91首发

A sneak peak of our This is Me Festival

From Russell: everyone across school had a fabulous time expressing themselves in our This Is Me Festival. It was followed by a chance to ‘Sponge The Staff, an event in which pupils enthusiastically participated!

Hi everyone,

Wow, it鈥檚 really busy at the moment! You can read about This Is Me last Friday, the opening of the library from Monday, our UNICEF Award from Tuesday 鈥� and it鈥檚 the Prom tonight! I鈥檝e also left in about our Centre of Excellence Award from last week too

We also on Tuesday had one of the most important days 鈥� the transition day when everyone gets together in their classes for next year. We鈥檒l have the Leavers Assembly to do as well, and reports have been done. Plus it鈥檚 hot!

It鈥檚 a great time of year and feels great in school, even if it鈥檚 warm on occasions. I hope you鈥檝e enjoyed some of the things that have been or are still to happen this term, and can look forward to the summer as well

Take care, stay cool, and all the best!

John S 馃槉

馃槉 from John & the PHS Team 馃槉

We have 3 Super-Steering Groups which deliver our Key Drivers through our curriculum. The Key Drivers are Communication, Wellbeing and Independence. The Groups are Literacy, Physical Development and Personal Development

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Literacy

Becky, our Literacy Specialist Lead, leads a team that improve all aspects of literacy, including this year a lot of handwriting and oracy (it鈥檚 OK, she鈥檒l be going into explain all of that) as well as reading, phonics, books and all sorts!

NEW LIBRARY UPDATE!

If you’ve checked in with the blog in recent weeks you’ll know that the literacy team have been rather busy creating a new school library (and talking lots about the little details of it). Well, after many weeks of waiting, our new library was officially opened this week! It’s been a real treat to see the place come to life with students exploring the different areas and most importantly exploring the different books!

On Monday our group of student librarians gathered with John to be the first to experience the new space, and I’m pleased (and very relieved) to report we’ve had lots of lovely feedback. The idea was to create a truly inclusive place for our students and make it easier for students to find what they’re interested in or perhaps be persuaded to try a type of book they might not have considered before – and we appear to have ticked that box! Here are some photos from the opening day:

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After quite a long time of planning and preparing you would be forgiven for thinking the Literacy Team might be a little bit biased, so why don’t we hear from 6CC instead:

We were so excited about the grand opening of our new library! It’s filled with cool, cosy, and relaxing spaces where we can enjoy a good book, flip through magazines, or dive into exciting stories and newspapers.

There鈥檚 something for everyone! We had a great time exploring the fun sensory features, touching, listening, and seeing all the ways reading can come to life. After our visit, we brought some wonderful books back to our classroom and enjoyed sharing our new stories with each other.

You can look forward to more photos documenting class trips to the library next week, as I’m sure you’ll agree that its lovely to see!

Happy Reading from Becky!

and also鈥�..

And Chris can back up that last point from his point of view about how it was when his class visited the new library鈥�

Library Grand Opening!

We were so excited about the grand opening of our new library! It’s filled with cool, cozy, and relaxing spaces where we can enjoy a good book, flip through magazines, or dive into exciting stories and newspapers

There鈥檚 something for everyone! We had a great time exploring the fun sensory features, touching, listening, and seeing all the ways reading can come to life. After our visit, we brought some wonderful books back to our classroom and enjoyed sharing our new stories with each other

Happy Reading!

Physical Development听

Everything that is fabulous in the world of Physical Development! This includes physio, hydro, MOVE, PE, HI, VI, a lot of OT and all sorts of key areas for us, including all of the Outdoor Learning, John Muir Award and many other aspects. Steph oversees this and will ensure that an aspect is shared in the blog each week

CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE!

As you鈥檙e aware, MOVE is an approach that was introduced to our school 4 years ago and it has been quite an exciting journey to date! Within our first 2 years, we celebrated our achievement in receiving the Gold Quality Mark, which acknowledged our ongoing commitment to provide the very best MOVE provision. Now we鈥檝e successfully achieved this goal, we are an official MOVE Centre of Excellence school!

This award rewards schools with an exceptional provision and acknowledges the role PHS plays in being a MOVE ambassador provision, so this is a fantastic achievement and ensures we are providing the highest quality care and support for all our children to optimise their physical potential.

The benefits of becoming a Centre of Excellence

• Acknowledgement of outstanding practice
• Regional and national recognition
• Provides a framework to maintain high standards
• Access to ongoing support
• Involvement in the future direction of MOVE Europe

This has been achieved through the continued and innovative support that our MOVE team, school staff, and students鈥� family provide. Movement is the foundation of learning, and children need to be able to move to explore their environment, gain confidence & self-esteem and develop cognitive, communication and social skills. We are extremely proud of the positive impact that MOVE has had on all these aspects of our children鈥檚 development, and we remain committed to ensuring this progress continues.

Let鈥檚 look back over the last 4 years of MOVE, as we celebrate the progress our children have made from our hugely popular whole school MOVE days to our MOVE to Learn and even some MOVE related gardening, and right down to our littlest MOVErs & Explorers group!

Becoming a MOVE Centre of excellence has brought us some fabulous moments on the journey

Huge thanks & congratulations to everyone, including all your support from home

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Personal Development

One of the best things about the school and one of the most important for our pupils, PD covers PSHE, Wellbeing, Careers, Social Moral Spiritual & Cultural, Online Safety, Behaviour and similar areas. Jo pulls it all together. Let鈥檚 see what Jo and the team have in store for us this week! The inspectors really loved all of the PD we do!

PSHE

4RR have continued to consider healthy and unhealthy foods. In our latest work, we have made a 3-D model of a plate of healthy food and then put our theory into practise by making a fruit salad. Some of the class tried fruits that they had not tasted before and Shae made a fruit salad for his brother!

Wellbeing

3TW were thinking about their strengths and skills in preparation for next year and transition day.听Here is a sample of two pupils work around this

SMSC

This Is Me Festival 2025

The school turned out in yet another beautiful sea of colour and individuality, despite the wind and occasional rain shower! In this year鈥檚 celebration of diversity, our pupils had the opportunity to experience activities from different cultures and of course celebrate the individuality of themselves and our wonderful school community.

Gem Arts Mandala Art Workshop

A lady from India came in to show us how to make beautiful 鈥渄ot art鈥� mandala style painting. This had a very calming effect on some of our students who were able to produce some amazing artwork!

Gem Arts Brazilian Capoeira Workshop

A gentleman joined us to teach us about the culture of Capoeira. This included learning the basics of the famous martial arts, and also introduced us to the music. At one point a teacher was challenged to a fight to demonstrate attack and defence strategies, but actually turned out to be a brilliant comedy sketch 91首发 style!

Watch this space next week to find out about the main event that took place on the yard鈥�

Wellbeing

Here are Andy and the Wellbeing Team about what鈥檚 happening this year in their brilliant Connect Challenge series! Go Andy!

Connect Challenge 鈥� Transitions and New Connections

On Tuesday, classes took part in the transition morning, welcoming new classes to meet their teachers, therapists, support assistants and new classmates. The morning was filled with fun activities like STEM workshops, quizzes and 鈥榞etting to know you鈥� challenges aimed at building connections and easing any nerves about upcoming changes

Owen shared, “Transition morning was good; I feel much happier about moving to Post 16 now.” Meanwhile, in lower school, Chris鈥檚 new class enjoyed a 鈥楬ungry Caterpillar鈥� themed morning 鈥� let鈥檚 hear about what they got up to鈥�Over to you Chris!

We had such a lovely time on our transition day! It was so exciting to meet our new friends and the friendly staff who will be helping us learn and have lots of fun in September. We took turns introducing ourselves and bravely shared one thing we like. Everyone did such a fantastic job speaking in front of the group!

One of the highlights of the day was enjoying the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We followed the caterpillar鈥檚 tasty adventure and then went on our own hunt in the garden to find hidden fruit! After that, we got creative and used chopped fruit to make our very own hungry caterpillars. Just like in the story, our caterpillars turned into butterflies, so we decorated our own beautiful butterflies. It was a morning full of smiles and fun. What a great start to our new adventure together!

All the best everyone! Good luck with your transitions in September, whether that鈥檚 moving through school or to pastures new 鈥� you鈥檒l do great!

Stay tuned next week for our final 鈥淐onnect Challenge鈥�

Gotta get yourself connected鈥�..writing鈥檚 on the wall鈥�..

Therapy Star of the Week 鈥� love Therapy Star of the Week, especially when it鈥檚 Patrick and Matthew!

Lori has seen some excellent work in her transdisciplinary sessions, where they were cooking and working with food. Let鈥檚 hear how they got on and see Lori鈥檚 picture!

Therapy Stars of the Week听go to Patrick and Matthew who showed fantastic teamwork during our transdisciplinary group session. They took turns with each step of the recipe, working together really well to make frozen fruit yogurt cups鈥攋ust right for the summer weather! After cooking, one washed the dishes while the other dried, showing great cooperation and responsibility. Well done to both of you for your effort and positive attitude!

Patrick and Matthew 鈥� great stuff!

Ben鈥檚 Fabulous Gardening Club

What a great club this is, and a fabulous activity 鈥� a brilliant thing for us to be doing. Cheers all!

Harvesting time in the Gardening Club with our first batch of Percy’s Potatoes being dug up听 for sale. One little helper got a wee bit excited and managed to plant themselves!

Behaviour for Learning (BfL)

Aylisha and Corin have developed the BfL Group and are working on supporting our pupils all the time on the best way to be in all situations

If you have any questions or queries please do not hesitate to contact the BfL team

• holland@percyhedley.org.uk
• orr@percyhedley.org.uk

Early Years 鈥� The Ducklings!

Let鈥檚 get the latest update from what鈥檚 been happening down in the fabulous Early Years, hear from Kerry, and also see some lovely pictures which show what sort of a week they鈥檝e had and what they鈥檝e been up to

Once again, a busy week in Early Years

A lovely afternoon exploring the outdoors in the outdoor learning area – lots of great music making and finding slugs

Still enjoying our seaside themed activities. Our going to the beach sensory story has been enjoyed by everyone this week, exploring the sand and shells, having a sniff at the fish and chip sensory pot, some funny expressions from the children. The quacking seagulls and of course the mermaid blanket of gorgeous sparkly colours. The children have thoroughly enjoyed bucket activities this week lovely engagement from the children

UNICEF Award update with Rebecca

Since we gained the Bronze level of this award, Rebecca & the teams have been working on the next level – I think we can guess what the focus has been this week鈥︹�︹�︹��.

This week we had our visit from UNICEF to complete our visit to see if we met the criteria for the Silver Rights Aware Award for the Rights Respecting School. Kathy our advisor met with staff, governors and students, and looked at our evidence of the work we have done this year to be a Rights Respecting School

A huge thank-you goes out to Santi, Rosie, Jack, Kayden, and Casey for their work speaking to Kathy and talking about the work we have been doing at school to ensure that their rights are being met.听They really impressed Kathy with their knowledge, their understanding of their rights and their empathy around the rights of others who may not be able to have their rights met

We were thrilled that at the end of the visit we were awarded with our Silver Award, and look forward to getting our report to see what our actions are to begin to work towards our Gold Award and further embedding the work around rights into our school culture and ethos

A huge thank-you to all of the staff in school who have been involved in working with our students this year, to develop their awareness of their rights and the rights of other children around the world

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If you have any questions about this please get in touch!

Exams are over!

Well done to everyone who has sat any kinds of exams of any kind! It鈥檚 great that some people do, according to their own plans, and that we鈥檙e able to help our students with a variety of different awards & accreditations. Well done all!

Preparation for Adulthood with Hannah

PfA is a key part of the School Improvement Plan this year and will be next year too. Hannah posted her message about what the PfA Team have been doing about it below last week 鈥� let鈥檚 have another have read 鈥� it鈥檚 all good!

(Stolen from Darlington)

We were delighted to welcome parents and carers to our recent Preparation for Adulthood Parent Carer Forum.听It was fantastic to catch up with so many families, both in person and online, to share ideas and experiences of some of the issues around decision-making as adulthood approaches.听We talked about the Mental Capacity Act, Deputyship, Lasting Power of Attorney and what these might mean for your child and family.听It was a great opportunity to ask questions and discuss issues, and the PfA Team were able to signpost to many different sources of information.听 Parents and carers fed back that it had given them food for thought, and that it had been beneficial to talk to other parents going through similar experiences

This particular event was open to parents of students in Year 7 and above.听 We will be organising a new calendar of events for next year to help you support your children and young people, so please keep your eyes peeled for these when the school calendar is updated.听 You can also find out lots of information about PfA on our new website pages which you can find below:

And finally鈥︹��it鈥檚 that time of year again! See you tonight!

鈥�..from John & the Team here at PHS

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Our Key Drivers

Communication, Wellbeing, Independence