I hope you are well and your son/daughter is continuing to enjoy their time at XP Gateshead. From all of our staff crew we just wanted to let you know that the conduct of our students has been absolutely exemplary and we couldn’t be more happy with how they have settled into their new school. Together, we are already building such a strong culture based on our character traits of courage, respect, craftsmanship & quality, integrity and above all compassion.

This week we introduced students to our HoWLs (habits of work and learning) which are: work hard, get smart and be kind, and again we are so pleased at how students have taken ownership of these HoWLs, supporting and challenging each other to be the best versions of themselves.

Just a few updates and reminders for the week ahead.

 

Professional development days

We will be closed for students on Friday 17th September and Monday 20th September. These staff days are crucial for us to be able to work together across the whole of the XP School Trust on our incredible curriculum and our wider work to ensure success for all students.

We will not be setting work for students during this time however we would encourage students to read their crew reader, Seedfolks. If you have not already done so, it may be useful to look at our calendar to make a not of future staff days too:

xptrust.org/calendars

 

School lunches

Good news – we are hoping to be able to deliver hot meals from Tuesday 21st September. We think these will represent good value for money. Details on how to order and pay for meals will be posted next week. In the meantime the 2 week menu below shows the choice of food available each day. Week one will commence Mon 20th (teacher day) so children will start with the Tuesday menu on the 21st September. Week two menu will commence on Monday 27th September.

COVID precautions

We are continuing to be as careful as we can be regarding COVID and staying as safe as possible while in school. We are taking the following precautions:

• Keeping our building as ventilated as possible by opening windows and doors wherever we can.
• Surfaces are cleaned with disinfectant everyday by our cleaners and additionally we ask students to wipe surfaces down when they have been in a classroom.
• Practising good hygiene by encouraging students to wash their hands on a regular basis and providing hand sanitiser in every classroom

 

In addition we would ask parents to support in keeping our school as Covid free as possible by doing the following:

• Please inform us if your child develops symptoms or if there is a member of your family who tests positive for Covid. In these situations we will ask if we can carry out daily lateral flow tests with your child.
• Please test your child twice every week using the lateral flow tests we have provided today. Tests should be carried out on Sunday evening and Wednesday evening and we ask that you enter the result on a Google Form. This form takes no more than a minute to complete. We will test students in school on the following Monday or Thursday morning if we have not received a test result.
• If your child tests positive then please keep them isolated and obtain a confirmatory PCR test as is the normal arrangement.

 

We really appreciate the support of all of our parents in helping to keep our school community as safe as possible. 

If you have any questions concerning your child please ask crew leaders and for more general enquiries please contact [email protected]xpgateshead.org

Thanks for your ongoing support, we are delighted with how your children have started their time with us at XP Gateshead.

#wearecrew

#wearexpgateshead

Dear Parent/Carer

I hope your son/daughter has returned from Ullswater full of tales of their outward bound adventures. It was incredible to see them make new friends, begin to form strong bonds with their crew and crew leaders, and rise to the challenges put in front of them. I could not help but be impressed by our new students. They were compassionate, courageous, respectful and showed integrity in equal measure. We could not have had a stronger start to our school year.

Regarding w/c 6th September

We are expecting students in school for an 8.30am start so they must arrive in school by 8.25am at the latest. There will be staff in school and supervising from 8 am.

We will finish formal sessions at 3.15pm however students are able to stay in school until 4.30pm. There will be a suite of activities and extended study after school – more details on this in the coming weeks. From now, students are able to stay until 4.30pm Monday-Thursday, but must either be studying or in an after school activity. Students must leave school by 3.30pm on Friday.

There are more details on our frequently asked questions about kit, but students will need a school bag with the following:

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

I would also suggest that students bring a healthy snack for break time – no confectionery (sweets), fizzy drinks or energy drinks please as we do not allow these in school.

Catering

I have been in touch with the Local Authority catering team and they will be providing meals on our behalf. This will be in the form of a packed lunch option for a couple of weeks and will then transition to hot meals when our kitchen is set up. Gateshead has a system for parents to pay for school meals and we will be in touch with details for this over the course of next week. In the meantime if your child requires a packed lunch they simply need to request one from their crew leader when they register in the morning.

Below are the details I have been provided with regarding the packed lunch offer for the next two weeks.
Covid Testing

We will be carrying out Covid testing in line with government guidance when students return to school on Monday and again on Thursday morning. I am not anticipating this to cause any issues as things went very smoothly last week.

The current guidance is that from that point, you should test your son or daughter twice per week (ideally Sundays and Wednesdays) until the end of September. At the end of September the government will review their guidance. This means that the first time you should test your son or daughter at home will be Sunday 12th September. We can provide kits for you to do this.

Site Refurbishment

In other news – most of our furniture has arrived and our classrooms are fully set up although we still need to move some pieces of furniture around. We have our internet connection and brand new TV screens in every room. There will be some ongoing work to the outside of the building and we are still waiting for some orders to be processed and delivered. I am still waiting for confirmation of our iPad delivery although I believe it is scheduled for next week.

We have everything we need to begin teaching and are looking forward to starting our first expedition with our students. As usual if you have any questions about your 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, the whole staff crew are very much looking forward to seeing our students on Monday morning.

Best wishes

Mark Lovatt

Principal