News, Stars & The Residential from Keswick, from John & the PHS Team!

Friday 1^st March 2024!

Happy St David’s Day!

Hi everyone

Happy New Half Term, Happy St David’s Day and Happy Friday! Welcome to the second half of the year at the school – thanks for being with us. So many of our pupils did so well in the first half of the year, and the second half is often very pleasant as the weather is better, people are used to their classes, and we start eventually thinking about next year and next steps

It’s been lovely to see so many of you at Coffee & Catch-up sessions and similar – as always, thanks for coming, we appreciate how hard it is sometimes to do so, but it’s great to have you here. Good schools need families in and involved!

It’s a special blog this week and we hear from a class who were at the residential in Keswick – it’s such a good thing to do, and it’s great to hear their stories. Check out the mosque trip and World Book Day news too! Always lots going on!

There are some great stars and other things happening elsewhere too, so enjoy, it’s nice to be talking with you again, and we hope to see you soon, and that your son or daughter is very happy here.

😊 from John & the PHS Team 😊

• 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 Team. And it’s World Book Day!!!!!!!!!! We love WBD!!!!!!!!! Let’s hear from Becky and Sarah

Coming soon……Thursday 7^th March -World Book Day at Percy Hedley School. The focus for this year is ‘Read Your Way’

Please see our World Book Day letter for further information about the day.

There are so many lovely resources available to celebrate World Book Day at home and at school, but we particularly loved these as another different of sharing books:

They have a wide range of audiobooks available for free, from simple early years books up to classic stories for young adults and everything in between.

There is also a range of children’s books with simple animation and voice over, making lovely engaging videos. This includes some classic ‘lift the flap’ style books too.

Always nice to try out different ways to access books and help our students to ‘read their way’.

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’. Find out more about Vivian Truong and World Book Day, see links below.

As you may have read about recently, it’s World Book Day time again! We will be celebrating World Book Day on Thursday 7th March, with the theme ‘Read your way!’ Book Day 2024 will celebrate that children are more likely to enjoy reading when their choices are championed and we make reading fun. We are passionate about developing a love of reading within our students and are excited for a lovely excuse to celebrate this further! There will be opportunities throughout the day to celebrate reading and our love of books; however we invite students and staff to:

– Bring their favourite book in to school to share in class.

– Bring in or email (your teacher) a photo of you reading your way, or your favourite space to read! Do you have a cozy seat you like best? Share how you read your way!

As always, those who choose to dress up as their favourite book character are welcome to, but in the theme of ‘Read your way’, we also welcome students to come to school in their pyjamas or cozy clothes! We understand that change and dressing up does not work for everyone, so please be reassured that there is no pressure on this. On the day some people will be dressed up in costumes or their cozies, and others won’t – we will be celebrating together either way

If you have any queries please contact your class teacher or r.finn@percyhedley.org.uk Thank you for your support!

The Literacy Team

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!

PSHE

We continue to deliver the curriculum using the PSHE Association SEND Framework, which allows for us to deliver age-appropriate content to assessed developmental stages of our students. The overall topic this half term is “The World I Live In” and please see below for what is being taught in specific key stages:

• KS2 – Belong to the community.
• KS3 – Taking Care of the Environment
• KS4 – Taking Care of the Environment
• P16 – Preparing for Adulthood

Thank you to those I have spoken to at coffee afternoons, it really helps us to tailor the curriculum to our students’ individual needs. If you would like to know more about lesson content or resources, please email me j.ferguson@percyhedley.org.uk

National Craft Month

In 2KH we have celebrated National Craft Month by creating different pictures using paint and junk modelling. The pupils were asked what their craft was and here are their responses:

“Rainbow” “Sea” “Our Class” “Colour Mixing” “A rectangle out of circle” “Alien” “Character of eyes”

PSHE In Action at Residential

The students in 6LD recently embarked on an adventure to the Calvert Trust in Keswick. During their week away from home together, the students worked hard on their individual targets as well as transferring their skills and knowledge from what they had learned in school throughout the year into the wider world. During the week, it was amazing to see the students experiencing real life experiences across all of the main topic areas of ‘Managing Feelings’, ‘The World I Live In’, ‘Self Awareness’, ‘Self Care, Support and Safety’ and ‘Changing and Growing’.

I have selected a few photographs to give a little glimpse into the students’ achievements and experiences. I feel very proud of the young people in my class and as always, the school values of Respect, Teamwork and Resilience were at the forefront of everything the students did.

RE Trip of the Week! (Hey, this is also Personal Development too!)

It’s excellent to get out and about on educational trips, and Claire has taken 4MM – a great class – to a mosque in Newcastle as part of the RE program. Sounds like a great trip!

A fabulous class!

On Monday we visited Newcastle Central Mosque because we had been learning about Allah and Islam in RE.  We took our shoes off and put them on special shelves before we entered the prayer hall.  We were made very welcome and were given biscuits and juice.  Brother Khadim told us a special story about the prophet Muhammed (pbuh)

Brother Khadim talked with us about Islam.  We found out he was called brother Khadim because Muslims believe that all the people in the world are their brother or sister. He said we are all one big happy family no matter what religion or God you believe in.  It doesn’t matter who you are we should treat each other with kindness and respect.

We had prepared lots of questions before we visited e.g. Is it hard or easy to be a Muslim in the UK?

Brother Khadim said that it was easy to be a Muslim in our country because it is ok to be different.  There are 15 mosques in the west end of Newcastle alone as well as lots of other religions special places e.g. Gurdwaras, churches and temples. 

We asked what was the best thing about being a Muslim?

Brother Khadim said he loved being surrounded by his Muslim friends and family.  It felt very special to come to the mosque.

When we found out about praying five times a day, we thought it sounded like hard work.  Especially when we found out that in the summer the first prayer was at 2:30 am and the evening prayer was at 11:30 pm. However, brother Khadim said it was easy for Muslims because they loved praying and talking to Allah.  Brother Khadim shared with us some of the 99 names   of Allah e.g. Merciful, King and the boss.  We thought about what these names showed us about God. 

We had wondered how Muslims knew which way to pray but we found out that there was a special wall which was called the ‘direction wall’ as it showed the direction of Mecca.  Brother Khadim then demonstrated how to perform the salat. The way Christians and Muslims pray looked different but, in some ways, it was the same as they are just ways of talking to God.

Everyone really enjoyed their visit to the Mosque.   Matthew thought our visit was amazing.  Shae thought it was awesome and Dominic thought it was epic.  We found out lots of things, but the most important message was that we are all part of one big group of friends and family no matter what we believe or look like.

Safeguarding Updates – this week, Doxing

Aylisha is our Safeguarding Officer, Rebecca is the DSL, and there is a great team, including Claire, Tracy, Corin, and other colleagues who look at other aspects too. For the blog, they give us weekly updates, which cover a range of topics. Here’s Aylisha with another important topic

In recent years the practice of doxing has made considerable headlines within online circles, particularly on social media as well as in gaming communities.

“Doxing” is where individuals or groups expose and publicise private information about a person on the internet (usually across online platforms such as social media) without their consent.  Personal information can include home addresses, phone numbers, job location, email addresses and even information about family members or loved ones. 

Due to the varying scenarios that this can occur, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly why doxing takes place, but it can be motivated by several different factors.  Some of which are to intimidate, bully, shame, threaten, coerce, or blackmail another individual.  It can be seen a form of cyberbullying or harassment.  As a result, this can have a significant impact on both physical and mental health.  Having personal information shared in public without their control can cause great trauma to the individual at the heart of it.

As a lot of personal information is readily available online, it’s important to take steps to protect yourself from information falling into the wrong hands.  This includes regularly reviewing privacy and visibility settings on tracking apps you allow access to your data.

If you need any help, support or advice please get in touch, you can use our anonymous questions sheet on the website within the safeguarding section if you would prefer to do this.

There are a range of resources available for support linked below

Dependent on the circumstances, doxing may constitute an offence under a number of UK laws.  Therefore, contact with the police should be made via 101 or 99 to report a crime

As always please get in touch if you have any questions about this or anything else, or queries through email or our website anonymous link

From Aylisha aylisha.holland@percyhedley.org.uk and the DSL Team 

Online Safety

This is based on topics that we know you ask about or are concerned with

The online safety blog this week is on Digital Footprint and posting things online that you see that might be upsetting or you posting things that upset other people

Exams – thanks Kat!

With the start of the exams season and the deadline for exams entries approaching in half term, Kat our Exams Officer at PHS has collated information about the exams process and regulations and a new link with all resources was added to our Percy Hedly School Website. This will help understand the exams process a little bit better.

Please follow the link below.

School Lunches

We appreciate your co-operation and understanding as we implement this new system. If you encounter any challenges during the registration process or have questions please contact school on 0191 216 1811

Attendance!

Updated Code of Conduct

Here’s a link to our Code of Conduct, which is also on the website in the Parent and Carers Area – Percy Hedley School’. Most schools have these now, so please do have a read – they aren’t used very often.

Friends of PHS – the FoPHS!

Huge thanks to the FoPHS for their support with projects, ideas and all sorts of areas

What a great bunch of FoPHS! We’re very grateful indeed, and lucky to have them!

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

Leading Parent Partnership Award (LPPA)

Please get in touch with me via the email below and I will be happy to respond to any queries, suggestions about the LPPA

From Tracy and the LPPA team Contact t.smithson@percyhedley.org.uk

And Now

Stars of the Week!

That reflect our School Values!

ELTBA STAR OF THE WEEK!

Teamwork and Resilience

Exciting times ahead for 2RC The Doves, they are moving to a new class room. Over the half term holiday new classroom was created for them. A wall was knocked down and a door put in, to make a lovely learning space. As we are aware some of our children find it difficult to cope with change. 2RC have been amazing they have helped to move the furniture in to the room and make some lovely resources. Therefore this is why we have chosen them to be the ELTBA stars of the week. Teamwork and resilience at their finest

Complete STARS!!!!!!!!!

ENGAGEMENT STAR!! of the Week!

Resilience

 Vivie-Sienna is our star of the pathway. She demonstrated great exploration, realisation, persistence and initiation during our bag book “Anna’s allotment bake.” Vivie engaged throughout the whole story, did fantastic looking at the different boards without being prompted to, held onto the wooden spoon independently to make the cake and her favourite part was smelling the delicious carrot cake at the end!

Vivie-Sienna – the complete STAR!!!

KS4 STARS!!!

A GALAXY OF STARS THIS WEEK!!!!!!!!!

Respect

4MM for their trip to the mosque demonstrating British Values!

Dylan R for holding the door open for wheelchair users!

Michael K for putting his hand up in assembly!

Resilience

Bobbie S for working hard and being focussed in art!

Shay M for trying to create his own art, but when it didn’t go as planned, accepted help and used a template to improve his work!

Jess O for catching up with work in Humanities after being out of class completing therapy work a lot!

Matthew M for overcoming his anxieties to complete an assessment!

Teamwork

Jay F and Nikhit K for their brilliant work at the powerchair football tournament last weekend with Nikhit even scoring 2 goals!

POST-16 STARS!!!

Teamwork, Resilience and Respect

Casey was a wonderful friend to Katie when they were on Residential.  She patiently helped Katie send a text home as there was no wifi for Katie to do it herself.  Fantastic! STAR!!!

Resilience

Shannon for using her new sewing skills and stitching her broken bag strap.  Well done! STAR!!!

Callum S for having a great week back at school.  Brilliant! STAR!!!

Owen for building his strength and standing a lot more.  Great stuff! STAR!!!

Grace and Eve for showing such adaptability and patience during their first English exam.  Well done and good luck! STAR!!!

Andrew the Airman! For recognising when he needs help and making very mature decisions. Wello done, Andrew, what a STAR!!!

Makaton Signs of the Week

Here’s Julie with a seasonal message!

Spring is coming! Meteorological spring begins on 1^st March when days will be longer and the weather will get warmer (hopefully!).

Spring, March, weather, warm, day, long

Have a great week and keep signing!

Finally…this is from Mandy!

The students who stayed in school during the residential visit had a fun packed week! We held an Italian themed week with tie-dying T-shirts in Italian colours, making biscuits and icing the Italian flag on them, colouring Mona Lisa pictures and decorating our own frames with pasta!  We learnt a few phrases “Ciao” Buongiorno and “arrivederci”. We listened to Italian music with Francis giving us a rundown on the Eurovision entries! We finished off the week with a delicious meal at Sambucas Italian restaurant!

Italian things!

…..from John & the Team here at PHS