News, Stars & Pancakes & Love from John & the PHS Team! Friday 16th February 2024

Hi everyone,

Well, we’re halfway through the school year already! It’s been a very good half. I hope that your son or daughter has enjoyed it, and that you have felt a partner in what has happened so far! Roll on the second half, then the summer term and all that that brings! Thanks for your support.

It’s a brilliant blog this week, with some amazing lessons, therapy, and work from the Super Steering Groups. Some great pictures too!

Have a lovely half term, have a great time, and we’ll see you soon. It was great to see some parents at a Coffee & Catch-up this week too.

And I’ll tell you all about the residential after half term! This is where they are!

• Literacy

• Personal Development

• Physical Development

Our three Super Steering Groups deliver our curriculum, Key Drivers and School Values – there’s a paper on the website if you want to read further. These Groups deliver the right curriculum for our pupils. This is where a lot of exciting stuff happens. Here’s the latest from them

Literacy!

First up, the Literacy Squad. Sarah is here to tell us about what’s happening in the first part of this year in the world of Literacy

Coming soon……World Book Day at Percy Hedley School

In the second week back after the half-term holiday, schools around the country will be celebrating World Book Day!

This year Vivian Truong is the official illustrator for World Book Day. She is a comic illustrator and has illustrated graphic novels including the ‘City of Dragons’ and ‘Cooking with Monsters’

Watch out for letters which will be sent out after the half term break with further information about World Book Day at PHS.

Personal Development

Jo looks after all Personal Development, including PSHE, Careers, Wellbeing, Online Safety, Social Moral Spiritual Cultural stuff and many other things. Let’s hear from Jo and the team!

Wellbeing

In 6CH Outdoor Learning sessions are a brilliant way to help with wellbeing! This term we have been experiencing the “Shrek Swamp” sensory story. The wet weather has not stopped us from enjoying the sounds and smells of the outdoor environment, in fact it has added to the whole ‘swamp effect’

SMSC, British Values, Citizenship and RE

This week in 4KR tutor time, the students learned about Shrove Tuesday as it marks the beginning of the Christian Festival Lent. Students in 4KR enjoyed having a try at a pancake race (more of a squashed dough race really!), after watching it on Newsround. They were so fast you could barely see them! Then they tried their luck at flipping their ‘pancakes’ and did so without bringing down the ceiling! Well done 4KR!

3HB have celebrated Shrove Tuesday

We learned that Lent is a time when Christians think about Jesus and prepare for Easter. We remembered what we knew already about pancakes and discussed how the ingredients were used up the night before Lent started. Preston was able to tell us that pancakes had eggs and milk in

Edward knew that sugar was used to make them sweeter. Joe does not like pancakes but made a delicious honey and strawberry pancake for someone else. Aurora enjoyed trying the chocolate chips and marshmallows. Alf loved the squirty cream and took time with his pancake presentation.

It was a fun (and fulFILLING) afternoon 😊

Physical Development

And it’s Steph with all aspects of Physical Development. Tis week – MOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MOVE Refresher!

We post a lot of information about our MOVE days, but we thought it would be helpful to give you a refresher on our MOVE programme. MOVE is an approach that is utilised with great success in school and has been in place since 2021. It has had such a positive impact on the physical development of our children, as well as their access to learning and engagement across the school day. The MOVE team hold annual in person updates for parents and carers in school, and it was lovely to have some of you join us last week for this! Parents who have attended these sessions over the last couple of years have left some lovely feedback such as ‘this was a very informative session that gave me a better understanding of how MOVE works in school’, and of course, it’s always great to hear that it helps parents to support MOVE into the home too! ‘It has provided ideas and prompting on how to incorporate MOVE into the home’. The MOVE team are very receptive and are always welcoming of feedback and how best to support parents – so please do get in touch if there is anything we can support with

Take a look at our new MOVE leaflets – so much useful information! However, if you have any questions left unanswered, please contact your child’s physiotherapist in the first instance                                                                                                                                                                           

 Sport Event of the Week!

The John Muir!

Over the past half term our John Muir group have been taking part in a mini conservation project at Northumberlandia. Our students have taken part in dead hedging to help mark the forest pathways, they have helped to improve the quality of the car park potholes and finally they have braved the wintery weather conditions to complete a litter pick across the park and up the hills. Some of our students have said that they would like to be involved with conservation projects and working outdoors with tools as potential future careers, which is amazing

Next term we will be helping to conserve our local Kittiwake population. Well done to Jack, Joseph, Josh, Robyn, Noah, Kacey, Bobbie, James, Tom and Shaye!

Excellent stuff from all involved there – well done all!

Outdoor Learning with Hannah T!

Teamwork comes in all shapes and sizes, and with it being one of the school values it is lovely to see the students developing this skill in all areas of school life. Forest School is a great place to further develop this and 2KH had great success in working together in their session this week. Some of the class helped to push each other on the swing, taking it turns to have a go. While others helped each other to cross the ‘wobbly bridge’, supporting one another and showing them how to get onto the different sections, holding hands when things got a little “scary”. Both groups gave lots of praise throughout and made everyone grow in confidence with their kind words of encouragement. It was lovely to see everyone having such fun, all the while developing such great skills. Well done 2KH!

Fantastic stuff in the Outdoor Learning area!

Therapy Star of the Week! Love Therapy STAR of the Week! Especially when it’s Alex. Amelie, Lisbeth and Vivie!

Let’s hear from Sophie…..

A Messy Sensory Pancake making session!

Alex, Amelie, Lysbeth and Vivie in 1HW had a lovely time making pancakes on Pancake Day. They worked hard practising lots of skills that helped them make the perfect pancakes

The students explored the different ingredients using all their different senses.  Some liked to get messy, whereas others enjoyed the strong smell and flavour of the lemons!

Everyone worked on their hand skills and even practised their switching skills. Students used an electric whisk attached to a switch, allowing them to directly activate the switch to begin whisking their ingredients

We finished off by listening to our pancake song, everyone was a pro at flipping them…. most even landed back in the pan!

Lesson of the Week with Rahme’s Class!

This is from Rahme!

We had an awesome time celebrating Chinese New Year in 2RC! From trying traditional noodles with chop sticks to making lanterns, we dived into the festivities promoting cultural unity and appreciation

What a fabulous lesson and what a fabulous class!

Finally…do you remember Chinese New Year last week? Course you do! Well have a look at these

Huge thanks to Susan and the team!

…..from John & the Team here at PHS