News & Stars and loads of Art and Drama from John & the PHS Team Friday 14th June 2024

The King’s Birthday Lunch (at PHS)

Hi everyone,

Hope the weather hold up for you this weekend! In the middle of June!

Anyway, it’s been a great week with the atmosphere in the school feeling really warm and lively – a number of visitors said as much this week, which is always nice. We also had a governors meeting, so thank you to the two parent governors in that group too – Ros and Ollie

There’s loads to enjoy in the blog this week – art, drama, outdoor stuff and a few bits of food too!

All the best and thanks as ever for your support

J

😊 from John & the PHS Team 😊

School Photos

We hope that by now your son or daughter has had their photos done by our smashing photography team! They were really lovely last year, and looked amazing, and I do hope that you have managed to receive something worthwhile for your family that means something to you.

Let’s hear from our three Super Steering Groups which deliver our Key Drivers through the curriculum –

Communication, Wellbeing and Independence

Literacy

Becky, our Literacy Lead, is going to get us going! It’s always good stuff! This week – new stuff!

We had a delivery of new resources this week, which we’d bought using the Accelerator DfE Funding we mentioned a few weeks ago. It’s a good indicator how passionate our staff are about teaching reading, when we all get quite so excited about nicely organised new magnetic letters! Students have been using them in their lessons this week, and I’ve had a couple of very proud students along to my office to show me their creations – which I have absolutely loved. 

We’ve also started getting plans in place for our final event of the academic year to celebrate ‘Love of Reading’, which we’ll be able to tell you more about next week. As with Jolabokaflod (our Christmas book event) and all other Love of Reading events it will be an opportunity to share favourite reading materials with each other, and explore news ones – as well as celebrating all the fantastic  effort our students have put into their reading this year. More info to come next week!

Personal Development

Another one of the best things about our school! Let’s hear from Jo and the team about one of my favourite days of the year – the This Is Me festival, which shows what we’re all about. Read about and cheers, Jo!

Thank you to those who have already completed the Personal Development Parent Consultation survey! I’m doing one last push for responses, the survey will close on the evening of Wednesday the 19^th June (next week). It just takes 2 minutes to complete, it’s very important to us working with parents to ensure our students are receiving the best support possible in this area.

RSHE National Guidance Consultation

The Government want your views on proposed changes to the statutory guidance on teaching

• relationships education
• relationships and sex education
• health education

These subjects are collectively known as RSHE.

Your views are important to help ensure that this guidance supports schools to provide high-quality RSHE which meets the needs of children and young people.

This Is Me Festival

As part of “National School Diversity Week” and “Pride Month”, we have been working hard to prepare for this year’s event. The festival will be on Friday the 5^th of July, it is a celebration of the protected characteristics and will include workshops, activities and entertainment all day. A letter will be sent home this evening, and tickets will be available from next week.

Here are few photographs to remember the wonderful time students have had in the previous years, fingers crossed for a sunny day third year in a row!

Physical Development

And of course everything that is fabulous in the world of Physical Development too! This includes physio, hydro, MOVE, PE, HI, VI, a lot of OT and all sorts of key areas for us, including all of the Outdoor Learning, John Muir Award and many other aspects…

Let’s look at some PE with Nathan. We had girls PE last week, and this week it’s boys! Sounds like some good news too!

Another amazing season for our students who has been attending the Newcastle United Football foundation community event throughout the year and achieving a winner’s trophy and won the league cup on the day, so we have the Double for this season.

The boys were on point with the cup matches and really did show all the threads that Percy Hedley’s students has been working on throughout this year, just like the girls, the boys has been working more as a team, communicating with each other to what would be the best roles on the pitch for the team, well done Boys at Percy Hedley

What a team! 

Science Week Preview from Joel!

Science Week is a special event dedicated to celebrating and promoting science. It’s a chance for everyone to dive into fascinating topics, conduct experiments, and understand the incredible ways science shapes our world. Whether you’re passionate about biology, chemistry, physics, or technology, there’s something for everyone!

Why Science is Awesome

Science helps us understand the world and solve real-world problems. It sparks innovation and drives progress in medicine, technology, and many other fields. Plus, it’s incredibly fun and satisfying to see the results of your experiments and projects

Top Tips for Getting Science Week…

Ask Questions: Be curious! Don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions. Science is all about exploring and understanding, so there are no silly questions

Try New Things: Whether it’s a new experiment or a topic you’ve never explored, give it a go. You might discover a new passion

Work Together: Team up with friends to tackle challenges and projects. Collaborating can make science even more fun and you can learn a lot from each other

Talk to Experts: There will likely be scientists and educators around who are thrilled to share their knowledge. Don’t miss the chance to chat with them and learn from their expertise

There will be plenty activities within school plus some visitors coming to school. Keep an eye for letters going home. Within the week, we are looking forward to getting our students out in the community to explore Science and take students on a Science Trip!

Dance Club!

Wow, not this is what I’m talking about! Antonia has got some lovely words and pictures about her weekly dancing sessions! Most excellent!

Students in Key Stage 4 and Post 16 have been attending a weekly dance club each Wednesday lunch time. Here are some photos of everyone busting some moves and having some fun in the small gym!

Last half term students used the Zones of Regulation framework and were asked to share a dance move that represented an emotion from each zone – e.g. “excited” was demonstrated by a big jump and a turn with some jazz hands! We danced to Justin Timberlake’s song ‘Can’t Stop the Feeling’ and everyone came up with some amazing moves that we turned into a great dance routine.

This half term we have moved onto the animal kingdom and have so far been representing jungle animals with our dance moves to the song ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’. Next we will be dancing like animals that live under the sea.

Everyone has been so creative and we have had fun while exercising and moving our bodies each week. Different students join each week, with some regular attenders, so hopefully more students can come along this half term 😊

Drama Group!

And not only do we have that marvellous Dance Club, Mandy has a Drama Group! And this Group does some great stuff! Let’s hear from Mandy and see what goes on.

The Drama Group had a visit from PC Beth Burns and PC Michael Blake from Northumbria Police, as part of their AQA Unit Award. Beth and Michael were set a challenge to go through the alphabet and name something connected to the Police beginning with each letter. They explained each of their answers which made it fun! They talked about how to keep yourself safe and what you should do if you are worried, feel unsafe or witness a crime! We found out their Hi-Vis vests are filled with sand and there are 3 different sirens in the police car! Beth and Michael also talked through their equipment and showed us how handcuffs were put on!

Some excellent questions from the students:

“Why do you wear a hi-vis vest?” 

“What do you like about your job?”

“How many robbers have you caught?”  

“Do you use pepper spray?

Nice one guys!

More Drama – a Drama Trip!

Let’s hear from Emma about what sounds like a really exciting and lovely trip, and then see all the pictures they took! They look amazing!

All of the students within the Engagement department went to Northern Counties to watch an interactive sensory performance of a story called ‘Grubbins Wood’ by TimbaDash.

Everyone really enjoyed the performance and had a fantastic time

Lifeskills: Visit – Hancock Museum

6LA had a most interesting lifeskills visit to the Hancock Museum in town. Lori is going to tell us all about it!

During our lifeskills sessions, students have been researching different places to visit. One of their ideas was to visit The Hancock Museum in Newcastle, so this week we did just that

The students spent the day exploring exhibitions and having a good giggle whilst learning some very interesting facts about the Romans, the ancient Greeks, various animals (including some fish with funny faces) and space! Some students chose to visit the planetarium where they watched a film about life on other planets, it certainly got some brains ticking. The students even visited the library, and ensured they followed the usual library rules – being very respectful and sensible

Well done guys! Enjoy the pictures!

Artist of the Week! Tom! From 4KR!

Tom has been working on a SeaWorld diorama alongside his support staff. He has been enjoying crafting elements of the SeaWorld like underwater caves and seaweed out of materials around the Art room. Tom added small details to really create the environment for example sand at the seafloor (bottom of the box) and even thought about light by adding materials like cellophane and a torch.

Well Done to Tom!

Finally…it’s that time again – our Third Prom!

This is from Rebecca!

Just a reminder that our Upper School Prom is coming up on Friday 12^th July.  All our students within our Upper School should have received their invite with the details of the evening

Please ensure that you have sent us your reply in to allow for us to arrange with our suppliers for numbers.  Please also let us know if you plan to stay with your child.  Any children needing personal care or support with feeding will need to have a carer with them to support with this

RSVPs can come to either percyhedleyschooladminteam@percyhedley.org.uk, or your class teacher, or by ringing the school office on 01912161811

…..from John & the Team here at PHS

And just a reminder of this great news that came from a lot of hard work! Well done, guys!

Our Latest Award – the PQSM!

Huge congratulations to everyone who has worked on us getting the PQSM Award. The team managed to get the highest version of the award at the first attempt. It’s a really good sign that we’re improving all the time at maths, as we are in all the STEAM subjects

Well done and great stuff – the assessors said really nice things about the school and the work that we do. We’ve got it from 2024 to 2027!