Community Connect - December 2024

Dear Parents and Carers

Welcome to another jam packed edition of Community Connect, where we share with you just a flavour of all of the amazing things that are happening here at Greenford High School. Here at Greenford we pride ourselves on developing the whole individual.  You will know that we are exceptionally proud of our outstanding examination results, and the fact that we send so many of our students off to top universities, but I hope you will see from some of our content below, that school life at Greenford is about so much more than achievement in exams. Enjoy exploring some of the things we have been up to this term, by scrolling through the content below.

All that remains is for me to wish you and your families a very happy and peaceful festive break, and a wonderful start to 2025.

Mia Pye
Headteacher

Trips, Trips, and more Trips!

Once again, our students have started the year off this term by visiting a whole array of places and also enjoying visits inside of school too. We kicked off the year with numerous outdoor trips including Geography trips to Juniper Hall and Overstrand Hall in Norfolk, followed by the Year 12 D of E trip to Swanage. This was followed more recently by the Year 10 Geography field trip to Stratford, East London, for the urban Geography study.

Closer to home, students have visited a local Gurdwara as part of their RE curriculum, Boston Manor House, as part of the drama curriculum, along with various theatres, cinemas and galleries.  Year 11 students have visited Cambridge University, and Year 12s have visited Notting Hill and Ealing High School as part of a Science and Engineering project. Year 12 have also been taken on a Materials and Physics day, whilst Year 13 English Literature students have visited Keats House in central London.

Our outstanding chess players have taken part in a tournament in a local school.

In school, we have welcomed numerous speakers and put on various events including our European Day of Languages, our mock interview day for Year 10 with lots of local employers, the Year 9 ‘Positively You’ workshop, careers and university events for Post 16 and motivation sessions for Year 11 from external speakers.

GHS Media Awards

Greenford High School Media students celebrated their Media Awards back in September – the school’s version of the Hollywood Oscars. The sparkling ceremony saw staff and students gather to celebrate the superb video productions produced by A Level and GCSE Media Studies students. 

As ever, the students were decked out in finery as the spotlight shone on the recipients of the prestigious awards. Categories included Best Cinematography, Editing and Production Design as well as the People’s Choice awards voted for by Greenford students in their tutor groups.

The final awards of Best Production at GCSE and A Level were awarded to Tulika for Bloom and Riya for Without A Trace. The People’s Choice awards were collected by Dyari for his GCSE drama extract Like A Paladin and Viraj for the brilliant A Level crime drama Intentions.

Duke of Edinburgh Silver Awards

GHS Duke of Edinburgh now has three cohorts running this academic year. Our first Silver group are finalising their sections having completed their practice and qualifying expeditions last year. They are now updating their volunteering, physical and skill sections on eDofE and uploading evidence and assessors' reports so they can be verified in the new year.

The New Year 12s had a great practice in Swanage in preparation for their qualifying expedition in summer 2025! The 4am start was worth it!  Students are now busy working on other aspects of the award and will begin planning their three day routes for their qualifying expedition in early July.

Our first ever Year 9 cohort has been selected from over 60 applications, and they are getting excited about embarking on their sections over the holidays.  They will complete at least one section for 24 weeks before planning and executing their qualifying expedition in June. DofE at GHS has proved incredibly popular and is oversubscribed, but we continue to encourage our young people to take part in this wonderful award that inspires and cultivates leaders and helps develop the skills, confidence, and something to talk about when they apply for college, university or a job!

Green Stem Challenge

Ten of our Year 12 students have been working together with Imperial PhD students and students from other schools to come up with a project that can solve some of the environmental issues in today's world.

In February, they will present at the Natural History Museum, and we look forward to seeing their work.

Schools Chess Championships

We have had a jam-packed start of the year with our School Chess Championships. Our star player, Elias Alrubaye (Year 13) ran a trial event during chess club to pick students for the chess tournament. We made three strong teams to compete in our regional qualifier event at Ellen Wilkinson for Girls. During the event, we were successful and had all three teams qualify for the England School Chess regional rounds. We are hoping to advance in this competition during the spring term.

Sports Round Up

As ever, it’s been a busy autumn term for the PE department with many all-inclusive clubs and sports teams taking part thanks to our wonderful PE team and other teaching staff with a passion for sport who also support our young people. Here are some of the highlights:

• The girls U12 Football team have reached the next round of the U12 Middlesex Cup having defeated Drayton 14-0. The U13 girls reached the semi-finals of a tournament hosted by QPR. We can’t wait for next year as we see them develop. 
• The boys U18 Football team are now in the knockout stages of the Middlesex Cup.
• The boys Year 9 team are also through to the next round of the Middlesex Cup.
• Year 10 boys are through to the quarter finals of the Middlesex Cup
• The Sports Hall Athletics squads - Y7 and Y8 Girls teams were both a very close 2nd with the Year 7 boys claiming a place in the final of the Borough Finals.

Library Update

The library continues to provide all pupils with up-to-date books to support learning, and for reading enjoyment. 

A reminder of borrowing limits:

• Year 7 & 8 - 2 books at a time.
• Year 9 - 3 books at a time
• Year 10 - 13 - 5 books at a time.

All books can be borrowed for 3 weeks at a time, after which they must be returned or renewed.

We always encourage pupils to read for at least 20 minutes a day.

• Children who read 20 minutes a day/5 days a week are exposed to 1.8 million words in one school year. Compare this to students who read 5 minutes per day – they will be exposed to 282,000 words per school year.
• Reading helps foster empathy – a child experiences “walking in someone else’s shoes.”
• Children are exposed to different ideas and cultures.
• Reading also improves critical thinking.
• Reading increases knowledge of correct syntax and grammar, along with robust vocabulary knowledge, resulting in improved writing skills.
• Students who read 20 minutes per day score significantly higher on standardised tests of reading.
• Reading with your child, or having them read independently before bed, can help them to relax and wind down from their day.

Accessit Library and eBooks

Our Library catalogue, Accessit, is a wonderful way for pupils to get to know what books are available in the library. The Accessit home page is updated regularly and includes suggested authors, reading games and seasonal updates, such as a focus on Remembrance Day or Winter books. By signing in to the Accessit web app, pupils can check what books they have on loan and reserve books. You can view the library catalogue here. If they check the catalogue regularly, pupils can also take responsibility for their own books, ensuring they know what books they have on loan and when they are due back.

E-book library

As well as having a well stocked school library, we also have a great eBook library, called Wheelers. The eBook library link can be found here. All pupils will have been emailed their usernames and passwords, but if in doubt, they can email ghslib@greenford.ealing.sch.uk to check. Please do encourage your son or daughter to borrow books from the library before the end of term, and to keep reading over the holidays.

Free Books for Year 7s

Our Year 7s have been lucky enough to choose a free book from a list of 16 in the Book Trust BookBuzz range. These books are carefully chosen to help support the transition from primary to secondary school, and aimed at building a reading for pleasure culture. We hope that the Year 7s enjoy reading their new books!

Post 16 update

It has been a busy - and exciting - time in the world of Post 16.

November was the month of assessments and UCAS (university applications).

Year 12 students sat their in-class assessments at the start of November and year 13 students sat their assessments at the end of November. Both year groups will have important mock exams (and public BTEC examinations) when we return in spring half-term 1.

All Post 16 students must use the Christmas break to revise and prepare for their assessment periods when we return. This is particularly important for all year 13 students.

We are incredibly proud of the 190+ year 13s that have sent off their university applications. All remaining students must send their applications off before the winter break so that they can focus on - and devote their full energy - to their studies.

We look forward to a busy few months with university offers rolling in and students being invited to interview at certain universities/ for specialist courses. 

Over the final two weeks of this term, there will be a series of celebration events to mark the wonderful term that our Post 16 students have had. 

Community Coffee Morning

On 28th November, we were delighted to welcome our Somali families, along with others from different parts of the borough, as part of a Local Authority project to continue to connect with parents from this community. Along with tasty treats to enjoy together, and time to catch up and network, we had a very informative talk from a Local Authority representative who is leading some work in this area. We were also pleased to welcome our Governors to this event.

Join Our Alumni Network

We are thrilled that our Alumni Network continues to grow and go from strength to strength. As part of this, we were delighted and very proud to welcome back Navjot Sawnhey for a visit to Greenford this term. Navjot is an ex student of ours and is becoming increasingly famous for his outstanding contribution to humanitarian work. As an engineering graduate, Navjot invented a hand-held, wind-up washing machine which can be used without electricity. The washing machine is now being used all over the world in areas of conflict or humanitarian need. Recently, the washing machines have been distributed to field hospitals in Gaza. We are so proud of Navjot and his work, which is making such a difference to those who are struggling without electricity or water in other areas of the world.

You can watch a video featuring Navjot and the work of The Washing Machine Project here.

In order to sign up to our network, just follow this link and fill in the online form – we promise it will only take a couple of minutes: https://www.futurefirsthub.org.uk/register/greenford-high-school

Careers Events and Parent Feedback

Greenford students took part in plenty of careers events during the Autumn term including a Careers Fair for Year 8 and 13 students in October and a fantastic Mock Interview event with Year 10 in November. We are always looking for ways to develop our careers programme and would be grateful if parents can complete a short 3 minute survey to help us plan future events:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1HqLrGhVlN75O_4mCIvU2a65cMeBTa3LEm7_2bAFOQTE/viewform?edit_requested=true