Dear Families

It was great to see our students make such a strong start back to school last week after half term break. Students were immediately back to working hard, getting smart and being kind, stepping up to our high expectations in and outside of sessions. 

Behind all of our students is a dedicated staff crew at XP Gateshead as you know who are supported by teams at XP Trust, Gateshead LEA and in our local community. Here’s just a few examples from this week:

XPG staff crew

It was a busy start to the week with two full days of interviews. I am delighted to say that we have appointed two new teachers to our staff crew:

Hannah Simpson who joins us as a HUMAN teacher and Mohammed Azam  who joins us as a STEAM teacher. We are delighted with our new appointments and look forward to them joining us in June to start their induction with us. 

G28 Beautiful artwork exhibited at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead

This week the final product from the G28 Being Human expedition was installed at the QE Hospital at the Windy Nook Entrance. 

As well as seeing our students’ truly beautiful artwork of different organs, the installation includes a QR code which allows visitors to access G28 voices and their responses to the guiding question, ‘What does it mean to be human?’.

This is important work which matters, raising awareness of the importance of organ donation.  We could not be prouder of our students  and the adults who supported the ‘Being Human’ expedition, in particular Andy Lowes (pictured) at Gateshead NHS Foundation. 

This work is already garnering attention online:

“Incredible!”

“This is amazing!”

“Wow! This work is outstanding and will no doubt capture the interest of those passing by.”

“Such an important message.”

Most importantly it will save lives. If you have been inspired by our students’ work and want to sign up to become an organ donor – please click here.

Secondary school national offer day, 1 March 2024

Parents of Year 6 students will have received notification of secondary school places on Friday. XP Gateshead works with the Local Authority admissions teams to administer places. As in previous years, we received more applications than we can offer places and our admissions were determined by a random lottery administered independently by the Local Authority.

I’d like to thank all families who expressed an interest in our school and the work we do here. An appreciation too for our existing families and students for showing our school for the really special place that it is. Again we are massively oversubscribed with around eight applicants for every one place at the school.

For our new families, welcome to XP Gateshead and congratulations! We are delighted to have you and your children join our school. We will be sending out our welcome letters early this week and there will be separate website posts coming which will share all information around transition. 

For the time being, there are answers to many of our most frequently asked questions here.

Some key reminders .

Attendance

As we all know, attendance at school is of vital importance. We all understand that school attendance is vital to the life chances of young people and that being in school improves health, wellbeing and socialisation throughout life. Put simply if pupils are  not at school then they will not be learning and can easily fall behind in all areas of their development.

In order to support you and your child we keep a close eye on attendance and appreciate your full support with this. At XPG we celebrate attendance and will support those students and families who need to improve their attendance. We all work hard together to ensure school attendance is high – students, parents/carers, Crew Leaders and our inclusion team.

If, for any reason, your child is unable to attend school you must contact the school office before 8:30am by telephone. This is a safeguarding procedure which has to happen on every day of absence.

Please share any worries you have around attendance or punctuality with your childs’ Crew Leader. 

The week ahead

National Careers Week

This week is National Careers Week. Students in Year 9 have been thinking carefully about pathways and careers as part of preparation for their Passage Presentations.

Students in Year 7 and Year 8 will have a session in Crew this week which introduces them to our Careers Website and their Start Profile – a personalised website which will help them to think about their own pathways and readiness for the next stages of their education.

PE this week

• G30 (Year 7)
  • Both classes have PE on Monday this week.
• G29 (Year 8)
  • Both classes have PE on Wednesday this week.
• G28 (Year 9)
  • Class 1 have PE on Thursday this week.
  • Due to the staff day, G28 Class 2 do not have PE this week. We will look to rebalance this in a later week.

Extended Study and Clubs

Clubs will all run this week along with extended study sessions every day except Friday. As usual, if a student attends an after school club or extended study session they must attend the full sessions until 4:30pm.

Staff Day – Friday 8th March

Friday is the first of our staff days this half term, the second is on Monday 11th March. Our staff team will be planning for next term’s expeditions and this year’s curriculum priorities from our school improvement plan. Students will not be expected to be in school on Friday or Monday unless they are G28 students who have a Passage presentation on Monday. If students want to come to school on Friday to prepare for their passage, they must organise this through their Crew Leader.

G29 vaccination programme

This week parents of G29 students will receive information on HPV vaccinations which will take place in school Tuesday 7th May. There will be a consent form within the information which will need completing as soon as possible.

IMPORTANT – Passage Presentations next week

G28 are working hard on preparing for their passage presentation next week. They will be using Crew time and additional time in sessions to get ready for this important moment in their time at XP Gateshead.

Passage presentations are hugely important benchmark demonstrations of learning over multiple years that mark this pivotal transition from Key Stage 3 into Key Stage 4 and GCSEs. During the presentations, students will use their portfolios as a guide to articulate their progress and growth. These presentations are another means by which we help students to develop their character and hone their public speaking. The rubrics that will be used during the presentations can be found here.

Monday 11th March is a staff day.

Students will be welcome to arrive at school earlier than their passage presentation slot to do final preparations, and then should return home after their presentation. If students do not have a passage presentation, there is not a need for them to be in school on Monday 11th March.

Tuesday 12th March

This is not a staff day, however Year 9 teachers will be involved in passage presentations throughout the day so we will not be running a regular timetable for this day for Year 9 students. There are three options for Year 9 students on this day:

• Come into school for the full school day (including staying in school after a Passage Presentation).
• Come into school for a Passage Presentation and then leave with their family.
• Work on extended study from home.

Please can all G28 families use this Google Form to let us know what your child will be doing, and whether they will need a school lunch

As usual if you have any questions please contact your child’s crew leader in the first instance. 

Thank you as always for your ongoing support.

Julie Mosley