Freddie's Focus
For Parents & Carers
- Issue 98
- October 4, 2024
Freddie's Focus
For Parents & Carers
- Issue 98
- October 4, 2024
Message from the Headteacher
Dear Parents & Carers,
Now that the new term is well underway, this week we have launched the first Freddie’s Focus on the Stars of the academic year. Every two weeks, we use this as a way to celebrate the achievements of our students. Each subject area will nominate a student, or students, whose work or attitude has stood out. The names are shared with all forms during form time. Each student mentioned on Freddie’s Focus receives a special subject badge.
Heads of Year also nominate students who have stood out over the fortnight, and they receive the Head of Year Award. Staff also nominate students to receive a Headteacher Award as part of Freddie’s Focus on the Stars. These awards are given for small numbers of students who have excelled, in any of the following ways:
- Outstanding commitment to extra-curricular activities in school.
- Outstanding participation for activities outside of school.
- Showing excellent resilience and determination in their studies.
- Outstanding academic achievement.
- Outstanding demonstration of our BEST values.
The winners of the HT Award also receive a badge and meet with me to discuss their achievements. Any student nominated for a Headteacher award will be sent a postcard home.
Other rewards to make you aware of include the half termly BEST Awards. Form Tutors will be choosing students for these rewards over the next two weeks. BEST Awards recognise the students who have worked well within the key themes of Belonging, Engaging, Succeeding and Working Together and for demonstrating our character values.
Through our rewards systems, we consciously build a culture of praise and celebration. If your child receives any reward in school, it is a big thing and something that you, too, can celebrate with your child. Through our social media, we will share the names of all students who appear on Freddie’s Focus.
Thank you for your continued support.
Mr Davies.
Message from the Headteacher
Dear Parents & Carers,
Now that the new term is well underway, this week we have launched the first Freddie’s Focus on the Stars of the academic year. Every two weeks, we use this as a way to celebrate the achievements of our students. Each subject area will nominate a student, or students, whose work or attitude has stood out. The names are shared with all forms during form time. Each student mentioned on Freddie’s Focus receives a special subject badge.
Heads of Year also nominate students who have stood out over the fortnight, and they receive the Head of Year Award. Staff also nominate students to receive a Headteacher Award as part of Freddie’s Focus on the Stars. These awards are given for small numbers of students who have excelled, in any of the following ways:
- Outstanding commitment to extra-curricular activities in school.
- Outstanding participation for activities outside of school.
- Showing excellent resilience and determination in their studies.
- Outstanding academic achievement.
- Outstanding demonstration of our BEST values.
The winners of the HT Award also receive a badge and meet with me to discuss their achievements. Any student nominated for a Headteacher award will be sent a postcard home.
Other rewards to make you aware of include the half termly BEST Awards. Form Tutors will be choosing students for these rewards over the next two weeks. BEST Awards recognise the students who have worked well within the key themes of Belonging, Engaging, Succeeding and Working Together and for demonstrating our character values.
Through our rewards systems, we consciously build a culture of praise and celebration. If your child receives any reward in school, it is a big thing and something that you, too, can celebrate with your child. Through our social media, we will share the names of all students who appear on Freddie’s Focus.
Thank you for your continued support.
Mr Davies.
Things to celebrate
- Our Open Evening last week was a huge success, and we have been delighted with feedback regarding how helpful, confident and articulate our student guides and speakers were on that night.
- On Sunday evening, a group of our music students went to the Albert Hall in Manchester to see ‘Apocalyptic’ who are a cello quartet who play music by Metallica.
- We are continuing to see the number of students participating in extra-curricular activities increase. We want every child to get involved with one or more of the activities on offer to them.
- 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
Extra Curricular Activities
The PE extra-curricular timetable is now available for everyone to see and the programme is now up and running. All students are welcome to attend the sessions, and we look forward to seeing you.
What we do at Freddie's and why we do it
’Freddie’s Focus on the Stars’ is back from Monday 7th October’
This is where teachers will select four students who have excelled in specific subjects over the past fortnight (month in the case of the first one).
- 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 Head of Year.
- Any students who receive the Head Teacher’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.
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 ‘C’ stands for creativity. We know that learning happens when we have to think hard and actively do something with the information that we are trying to learn (and store in our long-term memory). To support your child with this, the following tasks may be useful:
- Creating a set of flashcards (there could be key questions or vocabulary on one side and the answers or definitions on the other;
- Creating graphic organisers- this is a method of capturing information in a visual way. For example:
- Creating their own mini quizzes based on a topic so that they can self-test.
- Capturing information as images alongside words (this technique is called Dual Coding). For example:
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:
