Freddie's Focus
For Parents & Carers
- Issue 162
- May 15, 2026
Freddie's Focus
For Parents & Carers
- Issue 162
- May 15, 2026
Message from the Headteacher
Dear Parents & Carers,
This week, our school has proudly taken part in Mental Health Awareness Week, providing students with valuable opportunities to reflect on the importance of emotional wellbeing, kindness, resilience, and positive relationships.
As a school we are fortunate to have on site a mental health practitioner, Mrs Naylor, who works closely with many of our young people. Mrs Naylor also helps to co-ordinate access to the MHST team and the Wigan Family Welfare counsellors who work in school supporting students. To raise awareness of the support on offer in school to students, Mrs Naylor arranged for Chocs and Chats for students on Wednesday. At our school, we believe that mental health is just as important as physical health, and we remain committed to ensuring that every child feels safe, valued, listened to, and supported. To support families, there are also many additional resources available to use. The PADLET of information supplied by MHST and CAMHS provides information for all mental health and wellbeing needs in the local area. Parents may also find it useful to access the following video ‘We all have mental health’.
Thank you, as always, for your continued support. We encourage families to continue conversations at home about wellbeing and the simple things we can all do to maintain positive mental health.
Mr Davies
Message from the Headteacher
Dear Parents & Carers,
This week, our school has proudly taken part in Mental Health Awareness Week, providing students with valuable opportunities to reflect on the importance of emotional wellbeing, kindness, resilience, and positive relationships.
As a school we are fortunate to have on site a mental health practitioner, Mrs Naylor, who works closely with many of our young people. Mrs Naylor also helps to co-ordinate access to the MHST team and the Wigan Family Welfare counsellors who work in school supporting students. To raise awareness of the support on offer in school to students, Mrs Naylor arranged for Chocs and Chats for students on Wednesday. At our school, we believe that mental health is just as important as physical health, and we remain committed to ensuring that every child feels safe, valued, listened to, and supported. To support families, there are also many additional resources available to use. The PADLET of information supplied by MHST and CAMHS provides information for all mental health and wellbeing needs in the local area. Parents may also find it useful to access the following video ‘We all have mental health’.
Thank you, as always, for your continued support. We encourage families to continue conversations at home about wellbeing and the simple things we can all do to maintain positive mental health.
Mr Davies
Things to celebrate
- Our Year 11 exams are now in full swing. We are incredibly proud of the way in which the Year 11 students are conducting themselves but also of our Year 7 to 10 students who are supporting them by being respectful on corridors and around examination rooms.
- This week is Mental Health awareness week. Some of our students have been serving Hot Chocolate and Vimto as a way of encouraging people to talk and to raise awareness of the support that is available to anyone who is struggling.
- We’ve had several positive emails recently about the conduct of our students out in the community. We are very proud of our students, and they are a credit to the school and their parents.
- 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 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 email Mr Gregory with any information so we can share with everyone on Freddie’s Focus – gregoryi@flhs.wigan.sch.uk
Information for parents of SEND students
A huge thank-you to all parents who attended our SEND parent forum on 27th April. Your feedback and insights were invaluable. We intend to follow up the discussions from that meeting through this newsletter and Mr Davies will be in touch with the of the next meetings.
A reminder that the following workshop is taking place in school on Thursday 21st May.
Embrace offer a range of on-line courses to support parents. Details of these can be found here:
https://www.embracewiganandleigh.org.uk/behaviour-support-workshops/?cn-reloaded=1
The following link provides a useful gateway to all services that support children in the Wigan area. This page is regularly updated so it is worthwhile frequently checking-in for current information and updates.
https://padlet.com/WiganCAMHS/wigan-mhst-info-board-nu69chp8ifamla8q
We can also recommend this website as a source of useful information for the parents of neurodiverse children and teens.
What we do at Freddie's and why we do it
BEST AWARDS
Next Friday, four students from every form will receive a BEST Award. This is because they have demonstrated one or more of our character values seen above. We do this to highlight the importance of good character and to make sure that our students know that their positive contribution to our school is valued.
Year 7 to Year 10
100 HoY Mug/Earphones/Water Bottle/Skip the queue pass
175 MTA Power Bank/Skip the queue pass/Calculator/£5 Amazon voucher
250 MTA £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 MTA £10 Amazon voucher/£10 off Prom
200 PDA £15 Amazon voucher/£15 off Prom
How to support your child to become an independent learner
O.S.C.A.R
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 to Thursday where they can complete work in a quiet environment with staff on hand to support them, and computers for online quizzes and research.
Homework Intervention
If your child is not meeting deadlines or completing homework to the best of their ability, their teachers and/or Head of Year will refer them to our homework intervention group. Parents/ carers will receive a letter notifying you and to explain the night that your child will be required and for how long. This is a supportive intervention which is used to get students back on track with homework if they are struggling in this area.
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.
Please encourage your child to be in school every day.
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. Your 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. Your continued support is invaluable to us.