Freddie's Focus
For Parents & Carers
- Issue 64
- November 10, 2023
Freddie's Focus
For Parents & Carers
- Issue 64
- November 10, 2023
Things to celebrate
- On Thursday, a group of our Year 10 Spanish students attended a GCSE Spanish film study day at Home Theatre in Manchester. A wonderful experience was had by all.
- Well done to the 10D Hospitality and Catering group on their first cooking assessment in the brand new building! They should be proud of the effort and resilience shown as well as a range of high-level skills demonstrated in preparation for their real assessment early next year.
- Our extra-curricular activities are now up and running! It has been fantastic to see so many of our students taking part.
- On Thursday evening, some of our music students went to see a production of ‘Little Shop of Horrors’. It was a great production and everyone enjoyed the show.
- Sporting Success this week
- The Y11 Boys’ football team showed great levels of resilience and real character to come from behind twice to beat Westleigh High School 4-3 in the pouring rain last Thursday. Well played boys.
- The KS3 girls’ football and rugby teams have been busy playing fixtures across the borough this week. Mrs Cowan & Mrs Gregory have been really impressed with the girls’ levels of commitment and attitude.
How we learn
The working memory has a very limited capacity. Information stored in the working memory that is not rehearsed can be lost between 18 to 30 seconds. This means that we need to do something with that information and regularly revisit that information to make it stick and remain in the long-term memory. In schools, we use ‘Retrieval tasks’ to help information stick. These tasks include:
- ‘Do Now’ starter questions based on prior learning
- Quick quizzes during lessons
- Regular testing of things recently learned – from last lesson, last term and last year
- Using images alongside words (dual coding)
- Re-visiting information through our interleaved curriculum
- Knowledge Organisers which we return to and can use for tests
- Presenting/organising information in a different way such as through graphic organisers
- Setting homework tasks that will help your child to retrieve information
Parents and carers can support their children at home to retrieve material learned in class so that it has more chance of sticking. Encouraging children to create their own mini quizzes based on their learning is a great way of doing this. Even better if you then become the quiz master and test them on the questions that they have created.
The video below will show you a short clip which explains how learning happens:
Homework and Self-directed study
Below are some of our study skills strategies which we encourage students to use as a method of helping them to retain information in the long-term memory. Actively doing something with the information that they have been taught is a really useful way of learning and remembering:
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
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.
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:
Message from the Headteacher
Dear Parents and Carers,
We’re very grateful for the new school building – it is shaping up to be a fabulous learning environment for the students. We are still getting used to new routines and systems, but I would like to commend the majority of our students who are responding well. My assemblies with students this week have taken the theme of personal responsibility, encouraging students to work hard, be kind, polite and respectful and to always strive for excellence.
In keeping with the season of Remembrance, one of our Year 8 students – Grace Anderson – played the Last Post at 11am on Friday. The school will also be represented at the Remembrance Parade on Sunday.
A reminder to all parents that Monday is our online Progress Review Evening and appointments should be made with your child’s form tutor. Details about this have been sent out separately and can also be read here on our website.
Thank you for your continued support.