Crew Stanton football tournament for Tiny Lives

By Emmy Tatters3rd June 2024

On Thursday 13th June, to help kick off the men’s 2024 Euros, Crew Stanton are hosting a football tournament at school.

The first match will kickoff at 3:45 so students will stay at school to get ready for the match.

Everyone must have shin pads. Y7 and 8 will be on the MUGA, Y9 have the option to wear studs as they will be on the grass.

There will be a tournament for every year group and every Crew will play 3 matches (dependent on sign-up) and by the end there will be 1 winner per year group, with the winners getting a trophy.

We will have a barbecue as well as a tuck shop selling sweets and drinks. There is space for  5-8 people per crew to sign up and play, so if your child wants to play for their crew team, it will be £1.50 which will go towards our crew charity Tiny Lives.

Student supporters, parents and siblings can come and watch for £1 per person.

Thanks for your support,

Crew Stanton



Crew Stanton RUN for Tiny Lives!

By Emmy Tatters15th March 2024

Crew Stanton (G28) have decided to continue their fundraising efforts for Tiny Lives by partaking in the Junior GNR 2024!

The majority of the crew are already signed up (and are hoping the last couple sign up too)! My wife and I will also be running the GNR the following day.

Crew Stanton have set themselves an ambitious target of £2000 which we are trying to raise collectively. We have set up a shared fundraising page for the whole crew and we would be extremely grateful if you could sponsor us or, more importantly, share our fundraising page with friends and family and on your social media channels.

We appreciate your support,

Crew Stanton

G29 Presentation of Learning – Charity bake sale.

By Tom Devitt18th December 2023

Good afternoon,

This is a notice for all parents carers who will be attending the year 8 Presentation of Learning tomorrow, the 18th of December. 

Crew Parks (G28) are hosting a bake sale to support our charity, Trees for Cities! All the money we collect will be donated to the Trees for Cities charity, that focuses mainly on making urban areas greener, through the planting of trees. Over the past 30 years they have planted around 1.7 million trees! They also collaborate with schools creating green spaces and gardens where students can grow their own food and reduce carbon emissions within their community.  

We will have a range of homemade treats, as well as hot and cold drinks available. By purchasing our hand baked goods you will have helped us make a difference to our environment and support us in making our earth greener! 

We would be so grateful if you came by and bought a cake or a hot drink to support our charity, whilst watching another great presentation of learning.

Thanks,

Crew Parks

 

Crew Angelou Charity Update

By Darren Mead8th December 2023

YoungMinds Charity - Boingboing

Hello everyone! 

During our crew day Crew Angelou built upon the  research we did on our crew charity Young Minds last year. Young Minds is a UK based children’s mental health charity that provides support such as advice, a 24/7 text helpline and many articles made specifically for every child’s individual and unique struggles.

There is guidance for a myriad of experiences on the Young Minds website meaning hopefully everyone at our school and anyone else that may find it useful. For example, there are multiple links that lead to information and advice on individual experiences and feelings. Children will most likely be able to find a story or piece of advice they can relate to or use. Not only are there reassurances for different mental health issues but there is also information and advice for children struggling with their gender, sexuality, race, body and kinds of discrimination they may be facing.

Parents, carers and teachers will also find help and resources! These are mainly focused around how to help and support a child in your care who is in need of it. If you feel that you will find it beneficial, please check out the website.  

https://www.youngminds.org.uk

Our crew are currently planning a Christmas Party for students including a Karaoke fundraiser to raise money for Young Minds. This will take place on Wednesday   20th December from 4.30 until 6.30pm. Tickets are £1.50. 

Crew Angelou 

Crew Stanton’s Crew Day

By Emmy Tatters21st April 2023

Crew Stanton started the day with a check in about favourite childhood toys and games. We then played a fun crew builder called ‘fruit and veg’. 

We had 2 visitors to our crew day who supported us with 2 activities in the morning. 

Mason, Anya, Laisey, Sonny, Rafa, Tyler and Lily D showed craftsmanship and quality whilst working as a crew to construct a toy box that will be donated to the family room of our chosen charity Tiny Lives. Students worked carefully and safely using drills, saws and clamps. Lily D worked on designing stencils which we will create then use to decorate the box.

Archie, Oliver, Jess, Lily T, Katie and Leighla learned how to knit so that they could knit squares which would be sewn together to create a baby blanket. They also showed craftsmanship and quality, as well as resilience to develop a new skill. 

In the afternoon we were joined by Mrs Downes and headed to Windy Nook nature reserve for a crew picnic. We then tried to find a geocache but unfortunately we were unsuccessful. We also selected a good location for our own geocache. We have submitted the location for approval and will plant our geocache once we have been granted permission. 

The whole crew have shown great compassion and respect throughout the day and have worked brilliantly as a crew. Our knitting group have gone home with needles and wool to continue their squares and the toy box group will complete decorating in the coming weeks during crew time. 



G28 Weekly update for parents – W/C Monday 4th July 2022

By Mark Lovatt3rd July 2022

Dear Parents/Guardians

What a fantastic week we had last week – we met all of our new students during transition days and also their parents at our information evening for new parents. We are pleased that this went so well and look forward to getting to know our new students and their parents better after the summer holidays. We have invited new parents to join the parents facebook group and it would be great if our existing parents can lend a hand with any queries etc.

Last week also saw the publication and launch of our students’ book – From the Ground Up. This was researched, written and illustrated by G28 students. It was great to see all of our very proud parents at the book launch which was at Seven Stories on the Ouseburn. Seven Stories is the national centre for children books and they have agreed to sell and promote our book. A fantastic achievement for all of our students and to commemorate this event we will be  providing each student with their own personal copy of the book that they have written.

This week students will be continuing with their expedition – What A Wonderful World (WAWW) and will be speaking to Sophie Common, an expert in rewilding and conservation. Sophie trained to be a vet at the Royal Veterinary College in London, she has a Masters degree in wild animal health, and currently works as a wildlife vet in the disease risk analysis and health surveillance team at the Zoological society in London. She has taken a lead on several rewilding projects including the introduction of red kites and badgers across the UK. Sophie is our “expert” for our current expedition.

This week:

  • MHFA training for staff –  cohort two of our staff will be undergoing day 1 of their Mental Health First Aid  (MHFA) training aimed at providing support for young people. This will culminate on 18th July where all of our staff will receive their MHFA certificates.
  • PE will be on Friday this week. Please note that PE will be on Friday this week and  students should bring their PE kit on this day.
  • Warm weather – As the weather is starting to get quite warm. (Summer is coming !) Please make sure your child brings a water bottle to school and also a cap or hat if they suffer from sunstroke, and/or sunscreen if they burn easily. This is to cover outside breaks and lunchtimes although PE lessons are also increasingly outside. We will issue kit lists for any field work.
  • Parental Feedback – If you have not already done so then please remember to complete our parents feedback form by clicking here. We would really love to know what you think about our school (what we do well and what we could do better) and in particular would like to get feedback on our student SLCs.
  • Annual School Review – our School led Conference (SLC) will take place this Friday (8th July) and the executive team from XP Trust will be visiting XP Gateshead to receive a presentation about what we think we have done well and what we think we need to develop over the course of next year. They will be presented with evidence by school leaders and will take the opportunity to discuss with us our new targets for next year.
  • Crew leader changes – Mrs Ross will be taking over from Mrs Mosley as crew leader next year and Mr Mead will be taking over from Mr Lovatt as crew leader next year. Both Mrs Ross and Mr Mead will be working alongside Mrs Mosley and Mr Lovatt over the next couple of weeks to get to know their new crews really well.

Upcoming Events:

A reminder there is a G28 parents’ calendar here.

  • Miners Gala – A reminder to those families that have discussed bringing your children along that Mr Said has sent an email with the opportunity for you to indicate what time of day would work best for you.
  • Summer exams – students will sit summer tests/exams on the 18th July and we will be setting extended study which supports revision for these exams over the course of the next couple of weeks
  • The Presentation of Learning for our current learning expedition will take place on the evening of Tue 19th July at XP Gateshead. We will be sending more details in this coming week.

COVID testing 

We decided to remove the requirement to test students each Sunday evening given the low level in cases at the time and additional staffing that we now have available. This is in line with Government guidelines. However we would ask parents to continue to be vigilant, especially with the current rise in cases, and to test students if they or other family members of the family have symptoms. With your support we will continue to test students in school if they present with symptoms during the school day. We will also continue to keep windows open and to ensure our building is as ventilated as possible.

We do still have a limited supply of testing kits, so if you are in need and find it difficult to obtain tests, please do speak to your son or daughter’s Crew Leader.

No Nuts in packed lunches please

We have students in our new cohort with a severe allergy to nuts and so we need to ask that no nuts or nut products be used in packed lunches from this point onwards. Thank you in advance for your support with this.

Extended Study this week

As we are coming up to our Summer end of term exams we will mainly be setting revision for extended study this week and next. Summer exams will take place in the last week of term.

As usual if there are any queries please do get in contact with your child’s Crew Leader.

Many thanks

Mark Lovatt

Principal

Beautiful Work from Lucy

By Martin Said9th January 2022

Lucy has produced a beautiful charcoal illustration of Mr Lovatt’s Dad’s miners’ lamp for our From the Ground Up book. We particularly like how the bands of consistent tonal values give the impression of the metallic surface on the barrel of the lamp. Great work Lucy!

Lucy has also been busy honing her line skills at home over the Christmas break, producing these wonderful sketches of Disney characters.

 

Reverse Advent: Above All… Compassion

By Julie Mosley17th December 2021

Today was the end of our reverse advent in school. Students and families have been providing important supplies of food and household items throughout December.

This morning Emily and Macie from Crew Mosley and Lucy and Sonny from Crew Tatters were able to drop off the supplies to our local Gateshead Food Bank on the Team Valley.

The volunteers at the food bank and we would like to pass on our huge appreciation to all of the students and families that contributed. Your compassion will help spread a little more joy to families in need this Christmas.