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Hi everyone,

How are you all? Keeping warm I hope! I think that once you get past the first couple of weeks of term, it just begins a tiny bit to get a little lighter and nicer! And we’re almost there!

Our Ofsted Report from December went on to the Ofsted website, and ours, this morning. You can see it here . It’s lovely because it recognises how the children, families and staff working together make the school a very special place, and I think it captures the spirit of what the school feels like when you visit or walk around it. It’s very respectful of the children here, and the part that families play in our partnership. And it recognises that the very large staff group that we have are working hard for the children every day. They just saw two normal days here, nothing was different at all, so I’m glad they got an impression that we would agree with! Thanks again for the questionnaires and your support. We crack on! 😊

Please do click over to our Online Safety and Family Liaison blogs, or the rest of the school or Foundation’s websites. Or enjoy some lovely stories with National Storytelling Week, some great STARS, sporting things and all the rest of it, including an update on the UNICEF Award too

I hope you enjoy this week’s blog, as well as this weekend. Thanks again for your support. We’re very focused now on making the school even better: the buildings, our training, new staff when we need them, new techniques when they come our way, better resources, and improving our communications and partnerships because they’re never good enough! All the best! 😊😊😊

John S

😊 from John & the PHS Team 😊

We have 3 Super-Steering Groups which deliver our Key Drivers through our curriculum. The Key Drivers are Communication, Wellbeing and Independence. The Groups are Literacy, Physical Development and Personal Development

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Literacy

Becky, our Literacy Lead, leads a team that improve all aspects of literacy, including this year a lot of handwriting and oracy (it’s OK, she’ll be going into explain all of that) as well as reading, phonics, books and all sorts!

National Storytelling Week

In a couple of weeks, we will be celebrating National Storytelling Week, so we wanted to use this blog to talk a little bit about the power of storytelling!

National Storytelling week was created by the National Literacy Trust, and the organisation describes it asÌý‘a joyful celebration of the power of sharing stories. Stories teach us about the world; they allow us to step into someone else’s shoes and feel empathy; they help us to relax and escape and they can help develop essential literacy skills’

This celebration fits perfectly with our two Literacy Team focuses this year- oracy & writing! We will continue to develop reading and that of course is an amazing way of learning about the world – but it’s also crucial that our students have the opportunities to develop skills and confidence in sharing and recording their stories and ideas too, at a level appropriate for them.

When we discuss oracy, we mean being able to communicate with others and learn from each other, and when we discuss writing, we mean any form of writing with any form of support – symbols, voice recordings, videos, using dictation, independently typing…..no method has more or less value!

Stories canÌýbe sharing our own experiences or weekend news, sharing tales from family or far off distant adventures in our favourite book – whatever is important to share! With that in mind we wanted to invite families to think about stories that their child or young person might want to share, or their favourite stories that they like to hear! This will be our third year celebrating National Storytelling week and The Literacy Team are planning a range of activities to take place in school 3rd-7th February, but for anyone who might want a head start they are welcome to have a look at this ideas sheet for home.

Happy Storytelling!Ìý

Physical Development

Everything that is fabulous in the world of Physical Development! This includes physio, hydro, MOVE, PE, HI, VI, a lot of OT and all sorts of key areas for us, including all of the Outdoor Learning, John Muir Award and many other aspects. Steph oversees this and will ensure that an aspect is shared in the blog each week

LUNCHTIME CLUBS

It’s really important that there are lots of opportunities for our students to play sports and engage in different activities, so the guys in PE have organise da lot of different ways for them to be able to do that

All the lunch clubs have started and it’s been a real success. Look at all the different variety of clubs for students at 51ÊÓƵ

Nathan’s clubs

Tuesday boys’ wanderers football team- 1- 1.30

Wednesday girls’ wanderers football team 1- 1.30

Thursday racquet sports lower school 12.30-1

Friday post 16 wanderers football team 1- 1.30

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Richard’s clubsÌý

Monday Upper school boccia 1- 1.30

Tuesday Engagement pathway Pe club 1- 1.30

Wednesday lower school boccia club 12.30-1

Thursday Upper school Racquet sports practise 1- 1.30

Friday upper school table cricket 1-1.30

Antonia’s dance clubÌý1-1.30 Wednesday

Julie engagementÌýPE club Wednesday 1-1.30

ÌýAlso…

Taim did amazing in lower school PE in Racquet sports and got one of the PE Awards of the week

Well done Taim for your huge effort in PE (see Taim in the photo at the front of this section)

What we want of course is everyone being able to find the thing that they enjoy most, as that’s the best way to improve anyone’s physical development. We want to offer a lovely wide and diverse range of activities as we possibly can.

Personal Development

One of the best things about the school and one of the most important for our pupils, PD covers PSHE, Wellbeing, Careers, Social Moral Spiritual & Cultural, Online Safety, Behaviour and similar areas. Jo pulls it all together. Let’s see what Jo and the team have in store for us this week! The inspectors really loved all of the PD we do!

Citizenship

Students aged 11+ are busy taking part in the 2025 North Tyneside Young Mayor and Member of Youth Parliament (MYP) Elections

Below is a list of candidates from across the borough and their pledges that have been provided to our students. They have been completing online surveys to register their votes. It is wonderful our SEND school get the chance to take part in this and have their voices heard

Young Mayor and MYP Elections 2025 – Candidate Pledges

Who would you vote for?

Next week we’ll be hearing more from classes across the school to see what they have been up to in the world of Personal Development

Wellbeing

Let’s hear from Andy and the Wellbeing Team about what’s happening this year in their Connect Challenge series! Go Andy!

Our whole school Connect Challenge really got the creative juices flowing this week, as we invited everyone toÌý“express yourself”Ìýthrough art, literature or music!

Let’s find out what everyone’s been up to

Pupils in Harriet’s class have been bursting with brilliance; not only have they been expressing themselves through music, using Google’sÌý, but they also made these wonderful ‘suns’ as part of their science class where they have been learning about light sources!

We received this brilliant drawing from Jay in Richard’s class, a great example of expressive art!

Also, in Oscar’s class have also been connecting through art – check out Cam’s interesting worm sculpture’s and Dan’s creative car collection!

Creative expression improves mood, boosts energy and provides a sense of accomplishment – well done to all for taking part this weekÌý

Next week we’re asking you to connect with each other byÌý“saying ‘Hi’ to someone”,Ìýthis could be to a friend, a member of staff, your taxi driver or someone new.

Happy connecting!

Behaviour for Learning (BfL)

Let’s hear from Aylisha!

This term within BfL our main focus is on our Learning Support Assistants. As part of our Continuing Professional Development, we are offering our Learning Support Assistants a range of level 1 AQA unit courses across the year

The BfL team are delivering training to our Learning Support Assistants over the next 6 weeks for everything behaviour-related within our school

As the BfL team is a relatively new team, we are still working on how we do some things, supporting our class teams and students as well as working on the systematization of everything! It’s all good!

Early Years – The Ducklings!

There are 6 children in this class that only opened in September! Anyway, it was lovely to see them all again. Let’s hear from Kerry about what they’ve been up to! And then see some of her pictures!

This week we started our wonderful word journey

We began in the Polar regions

On Monday we got suited and booted and made our way to the Outdoor Learning area to look for animals, we looked high and low and found Polar bears, penguins, seals, artic hare and Huskies

On Tuesday we fed fish to the penguins

On Wednesday we coloured and stuck colourful paper to the artic animal drawings

On Thursday we had a quick visit to the jungle after Rowan used the choosing board to request jungle animals. In addition to all of the above the children have been working hard using the symbol boards in all theÌýdifferent areas of the room and have been amazing

Our daily visit to the soft play has been great fun climbing and bouncing. We have explored the interactive floor the water themes being the favourite this week

Definitely ready for the weekend

What an amazing bunch of pictures! Thanks Kerry and The Ducklings!

Therapy Star of the Week – love therapy Star of the Week, especially when it’s James!!!!!

This week’s therapy Star of the week is James! Let’s hear why from Abi!

James worked exceptionally hard during his transdisciplinary session this week to develop his core stability, upper limb strength and coordination, whilst also incorporating some fine motor skills.Ìý He showed perseverance in completing half turns and star jumps with accuracy and good form whilst on the trampoline.

Well done James!!!

Trip of the Week – it’s Hannah at the BALTIC!!! Let’s hear from her!

A Trip to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Arts

This term, Hannah F’s class are getting out and about to find out what is on offer in our local and wider community.ÌýOn Wednesday, some of our intrepid explorers went to Gateshead Quayside to explore the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Arts.ÌýIt was a beautiful day, and we were really impressed by the riverside scenes.ÌýWe noticed the reflections of the bridges and buildings on the water – magnificent!Ìý The building itself was really accessible, and the staff were incredibly helpful.ÌýWe took the lift to the top floor and enjoyed the scenes across the cities.ÌýThe lift was really fast and thrilling.ÌýOn the viewing platform we inched close to the edge to get the best vista, which was a little bit scary.Ìý We explored the galleries and experienced the sounds and lights of the different exhibitions.Ìý There was a small sensory space to explore, and a huge area overlooking the Tyne where we had our lunchÌý

And let’s see some pictures too!

And some helpful advice from Hannah and her class. Cheers guys, and great-looking trip!

If you are visiting the Baltic, here is some information that you might find helpful

• There are accessible parking spaces behind the gallery
• Take the ramp to the Mezzanine level to access the big lifts.Ìý Otherwise, get the small lift form the Ground Floor at the front entrance to the Mezzanine.
• There are lockers to store your equipment while you look around (£1)
• There is a Changing Places bathroom with a ceiling hoist (drop down bed) and other accessible toilets
• There is a café on the ground floor, but also a large space with free teas, coffees, biscuits, and fruit for you while you have a snack/meds.Ìý This space also has access to an outdoor viewing area and a library/play space.
• The Quayside is easily accessible from the Baltic Centre.
• Entrance is free!

And finally….

Our UNICEF Award!

Rebecca has an update

Following on from our achievement last week, gaining our Bronze Award within the UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools, we have moved to begin working on our Silver Award

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As part of this we have completed staff training with our support assistants and teachers and have begun to plan our Resilience Day for this half term, based around the pupils being aware of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, and beginning to think about a class charter

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Each week UNICEF release an article of the week for staff to be aware of so I thought we would also share this with parents, to ensure that parents have the same knowledge about the rights as our young people do

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This week we will begin with Article 1

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The Convention on the Rights of the Child brings together a range of rights that all children aged under 18 are entitled to, no matter who they are or where they are born. These rights ensure that all children are given the support they need to develop and reach their potential and are protected from harm. Governments across the world have signed up to the CRC and have promised to make the rights within the CRC a reality for children in their country and a number ofÌýarticles specifically mention what governments must do to make rights happen.

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Article 1 makes clear that everyone under the age of 18 has all the rights in the Convention.Ìý Under the UNCRC, a child means every human being below the age of 18. A child has all the rights in the UNCRC until they are 18 years old

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…..from John & the Team here at PHS

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Our Key Drivers

Communication, Wellbeing, Independence