News, Stars & Safe Tyres! from John & the PHS Team Friday 26th January 2024
Welcome to Percy Hedley School's Whole School Blog!
Hi everyone, Happy Friday!
And Happy Burns Night for last night if that is your thing! How is everyone, OK? I hope so
It’s a good blog this week, full of some very interesting and very different stories and articles. Definitely scroll to the end and hear about Andrew and his work with tyres and safety, but you might also be interested in the Safeguarding section this week, some really important there from Rebecca and Maria. Otherwise there are some great STARS!!! a poem about attendance – I know! – and some interesting stuff from the usual sources like Julie with Makaton and some lovely PE! and a little bit of the Hellens Sensory Motor Suite too, cos I couldn’t resist!
😊 from John & the PHS Team 😊
Literacy
Personal Development
Physical Development
- our three Super Steering Groups that deliver our curriculum – there’s a paper describing how that on the website if you want to read further. The Groups work on these broad themes to 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
What is Storytelling Week?
National Storytelling Week takes place every year and is a celebration of the power of sharing stories. This year it is being celebrated between 27 January and 4 February 2024.
Sharing and making up stories with your child is a great way to help them relax, develop empathy, and learn about the world. It also boosts their vital literacy skills.
Dream up new worlds inspired by the everyday objects around you. Maybe a favourite teddy has unbelievable adventures whilst you sleep, or a pair of old shoes gives you magical powers when you wear them! The possibilities are endless.
Explore free activities below, designed to support your child’s creativity, empathy, and literacy skills.
Activities include story sharing, puppet making and visual and audio stories.
The Literacy Squad
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 and Safe Use of Technology
MOVE to Relax is a session available to all students who follow the LSTE Pathway. It is based in one of the sensory rooms but can be carried out in class too. Jo Hunt, one of our OTs, set up the sensory room to provide different opportunities and experiences to relax, as well as encouraging our students to take a more active role using technology. MOVE to Relax sessions allow pupils to work towards all their targets across the curriculum: cognition and learning, communication and language, physical and sensory, independence and personal, social and emotional development.
Wellbeing
3TW have been working really hard thinking about emotions and their understanding of the words that relate to them.
Pupils have recently been focussing on ‘strong feeling’ words and what the relevance to them.
Pupils have shown a developing understanding about when they need help from a trusted adult relating to strong emotions. 3TW pupils like to show their understanding in many ways including talking and recording things visually.
Pupils will next investigate what events in their lives trigger strong emotions.
SMSC, British Values, Citizenship and Religious Education
During pastoral students in 6LA have been making tealight candle holders using PVA glue and tissue paper to decorate, these are to represent love and to celebrate St Dwynwen’s day on the 25th January.
The students have looked at the Welsh language by completing a word search and some mindful colouring focusing on the word ‘Cariad’ which means love.
Brandon and Torri in 4AJ have also been learning about St Dwynwen during pastoral time!
It has been National Handwriting Day this week and, in 4RR, we have been working very hard to improve our handwriting skills.
Logan has been focussing on the correct formation of ‘a’.
Bobbie has been working with ‘or’, ‘ar’ and ‘ur’ to support his Phonics work, writing the letter patterns on paper and on screen with a mouse,
Mattie has written diary sentences using his own spelling attempts and produced his best work so far.
The team have been very impressed with their achievements and their diligent attitude – well done!
In 4AJ Nikhit K has been looking at the Victorian ideal of ‘Copperplate’ handwriting and used all 26 letters of the alphabet! Shaye M has been working on Spiderman handwriting!
Physical Development
And it’s Steph with all aspects of Physical Development. Here’s Steph now
Following on from last week’s celebration and official opening of the Hellens Sensory Motor Suite, we thought we’d follow it up with some more pictures! The children are really enjoying exploring the room and new equipment and are genuinely getting so much out of this new space of ours! Over the coming weeks we’ll be sharing some of the benefits with you – that is, apart from the benefit of huge amounts of fun they’re all having! Smiles all ‘round! 😊
Therapy STAR!!! Of the Week!
The children here love the pool! Hannah has been doing some great work with her class, and has picked out Amelie for some special praise this week. This is Hannah – read this and have a look at the photos! Great stuff!
Amelie is making great progress in hydrotherapy. She is able to shuffle off the edge of the pool into the water independently and is happy to go under water. She is practicing floating independently and is working on her breathing technique whilst under water. Amelie’s confidence when in the water is increasing each week and we are all so proud of her! Amelie is a super star!
Sport Thing of the Week!
Well, we usually get some great stuff from our PE guys, and our pupils are great at all of these things, but this is a very nice one this week. Have a listen to Nathan!
Huge shout out to the amazing students who has been attending the out of school competition events such as Newcastle United Football foundation community event for both the boys and the girls they did fantastic, plus the Wanderers Schools Swimming Gala
We also brought back some trophies and medals
Congratulations to Robyn who won gold in 4 events and Silver in 1 event and Dominic won 1 Silver and 1 Bronze in his events
Both myself (Nathan) and Richard are proud PE teachers 🙂
Preparation for Adulthood – PfA
Safeguarding Updates
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
Online Safety
This is based on topics that we know that you ask about or are concerned with. This week’s is about Navigating Social Media and Live Streaming: A Guide for Parents. In particular tagging and sharing
School Lunches
Attendance! From Mark, our Attendance Officer!
The DFE have launched a national communications campaign on the importance of attendance with the strapline ‘Moments Matter Attendance Counts’. The purpose of the campaign is to outline the importance of attendance for attainment, wellbeing, and development as well as signposting to advice for further support. I really like the campaign manifesto…
Updated Code of Conduct
Friends of PHS – the FoPHS!
Huge thanks to the FoPHS for their support with Christmas and making everything lovely! What a great bunch of FoPHS! We’re very grateful indeed!
Leading Parent Partnership Award (LPPA)
Stars of the Week
Makaton Signs of the Week
Here’s Julie! And one of my favourite nights of the year! Burns Night Thursday 25th January Robert Burns, poet, Scotland, haggis, turnip, potato, whiskey, eat, drink, sing
Finally…
Careers News! With Andrew!
The brilliant Andrew has been doing a lot of Careers work recently, and it’s great! Here’s Louise R to explain it
Andrew has been busy keeping the staff at PHS safe through the new school year with the support of one of our staff members, our lovely able assistant Lisa. Andrew says “I have been making sure the tires are at the correct pressure and inspecting the tire to ensure they have an efficient amount of tread on them to safely be on the road.
“Different models of vehicles have different tyre pressures. You can find these on your car door. You set your desired tyre pressure using a tyre compressor and connect it to the vehicle and press start.”
“To check your thread, you can use a ten pence coin. You must be able to see the writing on the coin to have enough thread on the tyre.”
This is terrific stuff, and bravo to Andrew, keeping us all right and safe! I actually went and bought a set of new tyres because of it! Well done, Andrew, Tyre STAR!!!
Tyres! Cheers all
…..from John & the Team here at PHS