NEWSLETTER
End of Summer Term 2023
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HEADTEACHER'S WELCOME
Welcome to another bumper issue of our newsletter, it is crammed full of articles showcasing what has been going on in school.
Students and staff had a wonderful time during our curriculum enrichment week, trying out a wide range of activities, learning new skills and making new friends. Our annual sports day was a hit, and we witnessed school records being broken, tremendous House spirt and everyone having a great time. Summer sport continued with our swimming gala and the first ever sports awards evening where sporting endeavour and achievement was recognised. The Duke of Edinburgh teams have done an amazing job this term with so many of our young people completing gruelling expeditions. Student leadership is important at PHSG and our Earth Alliance team have been working hard to promote their sustainability message within school and more widely across the Trust. Indeed, all of our student leaders have played a crucial role in the life of the school, making a positive impact in whatever they do.
The summer term is when we recognise the long service of our staff. We have been celebrating staff reaching 5, 10, 15 and 20 years service and in one case, 25 years service at Plymouth High. I know our wider school community will join me in congratulating colleagues for reaching these impressive service milestones.
Our students and staff have worked very hard this year, as every year, and are looking forward to a well-deserved and much needed rest.
On behalf of our whole team, I wish you a relaxing and enjoyable summer break and look forward to the start of another successful school year in September.
Very best wishes,
Mr Underdown
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26 Jun 2023
Megan, 10CRO, completed the Chestnut Appeals Plymouth Breakwater Swim this weekend for the third time.
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15 Jun 2023
Freya, 9K and Eleanor 12BLU have been nominated to take part in the Freestyle Scholarships final at the International Dance Teachers Association in 2024.
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21 Jul 2023
Over 100 Plymouth High students have successfully completed the Expedition section of their award this summer in addition to their Volunteering, Physical, Skills and at Gold their Residential activity sections.
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11 Jul 2023
Our intrepid, dedicated and inspiring Year 12/13 students managed to complete their ‘epic’ Gold Qualifying Expedition last Sunday, making them the first ever PHSG Gold Expedition Group to cross the finish line.
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28 Jun 2023
We are delighted to announce that our students have volunteered an impressive 2327 hours of their time to their local communities this year, which equates to a social value of £11,192!
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20 Jul 2023
Please could you spare a few minutes to nominate PHSG for £1000 of National Book Tokens, to help our library purchase and expand our book collection. The deadline for nominations is 31st July 2023.
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20 Jul 2023
Students in Year 7 have been learning about Traditional Japanese Music in lessons this term and ended this week with the students in 7A and 7L performing their final puppet shows, with all their wonderful props and music.
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20 Jul 2023
Plymouth High School for Girls hosted their first ever sports awards evening, celebrating the sporting success over the past year.
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14 Jul 2023
On Tuesday 11th July, students (and staff) at PHSG competed in the legendary and highly anticipated school sports day. Sports Captains at the ready, athletes train throughout the year as the Houses compete against each other to win certificates, trophies and all important House points...
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26 Jun 2023
On Wednesday 21st June Year 8 competed in the Plymouth's Schools Athletics Competition at Brickfields against other schools across the South West. We are delighted to share that PHSG won!
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15 Jun 2023
Yesterday, students from across the year groups, competed for valuable House Points in the annual Swimming Gala.
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08 Jun 2023
In celebration of TSArt's week, the PE Team led an 80's style aerobics session this morning, for the theme of 'moves', before the start of lessons.
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17 Jul 2023
On Monday 17th July Year 9-12 students from across the city visited Plymouth High School to take part in hands on dissection to complete the Anatomy Lab experience.
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14 Jul 2023
Curriculum Enrichment Week (CEW) took place on the week commencing 3rd July 2023. Activities are not only of educational value but also provide the elements of personal and social skills students gain by taking part, making new friends, meeting old ones and having to work with others away...
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14 Jul 2023
Yesterday, PHSG celebrated with our staff who have achieved their long service milestones, with a cream tea awards evening.
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14 Jul 2023
Now that prom is over we would like to ask you to consider what is going to happen to the outfit worn. If you think it is unlikely to be worn again and would like to sell it we can help! Earth Alliance, the school’s environmental and sustainability group would like to reduce the environme...
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14 Jul 2023
The Preloved Uniform Shop is always looking for wearable, clean items of uniform to sell or swap. If your child has grown out of an item, please consider donating it to the school for resell or swapping.
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29 Jun 2023
We are pleased to announce that £230 was raised for the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund, thanks to the people that supported the variety show last Thursday.
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27 Jun 2023
Four of our Key Stage 3 students were challenged to lead on a primary engineering and Mathematics day at Mary Deans primary, where they worked with every single class in the school delivering their biscuit building challenge workshop.
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23 Jun 2023
PHSG student cadets wore their uniform to school today in support of Armed Forces Day which is nationally celebrated tomorrow.
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23 Jun 2023
The results are in, our notorious Hummingbird Team have qualified for the Greenpower Formula 24 National finals at Goodwood!
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15 Jun 2023
Next week the PHSG's brick painting wall will be back open. Each year the Head Student Team's Charity Ambassador leads this event, which allows students to create and add to our colourful wall of affirmation.
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05 Jun 2023
This week PHSG will be taking part TSArT's week. This is trust wide campaign to encourage students and staff across the Trust to celebrate and immerse themselves in the Arts.
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11 Jul 2023
Year 10 students were up for the challenge during their work experience debrief on Monday 10th July. Working in teams the students focused on the skills and personal qualities that an individual would need to be successful in the job sector that they had recently worked in.
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28 Jun 2023
Year 9 students took part in 'The Food Challenge' on Tuesday 27th June, as part of the Year 9 Enterprise Day.
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20 Jul 2023
Our canteen contractor, Chartwells, have released their latest newsletter.
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Student & Class of the Week
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27 Jun 2023
Student of the week: Elise, 12LWN. ''For organising a musical variety show to raise money for The Royal Medical Benevolent Fund.'' Nominated by Mrs Gilchrist. Awarded 10 House points.
Class of the week: U13's Cricket team. ''For competing at the Devon Finals this...
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20 Jun 2023
Class of the week: Year 9 Religious Studies class with Mrs McAuliffe. ''For the thoughtful and mature way that they discussed the questions raised in our ‘How should we remember the holocaust?’ lesson.
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15 Jun 2023
Student of the week: Elizaveta, 10CRO. ''For sustained improvement and effort in GCSE Music. She excelled at the drums in her ensemble performance on Tuesday 6th June.'' Nominated by Mrs Marcer. Awarded 10 House points.
Class of the week: Year 10 Geographers. ''For t...
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07 Jun 2023
Student of the week: Freya, 10CRO. ''During the Silver qualification weekend her team came across a man who had fallen off his bike and was quite badly injured. Freya carried out first aid on his open wound and looked after him until help arrived.'' Nominated by Mr Payne. Awarded 10...
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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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20 Jul 2023
Ocean Studios and Market Hall are delighted to announce the upcoming Summer School activities offering an array of engaging and creative workshops for students of all ages. If you are looking for some Summer Activities, you may want to get involved with one of the workshops being offered...
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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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