Dear Families

Welcome back!

Next week we return to school for our first week back which is fundamental to us as an XP School. We will spend time introducing or reaffirming the importance of Crew which is the foundation of our culture at XPG, and take the time to build and tend to positive relationships in Crew through shared experiences and challenges. 

 ‘If we get Crew right, we get everything right’.

The activities in the first week back are carefully planned and bespoke to each year group. 

We will be running a staggered start to school for students on Tuesday to ensure a smooth start back. Our theatre space continues to be out of use whilst ongoing repair work is underway so we are unable to collectively meet more than one year at a time.

• G31 (Year 7) students will start at normal time, 8:25am and can arrive from 8am on Tuesday.
• G30 (Year 8) students will start at 10:45am on Tuesday.
• G29 (Year 9) students will start at 11:15am on Tuesday.
• G28 (Year 10) students will start at 11:45am on Tuesday.

IMPORTANT: Due to the staggered start school lunches for G30/G29/G28 students need to be pre ordered for Tuesday, please complete your choice on the google form here. 

First week back guiding questions and fieldwork next week 

Each cohort has a different guiding question for the week with purposeful activities which help them to answer this question. As such there is no PE this coming week, but there is physical activity for all year groups as you will see below.

G31 (Year 7) students – Outward Bound Expedition

G31 students head off to Howtown, Ullswater for their Outward Bound Expedition and their guiding question for the week which is:

“What does it mean to be crew?”

Importantly, students will need a packed lunch and a £10 deposit with them when they arrive at school on Tuesday. See the detailed website post which has full information on travel, kit, medical requirements, communication and return time back to school.

G30 (Year 8) students – Fieldwork on Friday 30th August

As part of their first week back in school, Year 8 students will be planning fieldwork in our local area which will involve them retrieving and consolidating their learning from Year 7 expeditions as well as evaluating the effectiveness of new fieldwork activities for supporting the learning of our new cohort. To do this the students will carry out their planned fieldwork on Friday 30th August. Students will be using this fieldwork to answer the question linked to theme of student leadership for the week:

“How can we lead and support the learning of our new friends in G31?”

Students will complete the fieldwork during the school day and will be back in school for around 3.30pm.

Each Crew will put together a ‘Crew picnic’. Your child will be able to give you more details on how they plan to contribute towards this picnic.

G30 students should also be prepared for the weather conditions, so they must have their regular kit and in addition:

• Waterproof jacket
• Appropriate clothing for the weather
• Suitable footwear for a day’s walking in urban area
• Water bottle
• Suncream
• A cap or hat

G29 (Year 9) students – Fieldwork on Thursday 29th August

As part of their first week back in school, Year 9 students will be carrying out a hike in Northumberland around Wylam on Thursday during the school day. As this is a hike, a consent form will go home to students on Tuesday.

Students will be learning how to navigate together as a Crew and will be planning a Crew picnic. This serves as an introduction to the types of challenges that they will face as part of their Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award this academic year, and also connects the guiding question for the week which is:

“How do we form great habits to tackle initiatives as a Crew with increasing agency, independence and resilience?”

Each Crew will put together a ‘Crew picnic’. Your child will be able to give you more details on how they plan to contribute towards this picnic.

Students will be travelling by metro and train during the regular school day and will return back to school for around 3:30pm. We will keep you updated on the school website of our expected arrival time.

G29 students will need the following kit for the day. The current forecast is showers and sunny intervals.

• Waterproof jacket
• Appropriate clothing for the weather
• Hiking boots or footwear that is suitable for a rural hike.
• Water bottle
• Suncream
• A cap or hat

G28 (Year 10) students – Fieldwork on Wednesday 28th and Expert sessions on Friday 30th August

Students will be working together in Crews on their guiding question:

‘How can we ensure that our future selves will thank us for the next two years?’

There are two foci for the week. The first of which is focussing on the step up to Key Stage 4 and how they need to adapt their Crew norms to ensure that they are supporting and challenging each other to be successful.

Secondly students will continue their thinking about careers and pathways, beyond Key Stage 4 to Post-16. As part of the week students will travel to Gateshead Careers Centre to hear from experts and employers about what pathways are available to them and what employers and education providers are looking for in candidates.

For the fieldwork on Wednesday we will be travelling to Gateshead Careers Centre by foot and metro, so students will need:

• Their regular school kit including a water bottle and fully charged iPad
• Comfortable walking shoes or trainers
• Clothing that is suitable for the weather – the forecast is currently sunny with showery spells.

During the week, students will also put together a CV based on their ambitions, strengths and skills to date, and on Friday they will have a mock interview with a professional who will give them feedback on how they present themselves, how they articulate their ambitions and reflect on themselves and how they respond to  questions. Students should wear more formal dress on Friday for their mock interviews.

Regular Kit and dress code for this week

Students will need their regular kit  and be in regular dress code for the start of school this week on Tuesday, just as in any other week. See our website post for a reminder on our dress code expectations.

A reminder that for day to day kit we expect students a school bag with the following:

• A water bottle
• A fully charged iPad
• Headphones – ideally not expensive ones, for example here
• Pencil case including: pens, pencils, ruler, eraser and pencil sharpener
• Notebook

School Lunches 

Students can choose to bring in a healthy packed lunch (no confectionery, fizzy or energy drinks) or have a school meal with us. Please note there must be no nut products in snacks or packed lunches – this is especially important as we have students in this cohort who are highly allergic to nut products.

Our school dinners are very popular with our students, thanks to our wonderful kitchen crew. Students make a daily food choice in crew each morning and we have a three week menu. Here’s this year’s menu – we start on week 3 this wek.

If your child receives a free school meal, we will provide lunch. Please contact the school office if you have any questions around school meals.

As mentioned above, please pre-order lunch for Tuesday 27th August here.  

Staffing Update and Crew Leaders

Kati Donlan accepted a new job at the start of the school holidays so, due to notice periods, will not return to XPG in the new term. I’m sure that you will join me in thanking Kati for all of her high quality work at XP Gateshead as a Learning Coach and a Crew Leader. She has had a huge impact on staff, students and families with the work she has done supporting young people to access all areas of our curriculum. 

We have three new Learning Coaches/Crew Leaders joining our team this term – Nicky Evans, Nelly Mosley, and Charlie Parry. As you know we also have Mohammed Azam and Hannah Simpson joining our teaching team too this year, both of whom have been working with us since June.

A reminder that our Crew Leaders for this academic year are:

G31 (Year 7) – Mr Azam, Mrs Diamond, Miss Jamison, Mr Parry / Mr Said

 

G30 Crew Earhart: Mrs Evans / Miss Mosley

G30 Crew Kahlo: Ms Macphail

G30 Crew Darling: Mrs Ross

G30 Crew Einstein: Miss Simpson

 

G29 Crew Attenborough: Miss Blain

G29 Crew Watson: Mrs Horne / Mrs Downes

G29 Crew King: Señorita Quested

G29 Crew Nightingale: Miss Marshall

 

G28 Crew Parks: Mr Devitt

G28 Crew Frank: Miss Jones

G28 Crew Angelou: Mr Mead

G28 Crew Stanton: Miss Tatters

Regular timetabled sessions

Regular timetabled lessons will start for G28, G29 and G30 in the week commencing Monday 2nd September. As you know, we are reviewing our classes and changes will be made to the makeup of both class 1 and class 2 in both cohorts.

There will be no clubs or extended study for the first two weeks of term.

We are really looking forward to welcoming all of our students back on Tuesday. 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].

Thank you for your ongoing support and a special thanks to G28, G29 and G30 parents who have been sharing their XPG knowledge and expertise with our new G31 parents. Together we are definitely stronger #WeAreCrew.

Julie Mosley

Principal

Dear Families

Welcome to our final weekly update of this academic year. It is another exciting week for us at XPG with our final presentations of learning for each expedition and we will share updates from these events with you over the next week.

There was great work achieved as always last week and our students continued to work hard, get smart and be kind even as end of term tiredness kicked in. Seeing students work together supporting each other to be their best versions, leaning in on crew and culture was a real strength. Here are a some of the highlights from our week:

Crew Day – XPG Sports Day

We enjoyed our final Crew Day of the year last week with a sport and physical challenge to the day. Our Sports Day involved a range of activities with healthy competition within each cohort between Crews and the quality of work across all crews and rounds was stunning – designing crew mascots for a given country, recreating famous sporting images, crew rounders, dodgeball and athletics.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

G28 students completed one last major physical exertion carrying out a walk for water. Students were supported throughout the day by ambassadors of the Charity Time to Help. They even brought their mascot the water drop! They also gave students the opportunity to visit Kenya by the power of VR to see a village where their well’s had an impact.

Excitement was high as winners were announced in our whole school community meeting in the afternoon. The winners were:

G30 – Crew Einstein

G29 – Crew Watson

G28 – Crew Parks walked the greatest distance in the walk for water

Thanks so much to all families that have donated to the appeal.

Freya is now a published artist!

As you may have seen, our Year 7 student, Freya and her family travelled down to the Royal Academy of Arts to see her artwork curated in the gallery. Well done Freya!

Working with the Comfrey Project

A group of Year 8 students carried out some volunteering work with our partners at the Comfrey Project in Bensham last week, volunteering in their garden. 

“The Comfrey Project provides a safe, welcoming place for people who have fled conflict and persecution to improve their physical and mental wellbeing, develop new skills and put down roots in their new community.

Their approach is based on the use of horticulture-based activities including gardening, bee-keeping, cooking, crafts and construction, to improve people’s lives.”

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

XPT Festival of Arts 

On Friday Mr Said travelled to Doncaster with Miss Wall our visiting dance teacher and our choir, rock band and dancers. The groups have been working on performances over the last term and put on a fantastic show, performing twice. The afternoon performance was to our primary school students and staff, and then the evening performance was to families from across the schools in Doncaster. Just as we finished our first set the heavens began to open, and as our rock band took to the stage for their second performance the area in front of the stage was quite quiet given the rain. However by the time our rock band had finished they had pulled the crowd back in, and they stayed for our choir and dancers. So many colleagues came to find us to say how impressed they were with our children, and how thankful they were that we had been able to be part of the festival. Well done to all of our performers who have put in a massive amount of effort, not least their long shift on Friday! Beautiful work. A special thanks to Lauren for her support with our Dancers across the whole year too.

This week

G30 Celebration of Learning, Tuesday 16th July 4:30-6:00pm

This event will take place in school and will include a hosted gallery walk where students will discuss their learning from across this last term around the guiding question “How does water shape our world?”. Students will also present important updates on their final products from across the year, including their radio broadcast with excerpts of their Creative Writing from term 2 and their folk songs from term 1. More details in Mrs Ross’ post here.

We are delighted to announce that we have copies of the CD with Year 7 students’ music available for families to purchase. We have a limited initial print of 50 copies available, although more will be printed soon. If you wish to purchase your child’s music on CD, then please bring £5 to the event on Tuesday evening.

Due to the limited initial print, it will be limited to one copy per family. When the second print run is done, you will be able to purchase more copies in the new academic year for other family members. This really is a fantastic product, and every penny raised will go back into funding your child’s exciting learning expeditions next year.

G29 Presentation of Learning, Wednesday 17th July 4:30-6:00pm

This event will also take place in school. Students have been working in the kitchen to prepare food so that we can eat an afternoon tea influenced by dishes from across the world, together with our migrant guests. Students will also perform a poem set to their artwork. Following the interval, we will screen the film made by our G28 students which includes the stories of some of our migrant experts. We are really looking forward to hosting you in school – more details in Miss tatters’ post here.

G28 Presentation of Learning, Thursday 18th July 6.00pm

The final presentation of learning for G28 will be a live stream on Youtube, which includes excerpts of poetry and captures their learning from across this term on their expedition: Hold back the river. We will post details of the link to follow to join the stream later in the week.

PE sessions this week

Our PE sessions this week are as follows. Please ensure that your child has their full PE kit.

• G30 students (Y7) have PE on Monday this week
• G29 students (Y8) 
  • 8-1 have PE on Tuesday this week
  • 8-2 have PE on Thursday this week
• G28 students (Y9) have PE on Thursday this week 

No Extended Study and Clubs

Due to the Presentations of Learning this week we are not running clubs or extended study this week.

Summer Holidays

We break up for Summer holidays this Friday 19th July and return to school on Tuesday 27th August. Please remember that, as always, our students finish at 1:30pm on Friday to allow staff to de-gunge and replenish rooms and teaching spaces ready for the new academic year.

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].

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Julie Mosley