Weekly Information - Friday 23rd September 2022
- All - JTHS working towards achieving The Wellbeing Award for Schools
- All - JTHS Classroom Expectations
- All - Attendance Update
- All - Online Safety #AndrewTate
- All- Online Bullying
- All - School Communication and Go4Schools
- All - Midland Classic Bus Fares
- All - Are You Interested In Becoming A Doctor, Dentist Or Vet Or A Career In Allied Healthcare??
- Sixth Form Planned Absences
- Job Opportunity - Becky Adlington's Swim Stars
- Business & Economics - After School Sessions
JTHS are working towards achieving The Wellbeing Award for Schools (WAS), this will involve staff, students and parents being involved in the process of changing the long-term culture of the whole school. The award uses an evidence-based framework to drive change and will help to ensure that mental health and wellbeing sits at the heart of JTHS school life.
The award is built on a robust framework of eight objectives which epitomise best practice.
• Objective 1: The school is committed to promoting and protecting positive emotional wellbeing and mental health by achieving the Wellbeing Award for Schools.
• Objective 2: The school has a clear vision and strategy for promoting and protecting emotional wellbeing and mental health, which is communicated to all involved with the school.
• Objective 3: The school has a positive culture which regards emotional wellbeing and mental health as the responsibility of all.
• Objective 4: The school actively promotes staff emotional wellbeing and mental health
. • Objective 5: The school prioritises professional learning and staff development on emotional wellbeing and mental health.
• Objective 6: The school understands the different types of emotional and mental health needs across the whole-school community and has systems in place to respond appropriately.
• Objective 7: The school actively seeks the ongoing participation of the whole-school community in its approach to emotional wellbeing and mental health.
• Objective 8: The school works in partnerships with other schools, agencies and available specialist services to support emotional wellbeing and mental health.
Achieving accreditation is a rigorous and challenging process, but we are hoping it is going to be an exceptionally rewarding process with benefits of immeasurable impact for everyone at JTHS. Pupils will be having information shared with them about the Wellbeing Award and chances to get involved in helping to improve wellbeing at JTHS over the next two weeks. There will be opportunities for students to become ‘Wellbeing Champions’ and be part of the steering group to help reduce stigma around mental health. As part of the process there will be an evaluation for students to complete, as well as a parents evaluation form. Students will receive this link via email and parents via the schoolzine app, these will be sent out in the coming weeks. We would really appreciate if as many of you as possible can complete these evaluations to help us create our action plan going forward.
Thank you for your support in advance and I look forward to sharing more Wellbeing updates with you in the future.
Miss Senior
We have endeavoured to create a vision and values for JTHS which are shared and understood by all members of our community. These were developed via a detailed consultation with staff, students, parents and governors and we have done a lot of work embedding them into our day to day life at school.
JTHS vision: 'One community, striving for personal excellence'
JTHS values: Kindness, Respect, Integrity, Perseverance.
As part of our drive to embed our Vision and Values into everything that we do in school, this year we have created some new 'Classroom Expectations' which clearly link to the school values. We believe that our students are extremely keen to demonstrate the values at all times, and by being explicit about how they may show them in lessons we can support them in this area. These can be seen below:
We have had assemblies to explain exactly what these mean which all students have attended. For the first two weeks of term we asked students to really focus on 'Integrity' and making sure that they are 'Punctual and Prepared'. The response from students and staff has been very positive.
For the following two weeks we will be asking them to focus more strongly on 'Respect' (One Voice) and 'Kindness' (Be Polite). Students will be updated on this during registration on Monday.
It would be great if you could talk to your son or daughter about these values and the classroom expectations to reinforce how important we think they are.
Of course, there will be times when students do not display these expectations to the standards we would expect. This can negatively affect their learning and the learning of others and in this situation, our teachers have a consistent set of proactive responses which they will use. These are initially based around talking to students about how they should modify their behaviour and which expectation they are not meeting.
We have deliberately included more obvious reminders and cues for them which include a brief time outside of the classroom to quietly reflect on their behaviour before being allowed to rejoin the lesson in a positive frame of mind. This will only be used after initial more preventative strategies have proved unsuccessful.
On the rare occasion when a student does not take advantage of a 'time-out', and continues to disrupt learning, they will be removed from that particular lesson to work somewhere else and given a lunchtime detention. You will see this lesson removal recorded on Go4Schools. Please be assured then when this does happen, it is very much a last resort when the student has been given every chance to understand our expectations and reset their approach to the lesson.
Attendance Update
Dear Parents and Carers;
Please find updated information regarding student attendance and absence at John Taylor High School:
Reporting a student’s absence: Please can we ask that all absences for all students are reported to our dedicated absence line- 01283 247858.
Please ensure you tell us:
- Your child’s name
- Your name
- Their tutor group
- The reason for absence.
Absences must be reported each day the child is absent.
Medical appointments in a school day:
Appointments should, where possible, be arranged outside the school day. If they are unable to be scheduled at any other time, please provide us with details about the appointment before the absence is taken.
Should your child have an ongoing medical illness please do let the school know so that a medical health care plan can be completed.
Students in Years 7-11 who are leaving site for appointments etc during the day must be collected by a parent / carer.
Students should present themselves at the Data Hub where they will sign out and wait for a parent/carer to arrive, before joining the parent/carer in the main reception area.
Parents/Carers will come into reception and wait for the student - students will no longer be sent out to the parent/carer’s vehicle.
If the student is being collected by another adult, parents/carers must inform the school in advance who will be collecting the child. For safeguarding reasons, we will not allow the student to leave school premises with another adult without prior consent. Attempting to gain consent at the time the student is being collected may result in a delay in the student being permitted to leave site.
Students will not be permitted to leave in a taxi alone even if this is pre-booked by a parent.
Request for leave of absence:
All requests for Leave of Absence must be submitted in writing in advance of the absence. You must provide documents to support the reason for absence e.g. proof of travel, exam or competition confirmation.
Headteachers are unable to authorise Leave of Absence in Term time unless the reasons for this are deemed to be exceptional.
Leave of absence, which is deemed not to be exceptional, or is not applied for prior to the absence being taken, is classed as Unauthorised Leave of Absence
Any period of unauthorised leave of absence may result in a parent receiving a penalty notice fine. Should a fixed penalty notice be issued, the fine applies to ‘per parent/carer and per child’. This is regardless of who applied for the leave. Currently the parent has 3 choices:
- A fine of £60 if paid within 21 days
- A fine of £120 is paid after 21 days but within 28 days
- In the case of a non-payment of the fine then Notice will be withdrawn and will trigger the fast-track prosecution process under the provisions of section 444(1) of the Education Act 1996. If found ‘guilty’ then this would result in a criminal record for that parent.
At John Taylor High School, we are proud of our high expectations and the positive collaboration with our students, parents, carers and other key stake holders, which enables us to achieve high attendance levels. We believe that students need to attend school regularly to benefit from their education and to fulfil their potential.
Kind regards
Mrs S Hickey
Attendance Intervention Manager
Online Safety- TikTok- #AndrewTate
Dear Parents,
The media has been reporting over recent weeks about the rise of the #AndrewTate on TikTok, especially with boys as young as 13 watching the dangerous footage.
Andrew Tate has been banned from social media, however the dangerous and hateful messages are still appearing in the social media domain. The messages are misogynistic and homophobic and in some cases they promote extreme violence.
For this reason, we are asking you to speak to your children about this content and strongly advise you to monitor your child’s use of TikTok very closely.
Miss Dean- DSL
Internet Matters have compiled some useful advice for parents to talk to their children about Online Bullying.
https://www.internetmatters.org/issues/cyberbullying/cyberbullying-conversation-starter-guide/
Dear Parents/Carers,
Communication between school and parents has come a long way, with letters etc increasingly giving way to faster, multi-channel electronic communications via email and various online platforms and apps. It is therefore very important that the school have your current email contact details and we encourage all parents to download both the Schoolzine and Go4Schools Apps.
Schoolzine App
The Schoolzine App has useful links, including the news feed, newsletters and school calendar and will also enable parents to receive messages via the App (push notifications). Please visit the link below for instructions on how to download SZapp. It is vital that you do engage with this form of communication as we do not send paper copies of any communication home and rely on these push notification as well as email.
Go4Schools
Go4Schools is our online platform whereby you can view important information regarding student timetables, homework, behaviour, attendance and student progress and reports. Information about how to log into Go4Schools can be found on this link:
Go4Schools App
Again, if you have not already downloaded the Go4Schools App, there is a link below to their website where you can find details. The App should make use of the system far easier. At present you can only see information regarding student timetables, homework, attendance and behaviour, although other information is under development.
Weekly Information for Parents
We send out a weekly link to information for parents. This is normally sent on Friday each week by email and push notification to the Schoolzine App. Each message is tagged with the relevant year group, so you can navigate easily through and read only messages relevant to your child.
Parent Evening Appointments
Parents evenings will once again be completed remotely during this acadmic year using our ‘SchoolCloud’ system. Appointments will be made online by parents and you will be notified, by email and push notification, when the booking system for your child’s parents evening is open.
Website
Finally, don’t forget to regularly visit www.jths.co.uk for information, including all our latest news. You will also find links to access the above Apps and to ParentPay.
Bus Fares – Midland Classic
Please be advised that Midland Classic bus ticket prices will increase from 26 September 2022. The majority of single fares for students will increase by 10p or 20p and day tickets will be £3.50, weekly tickets will be £16.00 and 4-weekly tickets will be £50.00.
All of this information is on their website at www.midlandclassic.com
Medic Mentor’s free, virtual INSIGHT INTO MEDICINE CONFERENCES on Saturday 8th October, Saturday 22nd October, and Saturday 5th November 3pm - 7pm.
Registration Link: https://medicmentor.co.uk/insight-into-medicine-conference/
The Insight into Medicine Conferences are rare opportunities for students to speak directly to Doctors about their line of work. Having a unique insight into these careers will shine through in their applications to Med School.
On Saturday 8th October, we’re delighted to welcome:
- Dr Ray Tse on Geriatric Medicine
- Dr Vinita Ruparel on Oncology
- Dr Faizan Shah on General Surgery
Students are very welcome to sign up to as many Insight into Medicine Conferences as they like!
https://medicmentor.co.uk/insight-into-medicine-conference/
FREE VIRTUAL GET INTO VETERINARY MEDICINE CONFERENCE
-Saturday 22nd October 10am - 3pm
Register here: https://airtable.com/shrs1hEiPfdSSgnI2
FREE VIRTUAL GET INTO DENTISTRY CONFERENCE
- Sunday 23rd October 10am - 3pm
Register here: https://airtable.com/shr7JL0vaCAzEYUo1
If you have any more students that considering a career in allied healthcare, here is the link for our first NHS Work Experience Session on 2nd October. Sessions are £10 to cover administrative and technological costs:
https://alliedhealthmentor.org/product/live-virtual-work-experience-programme/
Sixth Form Absences
If you wish to report an absence due to illness, please ring the dedicated absence line on 01283 247858.
If you wish to inform us of a Planned Absence (medical appointments, driving lessons, driving tests etc), please click the link below and complete the form. Please upload evidence of all appointments.
Sixth Form Absence - John Taylor High School (jths.co.uk)
Thank you
The Sixth Form Team
Business & Economics Students
Every Tuesday after school the Business and Economics Department are holding 1 hour sessions in U10 for students to either complete outstanding work or gain support from subject specific teachers.
Many thanks
The Business & Economics Team