Tutoring & Focus Time

Weekly Routine

	Year 7	Year 8	Year 9	Year 10	Year 11
Monday	Assembly	Personal Development/ Reciprocal Reading	Personal Development/ Reciprocal Reading	Personal Development/ Reciprocal Reading	Personal Development/ Reciprocal Reading
Tuesday	Personal Development/ Reciprocal Reading	Assembly	Personal Development/ Reciprocal Reading	Personal Development/ Reciprocal Reading	Personal Development/ Reciprocal Reading
Wednesday	Personal Development/ Reciprocal Reading	Personal Development/ Reciprocal Reading	Assembly	Champion of Maths and the Behaviour Curriculum	Champion of Maths and the Behaviour Curriculum
Thursday	Champion of Maths and the Behaviour Curriculum	Champion of Maths and the Behaviour Curriculum	Champion of Maths and the Behaviour Curriculum	Assembly	Rewards Assembly and the Weekly Quiz
Friday	Rewards Assembly and the Weekly Quiz	Rewards Assembly and the Weekly Quiz	Rewards Assembly and the Weekly Quiz	Rewards Assembly and the Weekly Quiz	Assembly

Personal Development Lessons

Each week, our students will have a personal development lesson during focus time. The work they do will be recorded in booklets which are stored in the tutor folder. During these lessons we deliver the part of the PSHE curriculum and the lessons are designed to compliment the work students do during their ARCH days and their Personal Development lessons (KS3 only).

Reciprocal Reading

Reciprocal Reading is a structured approach to reading that helps students understand texts more deeply. In form time, we use four key strategies: predicting, questioning, clarifying and summarising, to explore what we read together. This encourages discussion, builds confidence, and helps everyone become more thoughtful, independent readers.

Champions of Maths

Once students have laid their equipment out on their desks, they will complete their ‘Champions of Maths’ challenge. They complete this in their form time books, and it is designed to support students in learning the skills they need to have mastered in order to succeed in their Maths GCSE. The tasks are taken from the bestselling book, ‘A Compendium of Mathematical Methods’ by Joanne Morgan, and students will work through the recall and retrieval of these facts sequentially. By revisiting these regularly and engaging with this process, the information will move into students’ long-term memory, so that they can recall these Maths facts much more easily over time.

Assembly

Assembly is held once a week. It is usually led by a member of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT). Assemblies are themed to match our core values of ambition, respect, care and honesty; they are also used as an opportunity to celebrate important religious events and national awareness campaigns. Content will be relative to these values, while covering a wide range of topics. In addition to this, we have termly celebration assemblies to celebrate students exemplifying our four values of ambition, respect, care and honesty; this includes celebrating attendance.

Behaviour Curriculum

At Todmorden High School, we place great importance on clear expectations for positive behaviour. Students take part in a weekly behaviour curriculum during form time, where they learn and practice our ARCH values: Ambition, Respect, Care and Honesty. Through this programme, students are explicitly taught key habits such as being ready to learn, working hard, showing kindness, and taking responsibility. These are reinforced through everyday routines, including transitions, assemblies, and social times.

Rewards Assembly

Each week, students will take part in a Rewards Assembly created by their Learning Manager. This assembly celebrates the successes of the previous week, recognising students for their achievements, positive contributions, excellent attendance, effort, and behaviour. Students will also be updated on rewards, improvements, key notices, and upcoming events. The assembly provides an opportunity to recognise success, share important information, and motivate students to continue demonstrating our school values throughout the week.

Weekly Quiz

Each week, forms will work together to complete a General Knowledge Quiz against other forms within their year group. The quizzes are designed to encourage teamwork, communication, and a broad range of knowledge, while providing a fun and engaging challenge for students. Forms will earn points throughout the half term, with scores contributing to an overall league table. At the end of each half term, the highest-scoring form will be rewarded with a prize in recognition of their teamwork, participation and success.

Other Focus Time Activities

Form tutors will also take time to review the Arbor profile of their tutees, and support with any issues arising, as well as discussing any attendance concerns with their form. As parents, your child’s form tutor might well be your first point of contact, should you have any concerns, though you are more than welcome to contact the Learning Manger for your year group, too. You can find contact details for our Learning Manager team on our pastoral page.

Equipment & Uniform Checks

Tutors check equipment and uniforms are right every day – students must be absolutely perfectly dressed and equipped to start the day off the best possible way and give them every opportunity to succeed.
The equipment poster below shows what we expect each student to bring every day. Having this kit with them means they will be able to access their learning and there will be no barrier to them getting on with what they’ve been asked to do in every lesson. Please support us in your role as parents by checking that your child has their full set of equipment with them every day. We insist on spare black and green pens so that they are always prepared for a pen to run out and it doesn’t interrupt their learning when it happens. The ruler is necessary as we expect students to underline each date and title neatly; students have a responsibility to present their work as neatly and carefully as they can.

As well as checking equipment, tutors will undertake uniform checks. A reminder of how uniform should look can be seen below. Students missing essential elements will be supported via our spare uniform supply; please let us know if there is a problem with any aspect of your child’s uniform, or you need some support – we are here to help.