News, Stars & a Christingle Christmas from John & the PHS Team Friday 15th December

Hi everyone,

Happy Nearly-Christmas! Only one more week to go here, and it’s going to be a busy and fun week! As this week has been! It was so good to see so many of you at the Engagement Assembly this week – so good to see you! Thanks for coming, we understand that it isn’t always easy to get here in the day. It was a lovely assembly. Elsewhere, there’s some good MOVE stuff, Artist of the Week, Literacy, Personal Development and some great Christingle pictures – in fact, there’s a lot of good stuff this week, it’s a great blog. Don’t forget Eileen’s blog too, and the rest of our website and the Foundation’s. Thanks for your support, have a lovely weekend, and perhaps we’ll see you next week. All the best!

J

😊 from John & the PHS Team 😊

Literacy

Personal Development

Physical Development

• our three Super Steering Groups

These three big Steering Groups deliver our curriculum – there’s a paper describing how it all works on the website if you want to read further. The Groups work on all the areas in these broad themes to deliver the right things for our pupils. This is where a lot of exciting stuff is happening, so I can’t resist leading on it in the blogs. Here is the latest from those three Groups

Literacy!

With The Literacy Squad! All Things Literacy! Here’s Sarah!

Winter and Festive Books for all!

Here are just a few new books for 2023 that link to our Jolabokaflod theme of winter and Christmas

Also, on the theme of books, there’s lots going on at Seven Stories, Newcastle over the Christmas holidays, see the link below to their website.

Well, we are now only a few days away from, ‘Jolabokaflod’ here at school! The planning is well underway, and we look forward to next week when we can all enjoy the range of winter and festive books together.

As always, if your pupil has a favourite festive book that they would like to bring in and share with their class please do send it in and let the team know!

If anyone is interested in finding out more about Jolabokaflod it’s worth a little read below:

The Literacy Squad

Personal Development

Jo oversees this rich and crucial area, full of aspects lie wellbeing, careers, PSHE, Citizenship and other great things It’s a strength of our school. Some in-depth stuff this week about another of the areas in PD. Nice one Jo and the Team!

SMSC , British Values , Citizenship and Religious Education

Reverand Sarah welcomed students from Percy Hedley to celebrate the Christian celebration Christingle

The students had the fun opportunity to make their own Christingle prior to attending the service where they learned about the importance of each item and the symbolism it held for the Christian faith

The students partook in a lovely interactive nativity story acting out characters and key moments of the story (a massive thank you to the helpers who stood at the front!)

Finally the service was ended with 2 Christmas carols sung by everyone

Thank you to Reverand Sarah for allowing the students to experience and learn about the meaning and significance of Christingle.

Here are some pictures of 4RM with their homemade Christingle oranges as well as some more pictures from Post 16:

Some excellent pictures of really good activities there from this week. So good to see. Thanks and congrats to all!

Physical Development

Steph oversees the Physical Development team’s exciting work. MOVE is part of that! Have a read of what Mary is saying about that and then look at a few pictures too! Cheers guys! MOVE is awesome! And so are the FoPHS, so thanks to them too – again!

We’ve had our MOVE-ing in a Winter Wonderland this week which everyone has loved being involved with and getting into the festive spirit! There were lots of Christmas activities that encouraged the children to practice their physical skills, all of which catered to their differing needs. Here is a sneaky peak, but fear not, there will be more information and pictures to delve deeper into what the students got up to next week! Thanks again to the amazing FoPHS team who support us for every MOVE event to ensure we have the best resources for the students

Artist of the Week!

Yes! PHS Artist of the Week! That’s a thing now!

Our new Art teacher, Kasia, has made a real difference and impression since she started in September. The room looks great and a lot of pupils tell me they enjoy art! Kasia has made an Artist of the Week. Here’s Kasia, and have a look at the great art that’s one it too:

It’s time for the Artist of the week! 

The Artist of the week goes to – Grace! 

Grace is currently working towards her Bronze Art Award and this term she has been deepening her drawing knowledge, specifically shading. Grace loves Pokémon and this week she was particularly proud of her development in drawing Evie (Grace’s favourite Pokémon). Grace regularly asks for more advice and applies it to her Art in lesson and weekly Art Club. 

Well Done to Grace and keep up the great effort!

Well done Grace. Some great work being done in Art, and I can’t wait to see the Artists of the Week Gallery! Congrats Grace!

ARTIST OF THE WEEK – GRACE!

Lesson of the Week – from Russell and the Rock Ptarmigans

As I’m sure you all know by know, teamwork is one of the aspects of school life on which we place a lot of importance

Those Rock Ptarmigans showed this quality wonderfully when Dylan needed ‘quiet on the set’ while he recorded his DJ introductions for the Radio Group’s broadcast. Jess and Lucas ensured complete silence to enable recordings to be made on ‘the first take’ and Dylan thanked his friends for their cooperation. Stars, all

A Rock Ptarmigan! I know! Me neither!

PHS Careers News 

Louise is in charge of Careers at the school, and it’s a really important part of what we do. It’s also part of Personal Development. Let’s hear from Louise about what’s been happening recently in Careers. Sounds like excellent stuff…..

Some of our lovely students Santi, Milly and Callum, have been busy participating in real life work experiences this term. Let’s find out what they have to say about their experience of work ….

Callum – “I have been working at Café Beam, Ouseburn Farm. I keep busy making cappuccinos and giving out cakes. I speak to people when they come for coffee and take their money.”

He enjoys working in Café Beam and feels it “keeps me busy in the community”. Callum’s favorite task is “getting to use the big coffee machine to make strong cappuccinos”.   “The skills I learn here is going to help me when I leave school next summer.”

Santi – “I work in Café Beam. Everybody knows that. I enjoy it and hopefully I can work here making lots of coffees.”

Santi likes working in Café Beam and describes his experience as being very positive. “I like to work with new staff, friends and meeting customers. My favourite part is crushing the beans into the coffee cup and putting it on the machine and making coffee.” “Working in Café Beam helps me to work in the community helping people.”

Milly – “I work all day one day every week and give food and drink to the customers.” She describes her experience at Café Beam as an opportunity to meet new people socially and experience trying out new drinks, “I’ve made new friends and like to try different hot drinks like Mocha, Flat White and Latte, Cappuccino and Maracanã”. Working at Café Beam helps me “to learn and relax”.

Well done Milly, Calum and Santi it looks like you’re delivering fantastic service to the customers of Café Beam with a smile😊!

Events Calendar

The link to the calendar is here https://www.percyhedley.org.uk/percy-hedley-school/parent-and-carers/ – we very much want to be giving you as much advance notice as possible of all the things that are happening

Rebecca sent out a letter detailing the events that are happening in the Appropriate Accreditation Pathway too recently, so I’ve reprinted it here too

Below is the calendar for the last week of term

18th December – Express your Elf! – Upper School talent show (student event only)

19th December – Christmas Lunch (student event only)

20th December – Christmas Enterprise Fair from 2pm – Open to all parents with students KS3 and up.

21st December – Christmas Jumper Day/ School finishes for students.

22nd December – Staff training day

And here’s Sarah’s

19th December-Christmas Dinner & Jolabokaflod (see school Blog for further information) (student event only)

20th December-Christmas Enterprise Fair 2-3pm (Open to all parents with KS3 students)

21st December-Percy Hedley School Christmas Jumper Day / School finishes for students.

22nd December-Staff training day. I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a “This term we have rolled out pure Forest School to the whole of lower school. Forest School is different to Outdoor learning as there is no direct link to the curriculum and is based around free exploration. This doesn’t mean that the children don’t learn anything, far from it. We focus on the School Values “Teamwork” “Respect” & “Resilience” as well as the Key Drivers “Communication” “Independence” and “Wellbeing”.

All the very best to all of you at home, from all of us here at the school. Happy December and all the things that go with it!

…..from John & the Team here at PHS