Freddie's Focus
For Parents & Carers
- Issue 108
- January 10, 2025
Freddie's Focus
For Parents & Carers
- Issue 108
- January 10, 2025
Message from the Headteacher
Dear Parents & Carers,
Let me start this week’s Freddie’s Focus by sincerely wishing you and your families a Happy New Year. I hope you have had an enjoyable Christmas. The students have made a positive start to the new term.
As you would expect in the new year, our focus this week with students has been very much on the new year and new year’s resolutions. We want all of our students to be successful in 2025, and particularly those students in Year 11. Through assemblies this week, we have reminded students about the qualities that we would expect to see from them in and around school.
A reminder to Year 11 parents that your children will be receiving their mock results on Thursday 16th January, and the Year 11 Parents’ Evening will take place on Thursday 23rd January. Details for this event will be sent out in due course.
And finally, in spite of the disruption caused by the weather yesterday, the students’ behaviour around school and on the site was exemplary and they should be very proud of themselves.
Thank-you for your continued support.
Mr Davies.
Message from the Headteacher
Dear Parents & Carers,
Let me start this week’s Freddie’s Focus by sincerely wishing you and your families a Happy New Year. I hope you have had an enjoyable Christmas. The students have made a positive start to the new term.
As you would expect in the new year, our focus this week with students has been very much on the new year and new year’s resolutions. We want all of our students to be successful in 2025, and particularly those students in Year 11. Through assemblies this week, we have reminded students about the qualities that we would expect to see from them in and around school.
A reminder to Year 11 parents that your children will be receiving their mock results on Thursday 16th January, and the Year 11 Parents’ Evening will take place on Thursday 23rd January. Details for this event will be sent out in due course.
And finally, in spite of the disruption caused by the weather yesterday, the students’ behaviour around school and on the site was exemplary and they should be very proud of themselves.
Thank-you for your continued support.
Mr Davies.
Things to celebrate
- A great start to the new term with so many of our students getting involved in the extra–curricular opportunities on offer to them. Please see the school website for details.
- Year 11 photographs took place this week and will conclude next week.
- Final rehearsals for the school show ‘The Wiz’ are well underway. Performance dates are 5th – 7th February.
Extra-Curricular Activities
Our STEM club is up and running with lots of exciting activities for students to get stuck into! All students are welcome to attend the sessions, and we look forward to seeing you.
At Freddie’s we offer our students a wide range of other extra-curricular activities. For further details, click here.
School Reminders
Did you know that you can read previous editions of Freddie’s Focus from this Academic Year? To do so, click here.
School Reminders
Did you know that you can read previous editions of Freddie’s Focus from this Academic Year? To do so, click here.
What we do at Freddie's and why we do it
We celebrate excellence and reward our students in the following ways:
- Class teacher rewards
- BEST tickets
- ‘Freddie’s Focus on the Stars’
- BEST awards
- Postcards home
This week we have celebrated our ‘Freddie’s Focus on the stars’ which highlights all students who have gone above and beyond in a particular subject area. The Headteacher’s Award is also presented once per fortnight.
For further information on how our rewards work, see below:
Year 7 to Year 10
100 HoY Mug/Earphones/Water Bottle/Skip the queue pass
175 JWY Power Bank/Skip the queue pass/Calculator/£5 Amazon voucher
250 JWY £10 Amazon voucher/Skip the queue pass
350 PDA £15 Amazon voucher/Skip the queue pass
Year 11
100 HoY £5 Amazon voucher/£5 off Prom
150 JWY £10 Amazon voucher/£10 off Prom
200 PDA £15 Amazon voucher/£15 off Prom
On the run up to the Musical ‘The Wiz’, students with 250 rewards (150 Y11) may opt for a free ticket to see the musical when they see Mr Whalley.
Homework and Independent Learning
The OSCAR model is something that we are promoting at Freddie’s in order to support your child with independent/self-directed study at home.
The ‘R’ stands for re-visit, retrieve and remember.
You can encourage your child to do any of the following tasks to help them revisit knowledge, and make sure it has been learnt – stored in the long-term memory:
- Create a set of flashcards (key vocabulary on one side, and definition or explanation on the other).
- Create their own mini–quiz by creating a set of questions and answers based on the information they are focussing on. You can then use this to quiz their knowledge.
- Use the ‘look, cover and write’ technique.
- Dual code the information that they are trying to learn by condensing key points into an image and a word or sentence to trigger the memory.
Applications that we use for learning
The following applications are used by our students during their time at FLHS to aid their learning. You can learn more about them below.
Microsoft Office
Did you know that your child can access Microsoft Office at home for free? As a student at Fred Longworth High School, your child is allowed to download a fully working free copy of Microsoft Office 365 to use on their computer, smartphone and tablet whilst they are a student at our school. Click on the button below to learn more.
Satchel:One
Satchel:One is the school online learning platform for students and is the parental portal for all information related to your child’s overall progress within school. You can keep track of your child’s homework using Satchel:One. It is advisable to remind your child to get into the habit of checking their homework on Satchel:One regularly. Relying upon notifications is not the right approach and we advise students to turn off notifications so that they are not disturbed by them.
GCSEPod
GCSEPod is an online study platform and is the perfect resource to help your child learn, retain and recall all the information they need to achieve their GCSE goals. GCSEPod provides 3-5 minute bursts of audio-visual, teacher written learning which can help to reinforce and consolidate key GCSE topics covered in lessons. Experts read and explain everything clearly including all the right facts, quotes, keywords, dates and diagrams on screen. GCSEPod is only available to students in Year 10 and Year 11.
Homework Club
Please remind your child that homework club is available to all students Monday-Thursday in the Library (apart from Monday week B) where support and IT equipment is is available.
Attendance
We want to do all we can to support your child to be in school every day and ask that you support this important message from home, encouraging your child to avoid missing curriculum content through absence. Here is a breakdown of the absences for the following attendance percentages:
Thank you for your continued support with attendance.
Can we please remind all our parents and carers to use the correct channels of communication should they wish to raise a concern or question. You continued support is invaluable to us.
Belonging, Engaging, Succeeding Together.
Can we please remind all our parents and carers to use the correct channels of communication should they wish to raise a concern or question. You continued support is invaluable to us.