our fifth off-timetable day linked to the Coping Strand in the Resilience Framework. The focus of the day was all about learning how to manage our emotions and to learn and try out activities that can help us calm down so that we can feel better…

WOW – what an incredible day we had!

There were so many varied activities running across school for students to opt into and a real feeling of energy and impetus across school. It is genuinely hard to put into words the special atmosphere. Feedback from staff and students about the day was extremely positive and many staff remarked that the ‘Coping’ theme and activities had been even better than the previous year

These special days are thematically planned in relation to the Resilience Framework and there is a Steering Group which meets to share ideas for what the day might look like – a great team; we get various ideas bouncing around and then we firm these up before sharing with staff and seeking out any of our staff’s related hidden talents 😊

As well as classroom-based activities, we also like to use others’ expertise and so make use of curricular areas in school, so on the day groups were engaged in fantastic bespoke activities in the sensory and magic carpet spaces, food tech, the sports hall, the ICT suite and our constantly evolving Outdoor Learning zone. The very many activities happening across that day were as follows:

• Relax Kids sessions
• Cuppa and a chat
• Making bath bombs
• Social games
• Making friendship bracelets
• Making fidget toys
• Nature walks
• Sensory stories
• Music sessions
• Lego
• Making stress toys
• Claymation
• Baking
• Dance
• Dodgeball/football
• Japanology
• Chair aerobics adapted games
• Assault course
• Spa activities with a nail bar

There were also external trips to the Tiny Trees project, a nature bird walk and some students were out on a D of E orientation trip, always something to test one’s coping skills!

The Zen Zone was very popular with a full classroom converted to a delightful sensory space with short, guided film/story meditations, special lighting and bean bags. Some students and staff remarked that this activity should happen more regularly, and we will be reflecting on how some of our activities could be dovetailed across the curriculum going forward. One student who is very active and sometimes restless was observed to be so calm in the Zen Zone that he physically sat back and relaxed onto his TA. Outside, a student who had been tearful at lunch was seen to visibly calm when he was offered a parachute, bells and hanging sensory toys. The student then “stayed settled completely and engaged fully in the activity and continued to display happy emotions throughout the afternoon”. In a class-based colouring-in activity, one teacher noted how the student’s “concentration was immense”. Feedback sheets from one therapist using the Zones to elicit student views showed that for the chat/cuppa session, all circled the green zone suggesting that they felt either calm, good, proud, okay, ready to learn and content. One student said he had had “an awesome day!”

Do please let us know on l.brennand@percyhedley.org.uk if your child also had an awesome day, perhaps based on how they seemed at the end of the day

Important and inspirational stuff there from Louise and the whole team. The children really seem to have responded to these days, and the atmosphere is lovely. Therapists and teachers get a lot of evidence for targets and such-like from these days too. Very exciting, well done all!

Here’s a few pictures and symbols

Trip of the Week – Greggs! Our local speciality!

This is from Charlie. Who doesn’t love a trip to Greggs! And I want one of those freshest of fresh sausage rolls! Great stuff Charlie, thanks

Me and Jayden went on a trip to have a tour of the Greggs Factory this week.

We looked at all the equipment and the machines that are used to make the pasties and sausage rolls!

Shaun talked to us about how everything is made – it was really class!

We saw where all the food was stored from start to finish.

Our favourite part was when we went into the quality control room and got to try the freshest of fresh sausage roll!

We had a fantastic time!

Charlie F

Now, how about some pictures of that as well then? Yes! Great stuff!

(Look at some more pictures of this at the end of the blog as well!)

Reading

Some lovely stuff from Philip from The Literacy Squad here…

Our winning certificate in the library

Reading has been rife as we move through our Summer term, and we hope that everyone was able to make use of their reading skills over last week’s half-term holiday (I certainly read a whole lot of Netflix subtitles, as well as instructions for how to make blondies).

As we near the end of the year, it is important (and quite fun) to look back on all of the things that the students and staff have experienced and achieved together. It can be even better when others recognise those experiences and achievements as well.

For those who remember the fantastic Usborne Book Fair that took place in February, it may not be a surprise to some, but Percy Hedley School only went and won Usborne’s School of the Term certificate!

Usborne books recognised the efforts made by Usborne Partner Vikki MacDonald, the Literacy Squad and the students and staff. Who all worked together to put on a brilliant book fair.

Check out the article in the Usborne Blogs on their website if you want to see more about it. But well done to everyone involved, and thank you to Usborne for the certificate and the free books that came with it!

It really was a special occasion, one that we will see again.

The Literacy Squad

Thanks to the Literacy Squad, and well done to every student who has been engaging with reading, phonics or any kind of literacy and communication. I really admire all of those who do, particularly those who find it a bit hard at times. Well done!

Friends of PHS – FoPHS!

If you would like to support the FoPHS, please come along to the next meeting on Tuesday, 20^th June 9.30 – 11am.  If you can’t come along in person, there is an option to join the meeting online. Also, the Friends are always looking for volunteers for events!  If you can offer any support, please contact Eileen at e.robinson@percyhedley.org.uk

Thanks!

Go FoPHS!

LPPA

It’s great that we are doing this award, I’m sure it will make us better practitioners – and the FoPHS are part of it!

Attendance

This is the letter that I sent out last week about attendance, by post and blogged out here. I’m just trying to make sure that everybody’s seen it. We’ve also amended the draft policy on the website. Thanks for your co-operation with it all

Requests for leave of absence during term time

As you may be aware, amendments to The Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006 make it clear that Headteachers may not grant any leave of absence during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances, and that Headteachers should determine the number of days a child can be away from school if the leave is granted. Some circumstances are of course exceptional, and we are happy to support these in whichever way we can.

Thank you for working with us on this matter; the attendance situation at our school has slightly improved but we need to continue to try and address some areas of concern moving forwards.

We are currently receiving a significant number of holiday requests that do not fit the definition of exceptional circumstances; these will continue to be unauthorised going forward, as they have been recently. However, despite the fact that these requests not being authorised, we are still seeing a significant number of pupils being taken out of school.

Exceptional circumstances are, for example, weddings, family graduations, significant one-off events, bereavements, religious observances, some forces leave, respite on occasions, or unexpected family crises – for just a day or two. Leave is at the Headteacher’s discretion.

We want our students to maximise the time that they are in school to best prepare them for their next steps and adulthood. We also have a duty to support the placements of students in school in relation to our agreements with local authorities who support their places here.  We know that pupils make more progress when they are in school and it is therefore important that they attend whenever they possibly can.

The government document, ‘Working Together to Improve School Attendance’, to which our policy refers, has been in place since September 2022. This guidance is very clear about persistent and severe absence, and the routes available to schools to address concerns, including legal intervention.

Because of this I’m letting you know that from September 2023 we will seriously consider using more means available to us than we are using now for unauthorised holidays in term time. Up until now, in conjunction with the local authority, we have mainly been using supportive methods. However, if the situation persists then we will consider, in certain cases everything, up to and including fines and further legal action, as per the national guidance.

I appreciate this letter may cause concern amongst some of you and may require you to reconsider plans moving forward.  We have tried to be sensitive to the needs of the families of our students and have taken a gradual approach to this issue. I have referred to it many times and written about it here in the school blog.

We are committed to improving attendance to ensure that more of our students make the best possible progress. As I said at the start, thank you for the support of an overwhelming number of you – it means a great deal – and I do appreciate how difficult this issue is for some. I hope we can continue to work together constructively on this for everyone’s benefit

And Now…..

Stars of the Week!

That reflect our School Values!

The ELTBA star of the week goes to …Henry! And it’s for all three School Values!!!

This week the team would like to give the Eltba star of the week to Henry in Skylarks.  This week Henry has worked really hard on our three School Values.  He has shown great respect for his team, excellent listening, fantastic teamwork completing his work and following instructions and amazing resilience by not giving up and working super hard for his stickers.  Everybody is extremely proud of Henry this week. STAR!!!

A complete, 3-Value STAR!!!

ENGAGEMENT STAR!!! of the Week!

Resilience!

Well, the STAR!!! of the Engagement Pathway this week is…

Tyler from Hebrons!

Yes, it’s Tyler! Tyler celebrated his 18^th birthday this week and has loved celebrating with his class! He was extremely engaged during a birthday rebound session and was able to watch and track staff while they sang ‘Happy Birthday!’

Well done Tyler, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

POST-14 STARS OF THE WEEK!!!

Look at these post-14 STARS!!!!!

Respect

Joseph – New students joined PE lesson on Wednesday, Joseph supported them, chose them to join his football team, he checked that they were ok, and was an all round good sport. Well done Joseph! STAR!!!

Teamwork

Casey, Kacey and Robyn – for amazing effort in football, and working as a team. Robyn scored 6 goals! The girls chose to give their trophy to another team, in the spirit of good sportsmanship. STAR Team and Players!!!

Resilience

Aoife –  for her fantastic transition into school this term. Aoife has tried really hard, and it is great to see her in school. What a STAR!!!

POST-16 STARS OF THE WEEK

And as is so often the case with post-16, there are some really good characters and stories in here this week! Enjoy!

Teamwork

Santi – for helping a peer to get his maths equipment out without any prompting. So kind! So like a STAR!!!

Resilience

Kara – for fantastic driving at the Laing Art Gallery. Well done! STAR!!!

Grace –  independently changing her bus pass to a metro gold card and giving her opinion in assembly. Fantastic!! STAR!!!

Special Resilience STAR of the Week!

It’s Chloe! From Skylarks!

The Skylarks would like to nominate Chloe to be their special Resilience STAR of this Week! Chloe has shown great resilience in trying new things this week. She has been trying new methods of communicating and has been persevering with this even when it’s been quite tricky. She has also shown fantastic resilience when using her walker. She was quite tired but kept going to walk to Rahme’s classroom and back! She even beat Lizzie there! Well done Chloe! Resilience STAR!!! And keep on beating Lizzie!

Engagement Assemblies!

There’s some really nice work happening in the Engagement Pathway at the moment with the assemblies that they’re doing. Have a read of this from Hannah:

On Wednesday morning, the Engagement Pathway had the first in a new series of Sensory Assemblies.  This half term’s assembly theme is ‘Friends’.  We enjoyed singing and signing our song, ‘Come to Assembly’ and used our voices, VOCAs, Big Macks, signs and TaSSeLs to say hello to everyone.  We enjoyed watching the screen to see which of our friends we could see on the slideshow, then played together using the bubbles and balloons.  It was lots of fun, very joyful and everyone participated.  After playing, we listened to a favourite song to feel calm again.  We sang our ‘Assembly is Over’ song and went back to class, ready to learn

Each assembly is structured in a particular way to support the different Areas of Engagement and the students all responded really well to this new and unfamiliar experience.  It was fantastic to see so many happy faces! We can’t wait to do it again next Wednesday!

PE & Sport – Physical Development!

Right, now this is excellent! It’s from Helen. It’s really inspiring, have a read and a look at the pictures. We heart all sport!!!!!

On Wednesday there was the final of the NUF girl’s football league, finishing with cup games. Hedley’s team were at full strength with 8 players, and played 4 games – winning 3 and only losing 1

They played with amazing strength and presence making them a difficult team to get past

Robyn scored 6 goals and Kasey 3, Casey 1, and Shannon 3

The progress the team has made over the year is fantastic they are very proud to wear Percy colours and Helen is a very proud coach….. bring on next season!

Employability!

As part of their Employability – Enterprise unit, Lena’s class collected items for Helping Pets North East (a local animal rescue charity)  to use in their tombola. We really had a lot of gorgeous stuff for them.  They posted a lovely thank you on their Facebook page. This is heart-warming to see, and shows just how thoughtful and kind our students can be…….excellent stuff, guys………………….

Also, Louise F has been doing a great project with some students from our school and our sister school in Jesmond. Here Louise is talking about it, alongside some fun pictures

Students from Key Stage 3 are part of an exciting partnership with peers from Northern Counties School and Percy Hedley College working with The Live Theatre to generate storylines for the Christmas production of “Wintry Tales”. We were invited along to the theatre this week to take part in a scriptwriting workshop. Charlotte, one of our post-16 students also attended to work alongside the resident artist to produce illustrations of their fantastic ideas. Here’s how much fun we had!

Our Second Prom! – RSVP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are drawing ever closer to the Prom!  If anyone has not sent their RSVP to school, please can this be done as soon as possible

A reminder should have come out to you from our parent mail for all pupils in our Upper School.  We need to start planning for food and drinks very soon, so an idea of numbers is really important!  Many thanks!

Our second prom, following last year’s inaugural one, will be a combined celebration of our 70^th birthday celebrations as well as celebrating our leavers and achievers

Formal invitations and further information will be winging their way to all upper school students to allow for us to have RSVPs well enough in advance to book tables and buffet for the right number of students. It will be a great night, and anyone who attended last year’s Prom will agree how much fun the students had!

Any questions please contact Rebecca at r.fletcher@percyhedley.org.uk

Makaton Signs of the Week

Oh this is a good one from Julie – bikes!

Signs this week: bike, ride, cycle helmet, fast, slow, outside

Cheers Julie! Keeeeeee-eeeeeep cycling and keeeeeeeeep signing everyone!

Coffee & Catch-ups

Thanks to all who came to these!

And finally…..

It’s an update from JJ’s Tuckshop!

I’ve mentioned before Joe and Jack’s fabulous Tuckshop, JJ’s. They offer healthy snacks as well as treats, and take account of allergies too. Well they borrowed some money for a float when they got started, and they’ve done so well that they’ve managed to pay that back now! Excellent business knowledge and practice there, guys, something to be really proud of!

I know that Harriet and the whole team are really proud of them. Well done Joe and Jack! Business HEROES!!!

All the very best to all of you at home, from all of us here at the school – we’re pushing on now with the second half of the school year, with the weather getting a bit better as well, and hopefully seeing you here some time at Consultation Evenings, Coffee & Catch-up afternoons, or other funky events

Respect…Teamwork…Resilience

from John & the Team here at PHS

Charlie, Jayden with and without some sausage rolls