News, Stars & Pudsey from John & the PHS Team Friday 17th November 2023

In the Accreditation Pathway Assembly, we all grabbed a musical instrument and made some noise to raise awareness about bullying. Students gave examples of who they can talk to if they witness or experience bullying.

Within PSHE lessons students have been learning about “banter vs bullying” and how to recognise when the repetition of teasing to deliberately cause harm is not acceptable. Students gave examples of situations that could easily turn quickly into bullying and were able to understand some golden rules about bantering.

International Men’s Day – Saturday 18^th November

Men Leading By Example

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL9qdZ-khv4

International Men’s Day encourages men to teach the boys in their lives the values, character and responsibilities of being a man. Mahatma Gandhi said, “We must become the change we seek.” It is only when we all, both men and women, lead by example that we will create a fair and safe society that allows everyone the opportunity to prosper.

I shared some inspirational men in the accreditation pathway assembly this week:

• Marcus Rashford
• Stephen Hawking
• David Attenborough
• Freddie Mercury

Steph oversees the Physical Development team’s exciting work

Nina and Mary have been doing great things in MOVE – as usual! And that’s all part of Physical Development!

We are excited to tell you that we have some new equipment to support our student’s physical development!

Our new walking slings enable the children to have greater freedom and independence whilst standing and walking, which is not only fantastic for their motor skill development, but also for their self-esteem and wellbeing! Check out Chloe using our new walking sling in her MOVE session this morning. She was able to move around the gym with greater independence whilst finding Pudsey’s spots!! Amazing work Chloe, great work!

During a peer interaction session William and Masie used vocalisation, turned their heads and moved their hands and arms to demonstrate awareness of each other and initiate interactions

PfA is a really important part of our work here, and a crucial part of our mission is to do whatever we can in all areas to prepare our pupils and students for the world outside, whatever that means for them. Hannah F is leading on this now, and will be updating us about what’s going on with PfA for all ages of pupil in the school. It’s good stuff!

Rebecca is the DSL and has a great team working with her. They give us weekly updates, which cover a range of topics, for us all to get up-to-date on. This is from Rebecca

Sadly, self-harm is something that can happen with young people in our society, and so it’s something that forms part of our safeguarding work. It’s probably one of the many terms on our Wordle thing that comes at the end of the safeguarding section

This week about 20 of our staff attended some training on this very important – and often alarming – issue. The training provider was a charity called Battlescars, a small but growing charity based in Leeds. They have some great resources on their website, so if you are interested, do have a look and a read here https://www.battle-scars-self-harm.org.uk/

The staff were a mix of KS4/P16 staff, plus the Wellbeing Team and Aylesha our Safeguarding Officer

Colleagues reported that it was a really helpful session, thought-provoking, relevant and that will certainly have impact where it’s needed, giving us lots to think about as a staff team

Online Safety

And we also have this from Maria:

And the Online Safety blog this week is in response to parents requesting information on snapchat, so hopefully this is helpful too

Online Safety blogs – Percy Hedley School

As always please get in touch if you have any questions or queries through email or our website anonymous link https://forms.office.com/e/QTWAtZJhFE

From Rebecca  r.fletcher@percyhedley.org.uk and the DSL Team

You may remember in the summer term that we wrote to you explaining we are in the unfortunate position where due to increasing costs, we plan to begin charging for standard school meals.  There has been a slight delay with this and it will now be rolled out in the New Year. As promised we will still introduce the charges gradually, so hopefully reducing the financial impact on you.  We will be sure to provide more details as soon as they’re available and we’ll of course contact parents of our young people who require an IDDSI meal prepared at levels 1 – 5 separately

If you think you’re eligible for Free School Meals and haven’t yet applied for this then please contact Eileen e.robinson@percyhedley.org.uk our Family Liaison Officer who can send you the form and support with the process

Our Winter Menu is on our website here: Parent and Carers Area – Percy Hedley School  The catering team are also planning for the next themed day which will be on St Andrews Day, the 30^th November – we’re already looking forward to it!

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 Attendance Officer has been very active so far, and some of you may have been in contact with him

Attendance was the only thing that arose from the September 23 Ofsted inspection as an Action For Improvement. This is what was in the report

Too many pupils are frequently absent. This limits their learning and has an impact on their academic progress. The school should strengthen its attendance systems and attendance strategy to promote regular pupil attendance. The school should provide challenge and support for parents to help them to overcome any barriers that may prevent their child from attending school regularly

So it’s good that we have Mark now, and that we are working with LAs and, most importantly, you about this. It’s one of those issues I think that is all about partnership. As I say, it really is an issue right across the country! Thanks for your support

We sent out a message recently about our updated Code of Conduct, which is on the website. Here’s a link  Parent and Carers Area – Percy Hedley School’. 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. Most schools have them now

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

This is from Tracy

We sent out a questionnaire to gather information from our families to find out if there has been an improvement in the quality of communication between school and home since we started working towards achieving the LPPA in November 2022.  Your opinion is such an important part of the process we have been following and therefore any contribution is welcome.  This should only take ten minutes to complete.  We have created a hard copy and an electronic format, which will be sent out today

Please complete and return the questionnaire to school by Friday 10^th November – today!

Just to remind your that the date for our final verification visit is Tuesday 12^th December 2023

As always, please don’t hesitate to contact the team on the email below, we welcome your thoughts and ideas

Thank you in advance for your contributions

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

That reflect our School Values!

ELTBA STARS OF THE WEEK!

Joshua!

Resilience

He an ELTBA star !!!! Joshua from Skylarks 2HR climbed up the tree after couple of weeks practices. His confident has been growing up since starting this year. Resilience at its finest

WELL DONE JOSHUA!

ENGAGEMENT STAR!!! of the Week!

John! A great name for a great guy!

Resilience

Our star of the week is… John! His resilience to use his VOCA this week has been fantastic. He has been able to choose activities, and even brought his hands into midline to achieve this! Well done John!

What a STAR!!!

KS4 STARS!!! Of The Week

And TREDS!

Teamwork

Robyn- Excellent participation in PE and in the football at lunchtime

Jack- Worked to help a classmate access food technology

Respect

Tom- Ensuring the minibeasts collected in science were returned to their correct habitat

Faith, Sadie, Kayden and Aaron- volunteering to read  ‘bedtime stories’ to students from the engagement corridor as part of our resilience day

Resilience

Kacey & Lucas- have improved in their ability and confidence when completing their Numeracy Ninjas

TREDS

Teamwork, Resilience, Enjoyment, Discipline and Sportsmanship

 – TREDS STAR!!!!!!!!!

• this award is chosen by the students

Mohammed – for starting to play football and already showing an improvement in his skill

POST-16 STARS!!! Of The Week

What a terrific team of students we have in post-16 this year. Great atmosphere down there. Many Stars

Respect

Santi for his fantastic work at Beacon LIghts.   He was a great Ambassador for the school.   Well done!

Resilience

James for coping so well with everything and brightening everyone`s day.  What a Star!!!

Winter weather signs – weather, winter/cold, wind, snow, ice, sleet

Here’s hoping we don’t get too much of this weather for a while yet but here is a recap from last year with signs for winter weather.

Here is the video:

https://youtu.be/E-YwAncrXPs

Here are the signs:

Singing Hands have a lovely weather video here with additional signs:

https://youtu.be/0t9Tt_JlYd8?si=nsQg_zywGzeGtZyJ

Makaton Bonus!!!!! For Anti-Bullying Week!

https://youtu.be/lK-inyRNC9I

Here is a video with the Makaton signs for bully, stop, tell and kind which might also be useful this week

Keeeeeeep Signing everyone!