News, Stars & Cake from John & the PHS Team! – Friday 13th October
The whole school blog for Friday 13th October 2023
Hello everyone it’s Friday again!
Although it’s Friday 13th, so I guess we should be careful that Hallowe’en doesn’t start too early! How has everyone’s week been? It’s a been a good and enjoyable week here, with some lovely assemblies, lessons, sessions and activities – hopefully you can read about some of those below. There’s a theatre group, the poetry from poetry week, some football, a good PSHE topic, and lots of good Stars of the Week. Thanks for all of your support in all of that too
When you’re scrolling down the blog, please try and have time to see the Safeguarding Update, which is about training largely this week, the Online Safety blog, Eileen’s Family Liaison blog elsewhere on the website, the Events Calendar and our updated Code of Conduct. There’s always a lot to read! Oh and cake features too, so don’t miss at least looking at pictures of it – good for you that way!
Couple of weeks to go in this half term anyway, so full steam ahead (and talking of STEAM, thank you to those who haven’t entered Joel’s competition!)
All the best for a lovely weekend when it arrives for you
J
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 works on the website if you wanted to read further. They are groups of staff who work on all the areas in these big subjects to deliver the right things for our pupils. This is where a lot of the exciting stuff is happening, so I can’t resist leading on it in the blogs for a while. Hope you like what these guys are talking about
Literacy!
With The Literacy Squad! All Things Literacy!
The latest activities from that Literacy Squad. Here’s the incomparable Philip
As promised in last week’s blog, our students (and staff) have created some wonderful free-verse poems using key words that helped them express their feelings about themselves and their school.
The lovely thing about these poems is that they can help our students communicate their thoughts, feelings, and interests in as few or as many words as they need.
(It’s also quite fun muddling them up and interpreting them in lots of different ways)
Whether it is a single place like “Social Area”, or a single action like “Swimming”, it has been great to see what our students think and feel about their school.
I particularly like some of the free-verse sentences, including “Colouring, a picture, using different colours, myself”, and “Richard, ran, quickly, Fatfield, Bloated & Bulgy”.
The leaves are still coming in from classes across school and the ‘Poetree’ is blossoming.
Thank you for reading.
-The Literacy Squad
Beautiful stuff again from The Squad – thanks to all and to those who wrote the poems. Loving the poe-tree! Lovely stuff there, and lots of the students enjoyed writing them I know as they’ve told me. Be great to see how this develops
Personal Development
Jo and the Personal Development Team have a lot going as usual, and it’s all good stuff. Here’s Jo with some of the things happening right now. Cheers all!
SMSC and British Values
Black History Month 2023 – Celebrating Our Sisters
In the UK, Black History Month happens every October.
It gives everyone the opportunity to share, celebrate and understand the impact of black heritage and culture. People from African and Caribbean backgrounds have been a fundamental part of British history for centuries. However, campaigners believe their contribution to society has often been overlooked or distorted. Greater attention has been paid to the importance of the Windrush generation and the Black Lives Matter movement in recent years, especially since the 2020 death of unarmed African American man George Floyd.
The first Black History Month in the UK took place in 1987, the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean. It was arranged by Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, who came to the UK from Ghana as a refugee in 1984. Like Woodson before him, he wanted to challenge racism and celebrate the history of black people. October was chosen partly because it’s traditionally a time when African leaders gather to talk about important issues, and partly because it was at the start of the school year.
The theme of Celebrating our Sisters emphasises the vital role black women have played in shaping history, inspiring change, and building communities. This year’s commemoration will feature trailblazing black women who have made incredible contributions to literature, music, fashion, sport, business, politics, academia, social and health care, and more. Through the Black History Month Magazine and our online platforms, we will amplify their voices, stories, and achievements, inspiring future generations to carry on their legacy.
Additionally, we will explore themes such as resilience, self-care, and wellbeing, underscoring the strength and determination of black women throughout history. It is time to celebrate their accomplishments and encourage future generations to take care of themselves and their communities.
Black History Month will also include a national poetry competition and an education pack, offering students the chance to learn about and appreciate the contributions of black women across history. The contest invites young people to express themselves creatively whilst discovering the diverse experiences, challenges, and victories of black women.
PSHE – Self Awareness Topic
KS2
Students have been learning about people who are special to them and exploring different ways to show kindness. 2HB are working on something special and next week will be making cookies and giving them out to people in school to say thank you – watch this space next week for photographs!
KS3
Students have been learning about skills for learning, what makes them special and unique s learners and how to set targets. Some students have been making links between achieving goals and how this makes us feel.
KS4 & P16
The area of focus has been “Prejudice and Discrimination”. Some students have been learning about the difference between treating people equally and treating people fairly based on what they need. Most students have been learning about the 9 protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010 – we have even made a rap to help us remember!
It’s great to see these things happening around the school – its often quite awe-inspiring! Fab!
The Physical Development team’s work is so exciting and awesome. Steph oversees it all, and gives us an over view here. Cannot wait to see what these guys do over the year! Here’s Steph with an overview
As you’ll have read, John has hinted at Physical Development becoming one of our Super Steering Groups this year, and it’s all very exciting! Promoting Physical Development is nothing new to PHS, it’s something we have historically been, and continue to be, proud of! Our integrated transdisciplinary approach ensures that we prioritise and optimise opportunities for students to enhance their physical health and wellbeing throughout the school day, and examples of this are already shared in the blog regularly.
What are our Physical Development Goals?
- To promote a healthy and active lifestyle
- To optimise engagement in learning
- To improve access to learning
- To ensure the physical health and wellbeing of students is optimised
Why is Physical Development important?
Apart from the obvious benefits such as improving fitness, health, mobility and independence, there is strong evidence to support the benefits of physical activity on an individual’s cognitive function such as academic progress, through for example improvements in concentration and memory. Engaging in frequent physical activity has a positive impact on individuals’ ability to develop positive social networks, resulting in comradery, teamwork & friendships. In addition to all these benefits, it can further improve mental health and wellbeing through enhanced self-esteem, improved sleep and reduced anxiety. Many of our students face significantly greater challenges than most, therefore improving their physical development becomes even more of a priority for us to ensure they reach their full potential and remain as healthy as possible.
How can we achieve this?
We have an array of skilled therapists, therapy assistants, teachers, support staff and health practitioners who work at PHS, and we are very lucky to have a bunch of these guys who are part of the Physical Development Steering Group, driving this forward! Some of which include our fabulous Physiotherapists who love all things physical: PE, Rebound therapy, Hydrotherapy, MOVE, Respiratory and Postural health (and much more!). We have skilled Occupational Therapists who are dedicated and creative in their approach to ensure students’ access to the curriculum and community is not bound by their physical limitation. For those who don’t know, we also have our very own Qualified Teacher of children with Visual impairment (QTVI) and outsource a Qualified Teacher of Deaf Children and Young People (QToDs). Their job is to ensure our staff have appropriate knowledge and skills to work effectively with children with visual and hearing impairments, and to ensure those students access to learning is optimised.
The promotion of physical development in school is varied and multifaceted, and we can’t wait to share what this looks like in greater detail in coming weeks. We have some very exciting projects in the pipeline (which may or may not include a brand new trampoline….shh!!). In the meantime, here’s a picture of wonderful Abi who is beautifully demonstrating how she accesses the curriculum whilst also ensuring her physical and postural health needs are being met. She then goes a step further to show off her fantastic sitting skills whilst hosting a bake sale in recognition of World Cerebral Palsy Day!
Such an exciting way to interpret the curriculum, and so exciting to bring things together in that way. A great team! Thanks all, particularly Abi!
Safeguarding Update from Rebecca, the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL)
Rebecca is the DSL and has a great team working with her. They are giving us weekly updates, which is very helpful as they cover a range of topics, as you can see from that word logo thing just below here, for us all to get up-to-date on. This is from Rebecca
This week has been all about training, ensuring that our staff are up to date on all of the new updates for this year.
Our staff attended a training around the bursary funding which can be applied for by our Post 16 students, we talked about the changes to the bursary and how it can benefit our pupils in school with community and PFA work that they are completing. This training also touched on financial abuse and how we can support our pupils in their adulthood to understand and work with their own money. The bursary session will be available for parents in November to support understanding of this process. We will do a live session and record it for those of you who can’t make it.
We have also attended the updates to the Prevent Agenda, with new legislation around this coming into force in December. Prevent is the work that we do to support pupils who are susceptible to being radicalised and being involved in terrorist activity. This year there is specific work and legislation around pupils with SEND, which is an excellent new addition. I will send some more information around the changes as they come into force. If you would like more information there is a Prevent section on our Safeguarding section of the website or at the following link Going Too Far? (lgfl.org.uk).
Today Aylisha (Safeguarding Officer) and myself are completing the County Lines Training update. County Lines is where illegal drugs are transported from one area to another, often across police and local authority boundaries (although not exclusively), usually by children or vulnerable people who are coerced into it by gangs. The ‘County Line’ is the mobile phone line used to take the orders of drugs. Importing areas (areas where the drugs are taken to) are reporting increased levels of violence and weapons-related crimes as a result of this trend. Once we have done the update, we will add to the section on the website to ensure we are fully up to date and will complete and training session for all of our staff.
As always, we welcome any training requests from parents and will be sending out a questionnaire about bitesize trainings that we can add to the website around any areas of safeguarding. Look our for this after half term.
– Rebecca Fletcher r.fletcher@percyhedley.org.uk and the DSL Team
It’s a great team. And check out too Maria’s Online Safety blog – it’s always about very important stuff. This week it’s all about mental health and promoting good habits in technology use, following on from our resilience day on Tuesday. Here’s the link: Online Safety blogs – Percy Hedley School
Attendance!
Attendance is a big focus right across the country, and it’s been a focus of ours for a while now. It will almost certainly need to be for a while. Mark our new Attendance Officer has been very active so far, and some of you may have been in contact with Mark
Again, thanks for your support with this whole area. Onwards and upwards as ever!
Drama Visit of the Week!
The Engagement Teams had a drama visit this week. Here’s Hannah to talk about it. Sounds great!
The Engagement Pathway enjoyed a beautiful performance by Moonbeams Theatre, today. We were welcomed into the sports hall by Jet, Chief Diver, to find the space transformed into an underwater paradise! We met the Reeflings, who took us to Coral Cove to sing and dance with the Chatty Clams and we even visited Electric Alley. We were mesmerised by the glowing fish and loved all of the sensory experiences: touching the cold water; floating through the seaweed, which smelled of the sea; listening to the underwater sounds and looking at all the weird and wonderful creatures. This experience was so enriching and supported all of our students in practising their skills of exploration, anticipation, initiation, persistence and realisation. It also gave us an opportunity to use all of our senses in a completely new and unfamiliar environment, with our friends. We really enjoyed our theatre visit and hope to have more experiences like this during the coming year.
Bake of the Week!
World Cerebral Palsy Bake Sale
Sally has been doing something great with the pupils to support this. It was great! Have a read and a look at some of the pictures!
Last Friday was World Cerebral Palsy Day. One of our students in ELTBA, Abi, wanted to celebrate and raise some money by organising a bake sale for her peers. With the support of her Speech & Language Therapist, Abi helped to write the letter, hand it out to her peers, design a poster to inform everyone in lower school of the bake sale and staffed the bake sale on the day. Thanks to generous donations of cakes and other sweet treats by staff and students, she was able to raise £53 for her chosen charity, Scope, with the help of her friend Toby
Abi and Toby did amazingly to sit on chairs with support for the duration of the bake sale. Abi showed great confidence speaking to lots of people and using her money skills to work out how much the customers needed to pay and how much change they would get. Toby used his new VOCA to support his communication when greeting customers, giving his recommendations and thanking them for their donations. Overall everyone had a great morning, with students from their MOVE sessions showing great motivation to come and buy a cupcake or two in their walkers or standers to support a brilliant cause. Watch this space to find out about how we will be celebrating World Cerebral Palsy Day even bigger and better next year!
Abi, Toby and cake! Glad it went to Scope as my mum used to work for them back in the day too! Well done everyone!
Monthly STEAM Challenge – a new and recurring item!
The Percy Hedley STEAM Steering group would like to invite you take part in our first STEAM challenge of the year
Percy Hedley STEAM Challenge 1: Create your own marble run
Suggested materials: small paper cups, plastic cups, bulldog clip, paper clip, pencils, wooden spoon, wooden ruler, masking tape, coat hanger, string, cardboard
Send pictures of your challenge to STEAM Steering Group joel.hall@percyhedley.org.uk
Updated Code of Conduct
We sent out a message yesterday about our updated Code of Conduct, which is on the website. Here’s a link. I hope you have time to have a read. In my experience these things don’t come into play very often but it’s important that they are there, and most schools have them.
Friends of PHS – the FoPHS!
The fabulous 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)
I’m putting this in again from Tracy and the team, as it’s important and I want as many people to join this and FoPHS as possible!
I was fortunate to present LPPA information to our Governors this week, who in return provided me with some positive feedback and suggestions. Two of our parent Governors have also kindly ‘volunteered’ to support the work we are doing in order to achieve LPPA. Thank you to Kate Hellens and Ros Holden.
We have the date for final verification visit: Tuesday 12th December 2023.
Just to remind you that I will be sending out another survey to gain your opinion about any improvements you have noticed with regards to communication between home & school, since we started LPPA objectives in November 2022.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me anytime on the email below, the team and I welcome your thoughts and ideas.
Tracy and the LPPA team Contact t.smithson@percyhedley.org.uk
Thank you to Tracy and the team, and all parents supporting us! We know that there is always lots to do, but we are interested in working as hard as we can to create the best kind of partnerships we can with you at home
And Now
It’s
Stars of the Week!
That reflect our School Values!
ELTBA STAR OF THE WEEK!
…is…
Harry from The Magpies!!!!!
STAR!!!
Teamwork and Resilience
Harry has been making new friends in his new class this half term. This week he has been playing games and helping his friends. Great work Harry!
ENGAGEMENT STAR!!! of the Week!
…is…
Amelia!
For all three school values!
Amelia has had a fabulous few weeks and has been impressing all her staff team with her communication, accessing her new and updated symbol book with ease. Well done Amelia!
What a STAR!!!
KS4 STARS!!! Of The Week
Brilliant work from KS4 this week!
Great story: the PSHE classes that have been secretly spreading kindness by sticking up notes of positive affirmations around school!
Respect
Taylor and Joshua for always being polite to people in the corridors! STARS!!!
Resilience
Shaye W for using new strategies in Maths to improve his work! WHAT A STAR!!!
Teamwork
Robyn and Camilla for working well together and communicating well in a challenge! BOTH STARS!!!
STAR QUALITY ALL ROUND!!!!!!!!!
POST-16 STARS!!! Of The Week
WHAT A WEEK IN POST-16!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Loving the focus on Teamwork and Resilience by all the classes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Teamwork – 2 Great STARS!!!
Charlie for working well with Andrea to make soup
Casey for kindly helping a peer
Resilience – 2 Great STARS!!!
Tatjana for joining in and trying everything
Francis for going swimming even though he didn`t want to. He even taught Susan some swimming techniques. Well done!!
All-4: STARS!!!
Makaton Signs of the Week
Excellent, one of my favourite topics this week – meals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Meal-time signs: eat, drink, choose, breakfast, lunch, dinner/tea, food/snack, pudding
Here is the video:
Here are the signs:
Try to incorporate these signs into snack and mealtimes in your classes and the dining hall.
Try making a list of signs you routinely use with your students during the day…how many more can you add this week?
Lovely stuff as usual, Julie, thanks for all of it…Keeeeeeep Signing!
Sport! Here’s the sports news from Helen!
Wanderers under 16 Football
Hedleys under 16 boys played the first matches of the season at Goals Newcastle on Tuesday 10th October. It was a tough start – the team played 6 matches back-to-back and were up against some tough opposition.
These matches are warmups for the NUF league starting in November and all the players are now keen to start …… good luck boys for the season ahead!
A great bunch of likely lads! Good luck for the season!
Events Calendar
The link to the calendar is here and we very much want to be giving you as much advance notice as possible of all the things that are happening
- the ELTBA one is on 20.10.23 at 2-3pm
- Engagement, 26.10.23 at 2-3pm
More to follow! As ever, it would be great to see you if you can make it. Appreciate that everyone is very busy!
And finally…..
We recently held our annual Scholastic Book Fair and we would like to thank everyone who supported it and made it a huge success.
A record value of orders was received (almost £5 for EVERY pupil in school!), enabling the school to purchase more than £400 of books with the commission that we receive.
Thank you for helping to foster a love of reading at home and thereby increasing the range of books that the children can enjoy in school,
Russell Runnacles (Book Fair co-ordinator)
All the very best to all of you at home, from all of us here at the school. Happy October!