News & Stars from John & the PHS Team! – Friday 6th October
The whole school blog for Friday 6th October 2023.
Hello everyone and Happy Friday!
October now! Starting to be autumnal, although it’s still very warm in school
It was great to see so many of you at the Autumn Fayre – thank you so much for coming, chatting and supporting us. I know some of you find it hard t get here too, so that makes it all the more significant and important that you made it – cheers!
Elsewhere today we have Maria’s online safety blog, which again covers a very important topic; Eileen’s family liaison one, which has got loads on it as usual; and the rest of the Foundation and the social media that people fill in
You might be interested in Joel’s STEAM competition, so I’ve left that in for another week, some MOVE pictures, Makaton and some excellent STARS!!! of the week – one of the best ever hauls I reckon.
It would be great to see you at one of the Coffee & Catch-up meetings if you can possibly make it, and please do have a look at the calendar by clicking through too
Governors had a meeting this week, which was very nice, and we caught up about a few important things too. Thanks to them for coming in
Have a lovely weekend everyone, and see you soon
All the best!
J
Literacy! With The Literacy Squad! All Things Literacy!
What a great squad that Literacy Squad is! Here’s a message from Philip about National Poetry Day
It doesn’t seem like a long at all since last year’s Percy Hedley Poetry Week!
But time flies, and we have once again had the amazing opportunity to celebrate National Poetry Day (2023).
As the week has come to a close, it has been wonderful to put even more focus on celebrating poetry as a way for our students to express themselves.
National Poetry Day has seen students experiencing a range of poetry, reading and listening to some of the staff (and students) favourite poems and song lyrics. Students have been creating their own simple free-verse poetry, thinking about how they feel about themselves and their experiences of school.
The student’s creations will once again be used to bring about the return of the ‘Poetree’! So watch this space for next week, where you can see a selection of our poems on display around school.
- The Literacy Squad
Physical Development
Physical Development, alongside Personal Development and Literacy, constitute our three Super Steering Groups this year, and are aligned with our Key Drivers and School Values too. Physical Development includes all the things that we do that come under this heading, such as PE, physiotherapy, yoga, pilates, Rebound, sports development, Outdoor Learning, MOVE, OT, Nursing and a host of other things besides
We’ll be giving updates in the blog on this newly interesting and exciting area, just as we do with Personal Development and Literacy, as the weeks go by – watch out for it! We’ve got great people in these areas, and it’s at the heart of what we are here as a school for, so lots is going to happen under this heading!
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
Something really good happened this week, which is that we had an external safeguarding audit, from our safeguarding trainer and consultant. This was a really good exercise for us, to have an expert like that come into our school and give us advice and consultancy on everything
We commission these audits every year, and have other similar exercises, as we feel it’s the best way to stay up to date, and to keep improving. The audit, includes aspects such as
- Student Voice
- Site Safety
- Filtering & Monitoring
- Staff raining and other things
– all good areas to help us do whatever we can to keep everyone safe. We tend to work up an Action Plan following these audits and evaluations, and work through them until the next time. It means that the team are always working on things, as safeguarding in general is evolving all the time
Rebecca Fletcher r.fletcher@percyhedley.org.uk and the DSL Team
And don’t forget Maria’s online safety blog. That tends to go live on the Thursday. This week it’s about another huge issue – cybersecurity awareness and fake news. Really important stuff. 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!
Therapy Focus of the Week! MOVE!!!
Here we have Nikhit, Brandon, Jay and Finley working hard in this MOVE session
- Brandon has been working hard transferring from the floor to standing using a ladderback
- Jay has been working hard on his stepping practice using the parallel bars
- Nikhit and Finley have shown great teamwork encouraging and supporting each other during sit-ups
Monthly STEAM Challenge – a new and recurring item!
Now, I know you know what STEAM is, right? Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Maths. Yep, thought you did. OK, well Joel and the team who do this exciting stuff in school have come up with a great idea – a monthly challenge. Woohoo! This is exactly what we want! Challenges in the blog! This is from Joel
This year we are looking to send a STEAM challenge home on the blog at the end of each month taking turns from multiple steering groups within the school, Science are going with the first one
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
STEAM is an approach to learning that uses Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics as access points for encouraging students to remain curios and develop their inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking skills.
Send pictures of your challenge to STEAM Steering Group, joel.hall@percyhedley.org.uk
A Marble Run made out of straws for example!
Message from Engagement
The team in the Engagement Pathway, more properly called Learning Skills Through Engagement, are going to send a letter inviting those of you to access the Earwig Evidence Platform
This is a very exciting way to share information between home and school
There also will be an opportunity to explore Earwig in a parents’ Coffee & Catch-up afternoon on the 26th of October, so please do try to come to that!
Thank you Kasia, Lead for the Engagement Pathway!
LPPA – Leading Parent Partnership Award (LPPA)
Let’s hear from Tracy and the team. Tracy presented to governors this week too, and that was great as well
Hello
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
ELTBA STAR OF THE WEEK!
It’s CALLUM FROM BLACKBIRDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
STAR!!!
Callum has worked very hard in class this week, particularly with things he finds difficult. His enthusiasm has been amazing!
Well done Callum! STAR!!!
ENGAGEMENT STAR!!! of the Week!
Our star of the Engagement Pathway is……John-Joseph!
John-Joseph has shown amazing resilience during MOVE sessions with his stepping! He was able to independently step on and off the step and was very proud of himself! Well done John-Joseph, 100% STAR!!!
KS4 STARS!!! Of The Week
Brilliant work from KS4 this week!
Respect
Finley for being respectful by waiting for others to take their turn in VOCA group!
Resilience
Dylan for keeping on going!
Teamwork
Shaye for looking after yet another friend having a tough time this week!
Aoife, Robyn and Melody for socialising with each other at break times!
Rosie for being encouraging of her friend!
STAR QUALITY ALL ROUND!!!!!!!!!
POST-16 STARS!!! Of The Week
WHAT A WEEK IN POST-16!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A GALAXY OF STARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Respect and Teamwork
Robyn for handing out books to her peers without being asked. STAR!!!
Respect
Daniel for being so caring and kind to his peers. What a STAR!!!
Teamwork
Benjamin and Andrew for working so well together during lifeskills and cookery. Such a great team of STARS!!!
Logan and Callum for finding the slime recipe – cookery STARS!!!
Resilience
STAR!!! MIlly for swimming 20 lengths of Killingworth pool
Jack for going into PE. What a STAR!!!
Katie for working so well on the new maths system
Andrew for beating his personal best in maths ninjas
Grace for coping so well and being really mature
All STARS!!!
Makaton Signs of the Week
Recapping social signs – hello, good morning, goodbye, how are you?, okay/you’re welcome, please, thank you
Calendar
The link to the calendar is here school-calendar-2023-2024-landscape-year-at-a-glance (percyhedley.org.uk) and we very much want to be giving you as much advance notice as possible of all the things that are happening
There was a lovely session in post-16 on Thursday and it was really nice to see some of you there – thanks so much for coming. It was a very nice atmosphere
- the KS4 Coffee & Catch-up is 12.10.23 in the afternoon
- 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…..
It’s been a great week in classes and therapy sessions this week, but some staff have had a difficult week with one thing and another, so to all of them I wanted to say thank you very much, as I do to all members of our school community for your continued support and partnership in this enterprise. All the best. J