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G32 spent their first week of school on an adventure together at the Howtown Outward Bound Centre on Ullswater.

Students explored their guiding question: “What does it mean to be Crew?” through a series of challenges which pushed them beyond their comfort zones, teaching them that there is more in them than they know.

Crews had bespoke overnight expeditions which involved activities such as jog and dip, gorge walking, rowing, hiking and incredibly, all four of our intrepid Crews conquered Hallin Fell – the mountain which overlooks Howtown Bay.

On their final day, students stood in the shadow of Hallin Fell to present to the whole community what they had learned about themselves and each other in answer to the guiding question. Students drew from visceral examples that they had seen over their week of courage, respect, integrity, craftsmanship & quality and above all… compassion.

They left for Howtown on that coach journey as our new pioneering G32 students, and returned as Crew.

Apologies for the delay in getting the photographs from our First Week Back onto the website. We are still encountering difficulties so it is a slow process to upload photographs. We will continue to upload images for the other cohorts to post on the website too. We appreciate your patience.

On Wednesday of last week, we welcomed Ken Johnson of the Scott Johnson Foundation into XPG, who has kindly donated a drum kit to our students in honour of his son, Scott, who was fatally injured when the stage collapsed at a Radiohead concert in 2012.

Scott Johnson was a keen drummer and drum technician who spent his career working across the live music sector, touring the world with the likes of The Killers, Keane, and many others, until he was tragically killed in a stage accident at a show in Toronto, Canada. In the wake of Scott’s passing, tributes poured in from artists such as Elton John, Radiohead, and many more.

In honour of Scott, the Johnson family set up the ‘Scott Johnson Foundation’; an organisation that distributes drum kits and accessories to schools in collaboration with the music shop that Scott worked at in his hometown of Doncaster. The foundation has donated over 200 drum kits since its inception, with artists such as Elbow, New Order and Blur offering up their equipment to be passed on to the next generation of budding musicians in Scott’s memory.

It was an honour for our students to meet Ken and to swap stories about music and live performing as the students set up the kit. We ended Ken’s visit with a jam session featuring some of our budding musicians from Year 9 and Year 10 on their brand new drumkit.

Beautiful Work This Week

Welcome back!

Here’s a selection of beautiful work from across the XP Trust from the our first two weeks back! To read about other stories from across the XP Trust, visit xptrust.org.

Top of the Blogs

Year 6 leavers party 2025 @ Green Top

Family learning fun @ Plover

Our colour monster journey! @ Carcroft School

Acts of service to others @ Norton Juniors

Crew Barnes: 1st week back @ XP

Beautiful Artwork by Freya @ XP East

Weekly Update for Families @ XP Gateshead

Share your stories with us!

We now have a new dedicated news email so that you can send your stories, updates or ideas about potential news articles directly to us in Comms.

It might be something you or your students have achieved, a charity you’re supporting or anything at all that deserves a wider audience.

Write to us at [email protected] –  we want to hear about it, write about it and celebrate it!

All G32 year 7 students will be carrying out fieldwork at the location of the former Whitburn Colliery and Marsden Village near to Souter Lighthouse in South Tyneside. They will also be doing geology studies in Marsden Bay.

G32 Class 1 will be going on Wednesday 10th September

G32 Class 2 will be going on Thursday 11th September

Your child should now be able to tell you which class they are in, but please do ask your child’s crew leader if you are uncertain.

Students will need:

• to wear clothes that will keep them warm and dry – lots of layers. 
  • a waterproof coat is essential as the forecast is for sunny spells with showers.
• wellies or old trainers  part of the fieldwork will involve studying the rocks in Marsden Bay which is a sandy beach.
• a packed lunch – if your child usually has free school meals, a packed lunch can be provided by the school.
• their school bag with regular school kit list inside including iPad. Most bags are not waterproof so we suggest putting kit inside a plastic bag inside the school bag.

Students need to be in school at the normal time of 8.25am on each day.

We expect to return to school in time for the normal end of day at 3.15pm but will update our website should there be any delays due to traffic.

Morning,

Just a reminder with regards to the weather not being on our side this morning. We will be travelling to the Baltic via metro so will be walking to the metro and then to the Baltic. It is important your child is wearing appropriate shoes for this and that they have a waterproof coat.

We will be back at school by 12:30 so they will eat lunch at school as normal.

Students have been given their iPads this evening. Below is the printed guide that they have put into their bag. Year 7 Students need to bring their iPads to school fully charged in the case tomorrow.

Other students that have ordered iPads should be given those tomorrow.

iPad required set up

Screen protector

The screen protector must be installed immediately to keep the Applecare warranty on the iPad valid, please do this first to ensure the most successful installation. 

You can follow this written guide or use our instructional video here. 

https://youtu.be/Ai-GkrT-Wb4

Don’t unbox the iPad until you are ready to install the screen protector. 

Make sure you have lots of space and a clean dust free flat surface before you start. 

1. Remove the screen protector from its case and the iPad from the box.
2. Take care not to touch the iPad screen before installing the screen protector. 
3. If any dust particles fall on the screen you can remove them with the stickers in the toolkit.
4. Very carefully remove the protective film from the screen protector, take care as the screen protector is made of glass. 
5. Using the paper tab on the protector, remove the plastic protective film protection.
6. Align the cutout  for the home button and applying a small amount of pressure to the middle of the protector touch it down to the middle of the screen. 
7. If there are any air bubbles under the protector you can push these to the side using the polishing cloth. 

Installing the iPad in the Logitech keyboard case 

This is really nice and easy, open the case from the box, align the camera on the rear to the top right of the case and clip it in.

Enrolling the iPad – First time login 

1. Select English as your language
2. United Kingdom as your region (this is really important)
3. Select “Set up Manually” from the bottom of the page
4. Select your Wi-Fi
5. Enter the password and tap “join” and then “next”
6. Wait while the iPad activates (this may take a few minutes)
7. A screen with the title “Apps & Data” will appear – select “Don’t Transfer Apps & Data”
8. A new screen will appear with the title “Remote Management” – click “Next”
9. A page with a login box will appear
10. Add your username. 

The username will be firstname.surname32 

E.g. martin.said32

1. The default password this year is “ enrolme ”
2. The next page will ask you to click to “Enrol this device” tap the blue button
3. The next screen will ask you to “Enable Location Services” please make sure this option is selected. 
4. Your enrolment is now complete and default applications will now start to download. 

We will go through how to use our school website and associated apps in school with students. You can use the device as a regular iPad at home. Our management system applies between 8.00am and 4.30pm. There is a wealth of advice on Apple’s website on setting up parental controls at home.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/105121