Freddie's Focus
For Parents & Carers
- Issue 115
- March 7, 2025
Freddie's Focus
For Parents & Carers
- Issue 115
- March 7, 2025
Message from the Headteacher
Dear Parents & Carers,
This week for World Book Day, a multitude of different events have been taking place every day in our fabulous Library. The library has been bustling with students, and it has been very pleasing to see. This gives me a timely opportunity to promote the importance of encouraging your child to read.
To access GCSE examinations effectively, a child requires a reading age of 15 years and 7 months which is the average reading age required to access the text on a typical exam paper. Sadly, we have some students in school with reading ages significantly lower than this, and with reading ages below their chronological age. If your child cannot read well, they will struggle to access course content. Whilst we do much in school to promote reading, as parents and carers, one of the key things that you can do to help your child succeed in school is to also encourage them to read. If you are struggling with ideas for books, this link takes you to suggested reading lists for students in both Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4. For students in Year 7 and Year 8, engagement with the Reading Plus programme and ensuring your child completes the set work will also help to boost their reading age.
Thank-you for your continued support.
Mr Davies.
Message from the Headteacher
Dear Parents & Carers,
This week for World Book Day, a multitude of different events have been taking place every day in our fabulous Library. The library has been bustling with students, and it has been very pleasing to see. This gives me a timely opportunity to promote the importance of encouraging your child to read.
To access GCSE examinations effectively, a child requires a reading age of 15 years and 7 months which is the average reading age required to access the text on a typical exam paper. Sadly, we have some students in school with reading ages significantly lower than this, and with reading ages below their chronological age. If your child cannot read well, they will struggle to access course content. Whilst we do much in school to promote reading, as parents and carers, one of the key things that you can do to help your child succeed in school is to also encourage them to read. If you are struggling with ideas for books, this link takes you to suggested reading lists for students in both Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4. For students in Year 7 and Year 8, engagement with the Reading Plus programme and ensuring your child completes the set work will also help to boost their reading age.
Thank-you for your continued support.
Mr Davies.
Things to celebrate
- This week we have celebrated World Book week with activities in the library and across school. The week started with a visit from Phil Earle, well known children’s author who came to work with our Year 7 students.
- On Monday a group of our Year 9 students took part in a workshop with Lung Theatre Company who are looking to incorporate the work with our students into their next performance piece.
- On Thursday we hosted our Year 8 Parents’ Evening. It was wonderful to see so many parents and carers in attendance.
- On Friday, the National Theatre visited school to perform a new play called ‘The LeftBehinds‘. All Year 7 students watched this excellent production.
Wider cultural experiences at Freddie's
At Freddie’s our staff offer a wide range of clubs, activities, trips and events for our students. Here is a selection of what is on offer this term, in addition to the range of clubs and activities.
At Freddie’s we offer our students a wide range of other extra-curricular activities. For further details, click here.
- Sporting Success this week
We are always excited to learn of any sporting successes outside of school so we can celebrate the student’s achievements. Please can parents email Mr Gregory with any information so we can share with everyone on Freddie’s Focus – gregoryi@flhs.wigan.sch.uk
Sporting Success this week
We are always excited to learn of any sporting successes outside of school so we can celebrate the student’s achievements. Please can parents email Mr Gregory with any information so we can share with everyone on Freddie’s Focus – gregoryi@flhs.wigan.sch.uk
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
This is where teachers will select four students who have excelled in specific subjects over the past fortnight. All students who are given a shout out on ‘FF on the Stars’ will receive three reward points on the system. Any students who receive a Head of Year award will receive a badge from their HOY.
Any students who receive the Headteacher’s Award will receive a badge and five reward points. These students will be asked to go to Mr Davies’ office at one point during that week to meet with the Headteacher and discuss their achievements.
At Freddie’s, celebration, praise and reward are at the heart of all that we do. We want all of our students to strive for excellence.
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
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 ‘S’ stands for select. To support your child with this, the following questions and prompts may be useful:
- Have you checked ‘Satchel One’ to see what you have been set and what your priority is?
- Which subject/piece of homework are you going to focus on tonight?
- Which key pieces of knowledge will you focus on?
- If this is self-directed study, why don’t you focus on subjects or topics that you have forgotten or are likely to forget?
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.