Today we took our new staff to visit the school site and looked around what will be our accommodation from August 31st in what was B-Block in the Thomas Hepburn building.
We also met with out Local Governing Committee for the first time, and have a fantastic team with a wealth of experience and expertise that will enable them to provide support and challenge to help us deliver our vision for XP Gateshead. Mr Lovatt will post more on our governing body in an update tomorrow.
This week we began inducting our new XP Gateshead staff into the XP Trust.
As you know, the first day for students at XPG is to get on a bus and carry out an outward bound expedition to discover what it means to be crew through the power of a shared adventure.
So for our staff, their first day of school is to get on a bus… and you know the rest!
A great start for our new staff
On Monday and Tuesday our XP Gateshead staff crew joined with colleagues in Doncaster to navigate a walk in the wilderness, carried out a an introspective solo, abseiled from a bridge 25m up and used bushcraft skills to cook up some food on an open fire.
These experiences are so important to our staff crew, not just in building bonds between us, but in helping us to prepare for leading crews of your children through their first outward bound expedition and establishing the strong culture for the years to come.
I have been privileged to be in involved in, and at times lead the staff induction for the last six years. It is safe to say that your sons and daughters are going to be in safe hands.
I’d like to thank all of our colleagues in Doncaster for being so welcoming, but especially our new XPG staff crew who have each faced and conquered personal challenges over the last couple of days. It’s hard to believe that we got on that bus on Monday morning – it feels like we’ve been together for years already.
We are delighted to confirm that we now have our 50 students that have accepted their place at XP Gateshead.
This means we can now press ahead with our transition arrangements.
We will be in contact with successful families later this week with more details.
In due course we will also contact the families that were not successful, but again would like to express our gratitude for the support we have received from the whole community of Gateshead from the very beginning of our application.
Today we also received notification of our pre-registration inspection from Ofsted which will happen on Wednesday 16th June.
This is another important step towards the funding agreement being signed, which we anticipate will happen before the end of the month.
We’re so excited to begin working with our 50 students and families.
This morning we took the most exciting step in our journey as a school so far, and began contacting families to offer them places for Year 7 in 2021.
If you have been successful in your application you will have received an email from us this morning. We are contacting parents by phone today too to confirm these offers.
If you have not received an email, this means that – at the moment – your application has not been successful.
However, it may be the case that some families decline their offer. If this does happen we will use our randomly ordered list to make new offers. We will do this as soon as we possibly can, if a family does decline their offer.
When we have confirmed that 50 places have been accepted we will update our website again.
IMPORTANT:If you have previously filled in an expression of interest and wish to proceed with your application, there is nothing that you need to do. We will take the relevant details from your expression of interest forwards to become a formal application. You should have received an email from us. If you are concerned that you have filled in the expression of interest, but have not received an email, please contact: [email protected]
EVENT 2: Families of children in Year 5 and Year 6
This event will take place live on Youtube. You will be able to ask questions through the chat function throughout the evening. To register your interest in joining this family event, please complete this Google Form. There is also an opportunity to provide questions in advance on the Google Form.
This event will be specifically of interest for parents that are interested in a place at XP Gateshead for their son or daughter. During this event we will be able to give further details of our timeline for admissions and when we will offer place to your children for Year 7 in 2021.
To join the event at 6.00pm – 6.45pm on Tuesday 4th May please click here .
EVENT 1: Wider stakeholders (i.e. local residents, educators, business leaders etc.)
To register your interest in joining this wider stakeholder event, please complete this Google Form. There is an opportunity to provide questions in advance on the Google Form.
To join the event at4.30pm – 5.15pm on Tuesday 4th May please click on this link.
This event will take place in Google Meet. As we are an education establishment, as a safeguard, you must log in using a Google account to access our Google Meets. If you would like any assistance in setting up a Google account please email [email protected] .
