Olivia produced this stunning artwork on her iPad using the sketchbook app. She started out curious if she could represent the unusual colour of her eyes and then continued to match her skin tones and hair colour with some beautiful strokes of the digital brush. She has then gone on to do some more images of her family too. Amazing work Olivia.

Felling Magpies have done it again, winning the league with a game in hand after this week’s 11-1 win against Prudhoe. Connor scored two goals and was nominated as man of the match by the opposing team. Lewis had a few great shots but the keeper made some fantastic saves to keep him out. Great work boys!

Winnie made the ‘Swim England Regional Championships’ this weekend. Winnie keeps on getting better and better with some new personal bests in the pool. Great work Winnie.

In our lunchtime club: ‘French Arts and Crafts; the students have gone through the alphabet in French and made salt dough figurines for something that begins with each letter.

Through A to Z they created animals, items of furniture, places and things. Then, with the help of an online dictionary and Señorita/ Mademoiselle Quested they have written facts about each thing in French.

The students have painted each with acrylic and have displayed them to present their beautiful work! Très bon travail!

For our immersion in G29, our science sessions took students off to Windy Nook Nature reserve. Here the students had a hugely successful day developing their fieldcraft skills for spotting wildlife.

The students’ patience was challenged whilst listening for and observing our local bird life to measure its biodiversity. They were rewarded with, amongst others, Chiffchaff and Great Tit songs as well as some great views of a hunting Kestrel. They used sweep nets to sample for the invertebrate life in the grassland to measure its biodiversity.

Amongst the species found were earwigs, leafhoppers, peacock butterflies, thrips and even the odd green dock beetle!

Students completed a litter survey to collect scientific data on the quality of the environment and finally a litter pick to act as stewards of their environment. A brilliant day – well done G29!

Crew Frank have had a great week focusing on our chosen charity. On Tuesday 18th April, Liz Luff from the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation came in to talk to our crew about the work of our chosen charity.

Liz told us a little about how the foundation came about when Sir Bobby was battling cancer for the fifth and what would be the final time. She explained that Ruth Plumber, a Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine, Newcastle University, had asked Sir Bobby if he could possibly use his contacts to help raise £500, 000 to help equip an important clinical research trials centre in Newcastle. From this request Sir Bobby, along with his wife Lady Elsie, set up the Sir Bobby Robson foundation. The response to Sir Bobby’s appeal for help was immediate and staggering and within less than two months of the Foundation being launched Professor Plummer had the £500,000 she needed. In February 2009, Sir Bobby officially opened the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Centre.  Liz told us that Sir Bobby was so proud that the centre carried his name and he vowed to give a year of his life to this charity in order to support very important work to save lives. Sir Bobby described it as being at the helm of his last and greatest team. His passion for The Foundation, despite being very ill himself, resulted in him spending his last 18 months doing all he could to raise funds to help others facing cancer.  He said he hoped it would become his legacy. 

Sir Bobby achieved so much in his footballing career which included playing for England himself in the late 1950s and early 60s and managing England for 8 years from 1982-1990 before successfully managing huge clubs such as PSV Eindhoven, FC Porto, Barcelona and then his beloved Newcastle United. He was a man who was highly respected in the footballing world and beyond and this is why so many people were so keen to support him when he set up this important foundation. To date, The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation has raised over £18 million and the Centre offers patients access to early trials and potential new treatments and works closely with the Imaging Research Centre to improve diagnosis and study the effects of new drugs.

During a Crew check in on Wednesday morning we reflected on how we are now feeling about our chosen charity and the support we intend to give to it. The following are quotes from our Crew check in.

After listening to Liz when she came in to speak to us…

Emily – I feel like I know so much more about Sir Bobby and how important he was to a lot of people, not just football fans, and I am proud to be supporting the foundation.

Leon – I feel proud of us choosing this charity because of Sir Bobby being such a great person from our region.

Jayden – I feel glad that we chose this charity because it has a huge impact helping so many people and Liz talked to us about the important work they do.

Ruby – I feel inspired by Sir Bobby Robson being our role model as seeing what he achieved, despite being very ill, makes me think that we can do so much more.

Hannah – I feel intrigued to find out even more about what the foundation does as we carry on supporting it.

Harris – I feel more motivated and confident in what we are going to do because of the important work they do in finding new treatments.

Mrs Ross – I feel so inspired to help make a difference for people who are fighting cancer especially after finding out how motivated Sir Bobby was, despite his own battle, and knowing that there are people everyday who owe their lives to the work of the Sir Bobby Robson foundation.

Daniel – I feel more connected to the charity and motivated to fundraise on its behalf.

Macie – I feel much more confident and eager to support and to do our walk on Friday because I know much more about what Sir Bobby achieved and know we can achieve so much too.

Elyse – I feel motivated by the work that Sir Bobby did and the legacy he has left behind so I’m looking forward to supporting more.

Will – I feel honoured to have chosen to support this charity as we have listened to how passionate Sir Bobby was to help others and so I feel like this was a good choice.

Tyler – I felt very proud of our choice of charity to support as it started out small with a goal of raising half a million pounds to equip a cancer trials centre but has grown so big and we can be part of it continuing and growing to help even more people.

Gemma – I feel confident that we will be able to positively support the charity and proud to have chosen the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation as our crew charity.

Crew Day

Our walk together as a Crew on Friday was to raise funds for this important charity and also included some solo time and a visit to a local Buddhist temple in Hebburn.

Eid Mubarak!

Harris has just completed his fast for Ramadan and was able to enjoy sharing his crew picnic today as part of Crew Frank’s plans for the day. He received a card from his crew who are so proud of his dedication and efforts this last month.

Sonny and Daniel have also won their league this week with two games to spare! Congratulations to them both and all involved with Gateshead Stripes U13 football team.

Great work boys!

More updates from Crew Days very soon. Have a great weekend.

Here are some more stunning narratives from Morgan and Lyra in G29. Morgan has written his from the perspective of a fallen solider and Lyra from the daughter who loses her father to the war. Great work Lyra and Morgan!

All of us at XP Gateshead would like to wish a ‘Happy Vaisakhi’ to our Sikh friends at Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha and would like to give special thanks to their support in our Year 7 learning expedition “Do your bit”.

We hope all of our families have the enjoyed the break having had a wonderful Easter too, and look forward to another exciting term at XPG.  Here are Trudi and Maddie from Crew Nightingale doing some beautiful work and delivering the eggs from their Easter drive to Gateshead food bank on the final day of last term. Thanks to you all for your support in helping families in need.

Finally, Fallyn from G29 Crew Attenborough has also been doing some beautiful work in the community during the Easter break too.Fallyn volunteered at the Johnnie Johnson Housing Association Community at Blenheim Court close to our school. Fallyn’s family and all of us at XPG are very proud of Fallyn. The residents and staff said she was amazing – of course. Great work Fallyn!

I hope everyone is enjoying the Easter break.

As you know, being crew is what we are all about at XP. Whilst this means having each other’s back, it also means celebrating each other’s successes.

Hallie was so impressed by her shoulder partner’s creative writing that she told me I need to put it on the website so that everyone can read it. Emily is a very talented writer but she was also able to improve her writing either further through the kind, specific and helpful critique that she received from her shoulder partner too. That is what we love to see from our students, and I have to agree with Hallie, it is excellent!

See if you can guess the persona of Emily’s writing (HINT: it fits with the Easter theme…)

I shivered in the cold, dead of the night.  

They have stopped now. All of them. Fools. Why scream and shout if you aren’t going to achieve anything at all. Mother says they’re stupid but Father is always saying that he wishes he was a human so that he could fight in a blazing war like this. 

I can hear them. Gunshots, screams and the dreadful pain in these men’s voices pains me. In the day, fighting their hearts and blood out just to make a man happy. I hate it. And the smell! That awful decaying smell of rotting bodies that keep multiplying day by day seeps through the walls of our burrow.

 I’m trying to get to sleep but I can hear mother and father scattering for things in the other room. Silently I crawl out of bed and make my way to the tunnel. I’m on my way downstairs, when suddenly there’s a big bang and I fly up into the air. The ground beneath me slips as I scramble to find a footing. There’s shouting and I can hear mother and father gathering my siblings. They say name by name until they come to mine. But no name falls from their mouths. I’m falling deeper and deeper with my hope following me. I’m scared. Scared enough to run ten miles away. I give up. 

Black. All I can see is black. I don’t know what to do and I keep wondering if my family is alright; the children, Mother, Father. What has happened to them?  Blood gathers on my fur. I decide to try and see if I can get out of this black hole and so I bat my feet against something sharp. It seems to work as there’s a rumble and the warm sun wafts against my ears. This is comforting in some way but mostly irritating. 

I can hear men shouting.  I look around. There’s a man lying on the ground with blood spilling out of his leg. I cautiously walk over to him. His eyes are open and he seems alive. 

“Hilfe, Hilfe..” he mutters softly.

Father says that if I were to ever see a man wounded I would tell him but father isn’t here so I try to help the man. He has a rock digging into his leg. It’s heavy and hard to move but I can just manage to push it out of the way. Suddenly he bolts upright and looks around frantically. He looks down at me. I can see that he is young and has bright blue eyes that shine with the sun. All of a sudden he picks me up. He tries to stand but stumbles and drops me. 

I can tell he’s frantic so I sit with him. Father says we make humans feel nice. I’ve never known why but I don’t care. It makes me feel good to be able to help the man so I don’t leave his side. 

Dusk attacks, and he’s still lying on the ground. Suddenly he picks himself up and is upright on his feet. He picks me up, making sure he is gentle, and walks away from the rubble. I suppose this is like saying goodbye. 

Goodbye Mother, goodbye Father, goodbye home. 

Hello, new beginning…