Home Key Information News Contact Us Menu Guided Home Learning Explore > Parents > Guided Home Learning Parents Fees Firefly Guided Home Learning Term Dates Uniform Parent Pay SIMS Parent App Maintaining Educational Momentum with our Guided Home Learning programme. Throughout lockdown, our overriding consideration continued to be the provision of the best education for your children that we possibly can whilst ensuring their well-being remains at the heart of our decisions. It involved a mixture of teacher-led lessons, independent research and study, creative experiments, physical and sporting challenges, and pastoral support, as well as online assemblies, choirs, community activities and GDST collaboration with events from Shakespeare’s Globe and the Royal Institution. A rich and varied co-curricular programme continues throughout Guided Home Learning. You can see this term’s timetable here: Autumn Co-Curricular Timetable 2021-2022 As educators, we are aware, more than ever, that we need to stimulate and motivate our students, putting their needs first, maintaining momentum and morale, and ensuring they are as prepared as they can be for life after Covid. Read about the Girls’ Day School Trust GDST Guided Home Learning initiative. It matters to us that we maintain the high level of teaching and support that we pride ourselves on and so we have done, and continue to do, our best to replicate, as far as is possible, the richness of school life by offering structured timetables, live lessons, clubs, activities and break time hangouts. During the summer term of 2020, 50% of all our lessons were live and throughout the autumn term 2020, hybrid lessons with some students learning from home if isolating for example, whilst others are in the classroom have been accommodated with great success, ensuring no student misses out on their timetabled lessons. This means your children are able to learn their usual subjects with familiar teachers and maintain daily routines which supports their social and mental well-being. Continued teaching and pastoral care from those who know their students well provides much needed stability and structure. Careful thought went into shaping the programme to ensure that the education we offer is valuable, sustainable and allows our students to maintain their academic momentum through these enhanced programmes. Changes made to maximise the benefits to our students include amended timetables to allow for a break from screen time and build in breathing spaces to an otherwise busy and productive day. We continue to adapt to the changing national and local public health measures with a confidence that your children will receive the excellent education they expect and deserve. At the start of the term, we laid out information below to help our students thrive in Guided Home Learning. Attached below is guidance for our Prep and Senior students along with examples of a Year 3 and Year 6 timetable, showing how the layout of the school day was adapted for guided home learning. Guided Home Learning 2020 Year 11 and Year 13 “Limitless Learning” Our Year 11 and Year 13 pupils came to the end of their GCSE and A-Level courses and for the first time in recent history, schools were asked to generate grades for these students following the decision to cancel all exams in Summer 2020 due to the Coronavirus pandemic. During these incredibly uncertain times, we were proud to roll out our specially created ‘bridging courses’, designed to ensure pupils move seamlessly onto the next stage of their education. For our Year 11 students, these courses had everything they required to ensure a smooth transition to Sixth Form and their A-Level studies. Each A-Level subject created a range of resources and activities to be completed before September (the content of the courses completed before half term) to equip students with the skills and knowledge to make a successful start to their chosen A-Level courses. Year 11 also benefited from two weeks of GDST wide courses with an academic tutor. In addition, GDST collaborated with a Google Innovator Academy Coach and the TED Ed Talks team to develop two bespoke online courses for students in Y11-13 in all 25 schools. The titles were: Design Thinking Sprint: Embracing the New Normal and TED Ed Student Talks: Ideas Worth Sharing. Our Y11 were given the opportunity to participate in these exciting courses. Watch the video to see everything our Year 11 students had on offer during the summer term. For our Year 13 students we worked with colleagues across the GDST to develop a bespoke programme called GDST Limitless Learning. This consists of two elements; firstly a series of university bridging seminars organised around the course choices of the Year 13s across the GDST. The second part of the programme is a series of Real World Ready modules designed to help prepare pupils for aspects of their life beyond the purely academic preparation for university. The courses include learning new skills in cookery, languages, leadership, public speaking and managing personal finances. And for both year groups, they had the unique opportunity to take part in the GDST Inspiring Change Makers summit which took place at the end of May. This online summit is a GDST wide event and will enable pupils to access a wide range of online sessions offered by a variety of inspiring speakers to create their own conference day to enjoy from the comfort of their own home. To see what is on offer for our Year 13 students, our Director of Sixth Form has put together this film: Assemblies – weekly assemblies can be found on Planet E-Stream, links on Teams. Weekly Wellbeing Bulletins Managing working from home with the current social isolation conditions can be hard for young people and our Climb pastoral programme, headed up by Deputy Head Pastoral Mrs Owen Davies, champions wellbeing across the school with advice and support for pupils across a range of issues. Students at our senior school also receive a Weekly Wellbeing Bulletin (examples of which are attached below). Support from our parents Thank you to our parents for the overwhelmingly positive feedback to our guided home learning programme and to the many who have taken the time to send messages of support. “I am so impressed, and grateful, for what you have achieved in a very short space of time, in terms of setting up the virtual school and building the necessary mechanisms to communicate with the girls both academically and pastorally, all whilst managing your own personal circumstances at home. That you, as a school, continue to adapt in a constantly evolving situation is incredible.” “Just a quick word to say a huge thank you for all you and your staff have been doing to enable the children to continue with their studies. With barely anytime to prepare, you have established a fantastic set-up and the children are thoroughly engaged (albeit on different age-appropriate levels). Suffice to say, SHS has completely surpassed expectations under such difficult, trying circumstances. Many many thanks and well done to all your staff“. “SHS is showing us what an amazing community they are even if they are not together. The online learning support is absolutely brilliant and such a god send at the moment so thank you for having it up and running. The girls will come through this and will have learnt so much – about themselves and society. As will we all…Take care and thank you again” “I would just like to thank all the teachers and staff at both the High School and the Prep School for working so hard over these last few difficult weeks. Both my children have managed to keep up their studies every day and enjoyed all their lessons. The teachers have lead enthusiastic interactive lessons and both children have enjoyed the school day“. Downloads Student Advice for Guided Home Learning - Senior Student Advice for Guided Home Learning - Prep Year 3 Timetable Year 6 Timetable Weekly Wellbeing Bulletin 1 Weekly Wellbeing Bulletin 3 Weekly Wellbeing Bulletin 5 BAME Reading List Guided Home Learning Policy Explore Admissions Our School Open Days Our Core Values & Aims 32 Town Walls Shrewsbury Shropshire SY1 1TN enquiries@shr.gdst.net 01743 494000 Site by SEO Works Key Information Uniform Term Dates Getting To School School Policies Parents Firefly Login Parent Pay SIMS Parent App Privacy & Terms Junior School Senior School Sixth Form Explore We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Privacy & TermsAccept