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When changes are proposed to admission arrangements, we must consult on our admission arrangements that will apply for admission applications the following school year and at least once every 7 years, even if there have been no changes.
Our consultation will last for 6 weeks and between Friday 20th December and Friday 31 January.
Continue readingWe would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all parents and carers who attended the G30 and G31 Presentations of Learning this week.
Your support and encouragement are essential, as Presentations of Learning and end products are a core part of our school model. These events provide students with invaluable opportunities to showcase their hard work, reflect on their learning journey, and celebrate their achievements with the wider community.
We are also delighted to share the success of our raffles for the Ringtons Hampers. Thanks to your generosity, we raised £85 for St Mary’s Church funds and £53 for Crew Frank’s and Crew Darling’s chosen charity, The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation.
Your contributions will make a meaningful difference, and we are incredibly proud to have such a supportive school community. Thank you again for making these events such a success!
Thanks to our families for your support this term, the last couple of weeks of Presentations of Learning (PoLs) are always a special time, giving students an opportunity to present the best versions of themselves to their families. We have had fantastic feedback from all who attended the PoLs in Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 and look forward to showcasing on our website where we will curate each expedition and link to our final products.
We have already posted about previous PoLs but I just wanted to give one final praise to G28 whose Presentation of Learning took the form of taught lessons about their studies with families as students. What an incredible PoL, with our students really stepping up in terms of confidence, warmth and engaging families in their learning. Absolutely stunning!
There will be one change of staffing in Year 8 and Year 9. Mr Azam is going to be teaching Year 8 Class 2 as has been the case this term, and he will also now teach Year 9 Class 1. Ms Marshall will now teach Year 8 Class 1 and will continue to teach Year 9 Class 2. This will allow for more collaboration within the Maths team in school, which also includes Mrs Mosley.
There are also a few events that we want to bring to your attention in the next term.
Year 7 and Year 8 will be carrying out Student-Led Conferences in mid January. Student-Led Conferences give children the opportunity to share the information that they feel best reflects their learning journey and reflects on this question ‘Am I moving towards where I need to be?’. SLC’s ensure that they reflect on all the elements of the Narrative for Success including attendance, HoWLs and Academic Progress.
Invites to choose a slot for families will be sent when we return to school. SLCs for Year 7 and Year 8 will take place in the fortnight commencing 27th January.
As part of their new learning expedition Year 8 students will be carrying out important fieldwork at the V&A (The Victoria & Albert Museum in London). This is in partnership with the Shipley Art Gallery in Gateshead. Students will travel to London and back in a day by rail, and will work with experts at the museum to help put together artistic responses to their new guiding question.
There will be enough SLC slots for families to avoid your child’s slot being close to the London visit.
When they return to school, Year 9 students will begin to prepare to carry out Passage Presentations. These will take place on Monday 17th March and Tuesday 18th March during the daytime in school and last for one hour. We will be able to share more information about these important rites of passage, as well as the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award and our Key Stage 4 offer of GCSEs and other courses as part of an information for all families.
This information evening will take place on Wednesday 15th January at 5:30pm.
Students in Year 10 will for the first time take part in Student/Teacher-led conferences. These are shorter conferences than SLCs where students will sit alongside each of their subject teachers to share their progress with you on their new Key Stage 4 courses.
These are scheduled to take part in the week commencing Monday 10th February, with an evening for each Class in Year 10. We will post more details when we return, including assessment information and an opportunity for you to ask questions in advance of these conferences.
Finally, we would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our students and families a very Merry Christmas and restful holiday period. We return to school on Monday 6th January 2025 and look forward to another successful New Year at XP Gateshead.
Julie Mosley
Principal, XP Gateshead
Here’s a selection of beautiful work from across the XP Trust for the last time in 2024! To read about other stories from across the XP Trust, visit xptrust.org.
XP Gateshead Year 9’s “Another Brick in the Wall” Expedition culminated in a fantastic Presentation of Learning at the Farrell Centre and Hancock Museum in Newcastle. Students showcased their creative and analytical work from the project, including the oral histories they crafted and the artwork they had created.
You can watch the story of the day in this video:
At the G28 presentation of learning Thursday evening, Crew Angelou will be selling Christmas themed vases for five pounds each, each one hand decorated. Only five will be on sale this Christmas however a beautiful spring edition will go on sale next year if that’s more your taste.
All proceeds will be used to support of our crew charity , Young minds.
Merry Christmas from Crew Angelou!
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We are excited to remind you that Year 8’s Presentation of Learning will take place in school this evening, from 4:30pm to 5:45pm.
Public speaking and sharing learning through PoLs are key elements of our school’s approach to education. To support students in building character and showcasing their academic progress, it is important that each child has a family member in attendance.
As this is a formal occasion, students are expected to dress smartly in line with our dress code. Polo shirts are a great option for this event.
The evening will include:
Due to limited capacity while our theatre space is out of use, a maximum of three family members per student can attend.
We look forward to Year 8 celebrating their critical thinking and achievements with you this evening and in addition there will be both a bake sale and a raffle in aid of two Crew charities. Proceeds from Crew Watson’s bake sale will support the charity WWF.
Raffle tickets will be sold at the event (£1 per strip) for a lovely Hamper provided by Simon Musgrave, National Sales Manager for local family run business Ringtons with proceeds going to The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation supported by both Crew darling and Crew Frank.
This term some of our students have been getting together at 7:45am on a Thursday for a “morning mile”. It’s been a really positive way to start a Thursday and we’ve caught some beautiful morning sun up on the hill with views of Gateshead and Newcastle. If you would like to join us in the New Year please get in touch Miss Jones for a form. All abilities welcome.
It will be cancelled this week to be continued when we return in January.
We hope you have some enjoyable festive runs this Christmas!
And, of course, a huge congratulations to our successful Year 9 and Year 10 runners Sonny, Daniel, Daniel, Seth and Arlo who competed in a Cross Country event for Gateshead Schools on Friday and came 2nd overall with Sonny, Daniel Dav. and Arlo qualifying for county trials! Brilliant running! #runXP ♀️
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As we come to the end of term, we continue to celebrate our expedition work with Presentations of Learning where our students publicly share their final products and answers to their guiding questions with an audience of peers, staff, families and invited guests. Here is a lovely note of thanks from the Dickens society who attended G28’s PoL a couple of weeks ago.
Thank you for inviting myself and my fellow Dickensians, Chris McLoughlin and Chris Robson to discuss and share with your pupils our love of Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol.
They were open, receptive, challenging and keen to share their thoughts with us on the narrative and characters within the book.
Having attended your event on Wednesday it was wonderful to listen to various crew members share excerpts from their essays addressing, with confidence, the expedition question “is charity enough”? A Christmas Carol deals with huge emotive themes of hunger, ignorance, poverty, greed and isolation along with family, love and happiness. As 14 and 15 year olds, they handled these with maturity and understanding.
It was heart-warming to hear our words reflected back in depth showing they listened to us and used our conversations as a catalyst to undertake more indepth research.
Your students did you proud and are a credit to themselves and their school.
I wish all the students every success with their exams and thank you for the opportunity to be involved in some small way.
As Tiny Tim says “God bless us, every one!”
Yours,
Anne and all my fellow Dickensians in the N.E. branch of the Dickens Fellowship.
Last week was the chance for our G29 students to share their work from this term’s expedition with the GQ: How are structures important in helping us to explain our world?. We returned to Newcastle University where our students also got the opportunity of a campus tour and time with ‘The 93% Club’ ( a students’ society for young adults who have come from state schools) who shared their experience of attending University.
Our students took over the Farrell Centre at Newcastle University and also showcased work at the Great North Museum creating a living expedition. They shared their knowledge around art and architecture, atomic structures in science, structures in government and society and made connections to the anchor text for this expedition, Lord of the Flies. Standing back and listening to our students ‘lead the learning’ in every sense of the word was simply stunning and we all could not have been prouder of G29. We will post a link to the final product of the oral histories of Trinity Square Car Park in January – we had more experts in on Friday being interviewed to contribute to this important piece of local history.
We owe a huge thanks to all of the people who supported us and gave our students another opportunity to spend time at Newcastle University.
As always, we will be working hard until the end of Friday at XP Gateshead and students will be continuing to complete work on end of term assessments, final products, answers to GQ’s (guiding questions) and preparing for presentations of learning.
A reminder that students will stay in school until they present. If you want to provide healthy snacks, students will be given some time during the afternoon to get a break between rehearsals.
Students should dress smartly for these occasions.
G31 will be presenting their learning from their first expedition – A Whole New World. More information can be found here.
G30 will be presenting their learning from their current expedition – What does it mean to be human? This presentation of learning is taking place in school, so please arrive from 4.15pm.
G28 will be presenting their learning from their current expedition – Raiders and Invaders. More information can be found here
We are not running our extended study offer or clubs this week due to Presentations of Learning this week.
Our PE sessions this week are as follows. Please ensure that your child has their full PE kit.
And finally…
Don’t forget that school finishes at the earlier time of 1.30pm this Friday. This is to allow us time to “degunge” and set up for the next term. Please make arrangements to pick up your children at the school gate for 1.30pm. As always, please be conscientious of our neighbours if parking as it is always very busy when students all leave school at the same time.
As usual if you have any questions about your son or daughter please get in touch with your child’s Crew Leader in the first instance or email general enquiries to [email protected].
Julie Mosley
