NEWSLETTER
Spring Half term 2024
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HEADTEACHER'S WELCOME
Welcome to the latest edition of our newsletter. As usual, our students have been up to a range of interesting and exciting activities. I hope you enjoy reading all about them.
I would like to extend a huge thank you to our wonderful Team Hummingbird sponsors, Becton Dickinson, who have gifted the school a second car to build, design and race this season. You will know from previous newsletters and the ‘latest news’ section on our website that Team Hummingbird have been really successful in the races they have entered and this second car will extend the extra-curricular STEM opportunities for students at Plymouth High. Watch this space for news on how the new car performs.
Our sports teams continue to impress with the under 15 Cricket team the latest to be celebrating. They have made it to the county finals. Interestingly, Plymouth High was only the second girls school in the whole of the UK to have a cricket 11 when we were founded back in 1874 – so quite poignant that we have made the cricket county finals in our 150th year.
Year 11 have been busy practising their interview skills to help them prepare for the world of work. We are very grateful to the school visitors who came in to support yet another careers event. Helping students to develop their skills for future work fits in so well with our motto, for life not school we learn.
Wishing you all a happy and restful half term break.
Best wishes,
Mr Underdown
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07 Feb 2024
Well done to Faith in Year 12 and Harriet in Year 9 who competed for the school in the NSEA show jumping competition at Bicton Arena last weekend.
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01 Feb 2024
Tegan, 7K, has won the Young Violinist Award at the Saltash Music Festival this week. Well done Tegan!
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01 Feb 2024
Abigail, 7L has qualified for South West Regional Trampoline finals in February.
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30 Jan 2024
Rocio, 7L, has been published in the popular 'The Week Junior' magazine in the 'over to you' section of the magazine which is distributed nationwide.
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30 Jan 2024
Izzy (Year 11) was invited to play volleyball for Plymouth Mayflower Volleyball Club South West Ladies Team this weekend. Izzy played alongside Freya (Year 12) who is already an established member of the ladies' team. This was a great experience for Izzy playing volleyball at adult lev...
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24 Jan 2024
Martha, Maia and Jess (7L) all performed brilliantly at the Saltash Speech & Drama Festival this week.
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16 Jan 2024
Melody, 8L, has achieved the 'student of the year' award at her Martial Arts Academy, Miss B's.
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08 Jan 2024
Huge congratulations to Maya, 8A, one of the tumbling team gymnasts at Zero Gravity Academy of Gymnastics and Trampolining. She received her silver medal in the post from the Southern Team Tumble event in December.
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15 Jan 2024
Year 10 Food Preparation and Nutrition students are currently completing a topic on cereals. As part of this, they have been learning about wheat and making their own pasta.
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07 Feb 2024
A team of Year 9 and 10 students competed in the West Devon indoor cricket tournament at Marjons this week. They won 4 of their matches, including strong teams from Ivybridge and DHSG, and narrowly lost to Okehampton who were the overall winners. Both Okehampton and PHSG will represent the area at t...
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07 Feb 2024
After the thrill of last year’s fantastic results at Goodwood where we came 21st in the world, the big news for 2024 is that our amazing sponsors, Becton Dickinson (BD), have gifted us a second car for this season to build, design and race!
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30 Jan 2024
On Friday 26th January, a group of students from the Parents in the Armed Forces Support Group visited the Devonport Naval Heritage Centre, adjacent to Plymouth Dockyard.
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08 Jan 2024
PHSG English teacher Mr Rutherford has a secret second life as a writer, which was recently featured on BBC Radio Devon and Cornwall.
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08 Jan 2024
The House Festivals are a long standing tradition at PHSG, with the Autumn Term celebrating the Drama Festival. This year, Kendall House went above and beyond to secure the one and only Dame Emma Thompson, DBE, to feature in their House Festival performance!
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15 Jan 2024
On Thursday 11th and Friday 12th January, students from year 12 A Level Biology visited the Plymouth Electron Microscopy Centre at the University of Plymouth. Students were given a detailed overview of techniques involved in both scanning and transmission electron microscopy, including sample prepar...
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18 Jan 2024
On Tuesday 16th January 2024, our Year 11 students had the opportunity to practice their job interview skills during a mock interview.
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Babcock Creating Futures – Apprentice & Early Careers Fair:
Date: Monday 12th February
Time: 1:30 - 5:00 PM
Venue: Plymouth Argyle Conference & Events Centre
Join us for an inspiring afternoon of discovery. Explore our interactive learning zones, have a chat with our friendly team about the fantastic opportunities within Babcock, and enjoy an exclusive tour of the Plymouth Argyle football ground.
What you will enjoy:
Interactive learning zones – including Engineering, Business, Support & Wellbeing
Networking & discovery – meet Babcock staff & find out about our opportunities. We have also invited high-profile organisations such as Royal Navy, Skills Launch Pad, Princes Trust, YMCA, Argyle Community Trust, CSW Group and more!
Stadium Tour – Experience the iconic Plymouth Argyle football ground and take a tour. Spaces are limited to please register early at the Argyle Community Trust stand – first come first served!
Event schedule:
1.30 PM – Arrivals
1.30 to 5 PM – Interactive learning Zones and networking
1.40 to 2.05 PM – Early Careers Presentation
4.00 PM to 5 PM – Exclusive stadium tour (tour numbers restricted to 35 – register at the event)
To register for this event:
Find out more and register now at https://bit.ly/3S9ffI7
Parking is available opposite the show ground in the park and ride.
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Student & Class of the Week
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07 Feb 2024
Student of the week: Tegan 7K, ''Winning Young Violinist Award at Saltash Music Festival'', nominated by Mr Goodchild. Awarded 10 House points!
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30 Jan 2024
Student of the week: Chloe F, 8K. ''For handing in a beautifully presented short stories booklet. Chloe worked hard on independent work, clarity of thought and produced insightful, consciously considered written responses to our short stories exploring diversity. Well done, Chloe!''...
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21 Jan 2024
Student of the week: Sanskruti, 11T. ''For her impressive attitude and motivation for learning. Sanskruti has written five separate practice essays for both English Literature and English Language over the last week in her own time as part of a rigorous and disciplined revision focus. This i...
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Thursday 22nd February is a special day for Scouts and Guides, where we honour the founders of both organisations and we celebrate with Scouts and Guides all around the world. We invite all students who are Scouts, Explorers, Guides, Rangers or Young Leaders to wear their uniform to school on Thursday 22nd February to celebrate Founder’s Day (Scouts) and World Thinking Day (Guides).
Many thanks
Ms Barnett (1st Keyham Scouts)
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Reporting Absence
If a student is absent, then parents should contact the school each day of absence before 9am.
Tel number: 033 33 602230 (Option 1 then Option 1 for 6th Form, Option 1 then Option 2 for all other year groups).
Email: absence@plymouthhighschoolforgirls.org.uk
Parents must notify the school on the first day of an unplanned absence – for example, if their child is unable to attend due to ill health – by 8.30am or as soon as practically possible.
Parents should ring the main school phone number and report their child’s absence to the Attendance Officer together with the reason.
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PARKING
Please can we ask Parents for consideration when parking near the school, there have been some instances where it has been difficult for our students to walk safely due to the volume of cars.
There have been occasions where students have been late leaving for a sports fixture because parents had parked blocking the minibuses. Students can exit the site via Alton Road, and parents may consider this a convenient pickup point or one of the other streets surrounding the school.
Be reminded that there is NO PARKING allowed on the double yellow lines outside the school main gates.
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HOME SCHOOL COMMUNICATION
Students may contact staff if they have queries, firstly by visiting them in their department area, and only contacting them using school email system if they really can’t see them in person.
Parents may wish to contact staff. The following outlines what the Headteacher regards as important considerations regarding home/school communication, particularly by email:
¨ All communication must respect the dignity of the recipient.
¨ Within 48 hours: receipt of an email will be acknowledged by school either by the person contacted, or the most appropriate person able to deal with the issue (term time only, not after 5pm nor over a weekend).
¨ Within 5 working days: school will provide a response to the email by telephone or in writing, or e-mail. This may include informing the sender that more time is required to provide a full response. If this is the case, staff should indicate a time frame for a response.
¨ Staff will not be expected to monitor or respond to emails outside their normal working hours (nor at weekends and published school holidays).
Whilst this is extremely rare, if a member of staff receives an e-mail or call which is of an aggressive tone, sets unreasonable demands or could otherwise be interpreted as harassing, they will refer this to a senior line manager in the school, who will decide if consideration needs to be given to dealing with further communication under our Complaints Policy.
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PARKING
Out of respect for our neighbours and for health and safety reasons there is NO PARKING on the school site or for collecting/dropping off students on the double yellow lines outside our school gates.
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SCHOOL NURSE DROP IN
Don’t forget for our students, the School Nurse visits school to provide a “drop in” clinic on Friday Week A at lunchtime. Just pop along to the Counselling Room.
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STUDENTS LEAVING SCHOOL DURING THE SCHOOL DAY
For safety reasons if your daughter has to leave school during the school day, and you are unable to collect her, she must have a note in her planner with clear instructions that you give permission for her to leave unaccompanied. Without your express instructions to this effect we will not allow any students to leave school unless they are collected by an adult from reception.
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NUT ALLERGY
Please be aware that we have students who are severely allergic to nuts and we would, therefore, appreciate where possible that you try to avoid putting nuts into packed lunches.
Although we are not going completely nut free, we have stopped selling packets of nuts as snacks in the canteen to try to reduce the risk to them and appreciate your support.
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SOCIAL MEDIA & ONLINE SAFETY
Our Children are spending more and more time on their mobile phones. Making them aware of the dangers of social media, and protecting them from these dangers can be very challenging. These are some of the better known sites that pose risks to children—are they on your child’s phone home screen?
To help safeguard your child please regularly take the time to talk to them about the way they use their social media apps:
Do they always know who they are engaging with?
Do they share their passwords?
Do they feel comfortable with what they are seeing and doing?
Do they feel pressure from “friends” to do/say things they don’t want to?
For more information please regarding online safety, please visit our website: www.phsg.org/
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Calendar Term Dates 2023-2024
Term
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Starts
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Ends
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One
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4th September 2023(Year 7 & 12 only)
5th September 2023 (All Year Groups)
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20th October 2023
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| Autumn Half Term |
23rd October 2023 |
27th October 2023 |
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Two
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30th October 2023
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15th December 2023
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| Christmas Holidays |
18th December 2023 |
1st January 2024 |
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Three
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2nd January 2024
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9th February 2024
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| Spring Half term |
12th February 2024 |
16th February 2024 |
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Four
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19th February 2024
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28th March 2024
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| Easter Holidays |
29th March 2024 |
12th April 2024 |
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Five
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15th April 2024
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24th May 2024
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| Summer Half term |
27th May 2024 |
31st May 2024 |
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Six
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3rd June 2024
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19th July 2024
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| Summer Holidays |
22nd July 2024 |
September TBC |
Curriculum Enrichment Week
Monday 8th July—12th July 2024
Non Pupil Days
1st September 2023
9th October 2023
20th October 2023
6th May 2024 (Bank Holiday).
22nd July 2024
23rd July 2024
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