News & Stars from John & the PHS Team Friday 15th September 2023

Hi everyone,

How are you? Happy Friday! Well, it’s been a busy week! We had Ofsted in this week and first and foremost I wanted to thank all of you who managed to find the time in a busy schedule to fill out the questionnaire which was overwhelmingly generous and positive – that’s so encouraging and heartening. Thank you. Yes, we had a very good inspection indeed and although the report probably won’t be published until maybe even October half term or thereabouts, we’re as happy as we would be with how the whole thing went

The most important thing, of course, isn’t ofsted itself, but all the things that we are trying to do every day. The days that they were in were very nice, but they weren’t really any different to a typical day here. I love having visitors in the school, and sharing our work with them, and talking about what we do – and hearing their take and their feedback on that. It’s a great pleasure to work here, and the work of the staff team make me very proud. We have an awful lot to do, of course, and we’re working on a lot of things right now to improve them. I hope we always will be. But schools like this one have to be a partnership, and they simply don’t work if they aren’t. So thank you again for your part in that partnership, which we’re working hard to make better all the time

In the meantime, there have been lots of stars this week and a fab trip to the Climbing Wall! Russell has arranged the Book Fair as usual and there are interesting updates from the safeguarding area

J

😊 from John & the PHS Team 😊

Personal Development (PD)

Personal Development is one of the things that we are most proud of in the school, so I thought I would include this from Jo again. It’s all about the whole person, and growth, and being prepared for the outside world in all sorts of ways. Jo and her team were definitely involved in talking to our visitors this week and showing them all of their work! It’s a great team!

Literacy! With The Literacy Squad!

And again, literacy and reading were a huge focus for inspectors, as you might expect. The whole squad and many others spent a long time looking at reading and all sorts of literacy and communication. It has to be a focus for us, of course – but it’s often fun too, and a nice part of the day!

One very nice thing that Russell does every year is the Book Fair, which is a really nice occasion. Here’s Russell now

Our annual Scholastic Book fair is in school and is enjoying an extended run until Monday, 25^th September. We hope that it will receive its usual wonderful support and offer everyone the chance to either buy books for immediate use or for a future occasion.

Every book bought will add to the commission that the school can spend on new titles for our library and, following the previous fair, we were able to choose hundreds of pounds worth of books!

During the fair, each class is given a chance to visit and select titles that appeal to them. These preferences are taken home as a guide to what you might buy. To get your books, simply send the cost in to school and the books will be sent home on the same day. Should any title sell out, we can order further copies that will arrive when the fair is collected. Here’s hoping for another enjoyable period of reading, gift-buying, fundraising and reminding ourselves of the importance of books.

Safeguarding Update from Rebecca

A huge focus for all inspections is safeguarding – and quite rightly so. Safeguarding is everything from recruiting people in as safe a way as possible, to recording & reporting incidents, communicating well, training, staff awareness, culture and many things besides!

Rebecca is the DSL and has a great team working with her. They are giving us weekly updates too, which is very hepful

This week in school we have been putting together our safeguarding plan for the year, looking at our training priorities and ensuring that our staff are up to date with any new issues coming through from our safeguarding partners within our different local authorities.

We will be asking for your input into a training calendar for parents around safeguarding and online safety for the year to determine the interest for a range of training sessions we aim to complete.  We will record these and put them as a training bank on the website to ensure that all parents have the opportunity to complete them at a time that is suitable for them.

Look out for training interest form coming your way soon.

As always please look out for the online safety blog from Maria, and please get in touch about anything safeguarding related.

Rebecca Fletcher

(Designated Safeguarding Lead, or DSL) r.fletcher@percyhedley.org.uk

And don’t forget Maria’s online safety blog. Last week’s was about live streaming and this weeks is about KCSIE , in particular filtering and monitoring. I can strongly recommend it both for interest and to learn stuff! – here’s a link

Attendance!

Attendance was a big focus in the inspection, as it’s being right across the country. It’s also been a big focus for training for inspectors and many others in the school community. And as you know as well, it’s been a focus of ours for a while now. Mark our new Attendance Officer has already started a lot of work on this, and is being very active so far

As I’ve been saying for a while now, thanks for your support with it. Onwards and upwards with attendance as ever!

Sport Stuff of the Week!

Climbing Wall Newburn

Helen took a group to the climbing wall in Newburn! It was the first session at the wall and the students were AMAZING! Olivia and Edward showed so much resilience climbing as high as they did, they just did not give up till they reached the ledge.

And finally…..

Don’t forget Eileen’s Family Liaison blog, as well as Maria’s, so you can get your full taste of PHS this weekend if you’re in the mood, and there are a lot of things on the Foundation website too if you still want more!

Loads of our staff, for example, completed the Great North Run, which is an amazing achievement in itself. I had no idea when I came to the North-East how big and important the GNR really is. We had about a dozen staff running, and there were many more across the Foundation, as well as family and friends. Huge thanks and huge respect to all of them, and what a lovely thing to do for the benefit of other people. The Great North Run is fab!

All the very best to all of you at home, from all of us here at the school. Happy Start of Term!

Respect…Teamwork…Resilience

from John & the Team here at PHS