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Good afternoon
We are delighted to announce that Year 9’s sculpture final product is now also being curated at Gateshead Central Library in the gallery space through a digital display. This will be in place until January 17th.
We encourage as many people as possible to not only go to see our students’ work curated in digital form there, but also to make of the wonderful services of the library and the archives there.
For more information on this learning expedition click here.
In Autumn 2023, students in Year 9 studied a joint HUMAN and STEAM expedition called ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ where students had to answer the guiding question: ‘How are structures important in helping us to explain our world?’
For the final product, students used plaster to create sculptures in the brutalist aesthetic. The Presentation of Learning (PoL) was an unveiling of an installation to the community and dedicated to the people of Gateshead, who have suffered due to the Covid pandemic and the cost of living crisis; both examples of failings of societal structures. Experts, including architects from SOS-UK and Ryder Architecture, whom the students had worked alongside throughout the learning expedition, came along to speak at the PoL at the Farrell Centre, Newcastle University.
The work will be on display there for the foreseeable future!
Mel from the XP Trust Comms Crew visited Plover as an Expert Artist – showing Year 5 how to draw trains and teach them about perspective and the vanishing point. The children enjoyed seeing her amazing drawings and made a great start on having a go at their own drawings.
Whilst making an impromptu visit to Carcroft Primary in December, we noticed this! We simply had to get the phone out and take some photos of the wonderful displays on show in the Carcroft foyer area. The array of work exhibited was interesting, engaging and of high quality; and was curated impeccably by the staff – beautiful work!
Who’s hiding in the pages of this book? @ Norton Infants
Crew Jackson – Science Investigations @ Green Top
Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead
C30 – HSBC Money Management @ XP East
Amazing Fieldwork at YWP! @ Carcroft School
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!
A reminder that Student-Led Conferences will be taking place after school in the fortnight commencing January 29th for both Year 7 and Year 8.
Year 8 families, we have asked that you please complete this Google Form to help your child to prepare. If you have not already done so, we’d really appreciate you taking 5 mins to complete this as will give your child more time to gather evidence to answer your questions.
For both Year 7 and Year 8 families, we will soon post information on how you can book a slot.
We apologise for the short notice, but due to staff absence we have moved PE for all Year 9 students to Friday this week.
Both classes of Year 9 will now have PE on Friday for this week.
Both G28 and G29 will have an end of topic assessment in science in their first lesson during w/c 22 January. An Seneca assignment has been issued, although students are encouraged to use a study strategy they have used in class to complete some of this revision too.
The Topics in G28 are
Chemistry
Physics
The Topics in G29 are
Circulatory System
Gas Exchange system
Cell structure and Respiration
Reproductive system
Happy 2024! We hope you have had a great Christmas and a safe and restful New Year.
We are looking forward to welcoming students back tomorrow to the start of our new term at XP Gateshead.
Here’s some reminders to get a good start to term…
School opens at 8:00am every morning. Students should arrive between 8:00am and 8:25 am and there are spaces available for socialising, reading or completing extended study. Students must be on site for 8.25am for the call to Crew. A calm start to the day is really important for students to settle into learning so we ask that parents support their child with this.
Please refer to our website post for full details on our dress code. Can I remind parents of the following expectations around daily dress within school and ask for your full support around this as we move in to a new term
For a normal day within school, we do not think it appropriate that students wear:
As always, students need to bring a school bag with:
Our PE sessions this week are as follows. Please ensure that your child has their full PE kit.
There will be no extended study or after school clubs running this week. After school sessions will all start again next week.
A new term means new and exciting expeditions for our students. Immersion takes place this week and our students will be working hard to find out what their new guiding questions are and the challenges and new learning their expeditions will bring.
There are some curriculum changes which continue to give our students a breadth and depth of experience at key stage 3.
G30 are studying two new expeditions. As part of their studies for their new HUMAN and ARTS expedition, they will also be continuing with drama with a new text and also studying computer science to help them to organise and analyse data from an expert and learn to code.
G30 will also have a new STEAM expedition which will include some food technology and a really great final product that will have an impact on our local community.
G29 are studying one new expedition that combines HUMAN, STEAM and ARTS. This will include some really challenging drama and music, both of which will be instrumental to their final product and presentation of learning.
G28’s new expedition is a combined HUMAN, STEAM and ARTS expedition which will last into the Summer term as a 16-week expedition. This will include a challenging Presentation of Learning in school, and will pull together and build on learning from across Year 7 and 8.
G28 students will also be getting a greater insight into careers and guidance to start considering future decisions. We will also launch our KS4 curriculum offer with year 9 students and their families this term.
SLCs (Student-Led Conferences) replace the conventional parents’ evenings at XP Gateshead. During an SLC, your son or daughter will share their learning with you and their crew leader. You will have an opportunity to look at work from their portfolio and ask questions about their HoWLs (Habits of Work and Learning) and AP grades (Academic Progress). They will also share their progress around pledges set last term with you during the SLC and you will be able to ask questions around these.
SLCs for G29 and G30 will take place this term in the two weeks commencing 29th January. In the coming weeks you will receive an SLC invite from your son or daughter’s crew leader.
Our Y9 students will give passage presentations in March. Passage presentations are an opportunity for students to reflect on their learning and their readiness to move on to the next phase of their education. G28 students will provide evidence to an audience of family, Crew Leader and an XPG invited guest to demonstrate that they are ready to start their GCSE journey.
In the coming weeks you will hear more about passage presentations from your son or daughter as they start preparing for this key passage at XPG.
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
Principal
XP Gateshead
What a final week of term we have had! Our students have continued to work hard and produce work of the highest quality and we couldn’t be prouder of them.
On Monday our Year 7 students took centre stage at St Mary’s Church in Heworth for their first presentation of learning. They really stepped up to the challenge; sharing their work from this term’s expedition ‘From the Ground Up’ with the GQ: ‘What do the communities of NE England owe to the miners?’. It was difficult to believe that G30 students have been with us less than 4 months watching them share such high quality learning with eloquence and confidence. The quality of their script, songwriting, drama performance and art work along with the variety of inputs made for a culturally rich evening.
G30’s final product will be a CD of the folk songs they have written. We will be recording this early next term so it will be ready for sales at the Miner’s Gala in the Summer term where we hope to see our students perform their songs to a larger audience. A huge well done to all of the staff and students who worked on this expedition – a stunning achievement and our first XPG music CD!
Here is just some of the feedback we have received from families who attended the evening:
I’m so proud of their confidence to stand up and talk about their learning.
Ten out of ten! Keep doing what you are doing.
I praise how confident the children were about the mines and miners, fantastic production. The children really went into great levels of description on the mining – it was really interesting.
The songs the children wrote were so thoughtful, they did an amazing job.
Year 8 definitely stepped up! Listening to their responses to the guiding question and the learning they have experienced over this expedition was a privilege. It was especially impressive to see Year 8 students presenting to other parents for the first time. This is an important step up for them in terms of developing character and confidence.
Here are some of the quotes from our families:
Amazing to see the young people presenting so eloquently and with confidence.
It is so good to see the development from Year 7 to Year 8. So confident and informed. It is lovely to see students researching diversity and difference and the impact on society alongside their place and responsibility for this.
Great depth of knowledge and confidence, articulating that in a meaningful way to parents/carers.
I learned that everyone has their own interpretation of what is means to be human, and this is OK as it is a subjective topic.
December has been a busy month of charity events. Thank you to all who have supported these events. Look out for updates from our Y9 Crews on how much they have raised with their charity work this term.
G29/G30 Community Support
We finished our term today visiting our neighbours delivering crew hampers put together by our Year 7 and Year 8 students. Our crews have spent time putting together hampers for the residents of the bungalows on Swards Road and Colepeth, sharing some of their beautiful work and treats for Christmas as a thank you to our neighbours. It was wonderful to see students get real pride from their acts of kindness and the joy they gave others.
So, a wonderful ending to a great term.
I’d like to thank all of our wonderful staff who work relentlessly to support our students – we have a great staff crew at XP Gateshead. Our thanks also goes to Gateshead teams who support our work at XPG especially Suzanne, Cheryl and Michelle who keep us nourished, Carol, Karen, Jan and Marie who work hard to keep our school environment clean and tidy.
Thanks also to you, our families, for all of your ongoing support. We couldn’t do what we do without this.
And the final one goes to our wonderful students who continue to shine, doing more than they thought possible and supporting each other to get to the top of the mountain.
Wishing you all a very happy festive season. We return on Monday 8th January at the normal time.
Julie Mosley
Principal
Crew Frank would like to finish the year by saying a MASSIVE thank you for the huge generosity they have witnessed while organising their Sir Bobby Robson Christmas Raffle and Bring and Buy Sale.
Crew Frank raised £403.70 this December with the help of the XPG families.
So far on their charity journey Crew Frank have raised £980 for the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation and they are overwhelmed with the money they have raised.
We would also like to thank the companies that donated to our raffle: Lane 7 Newcastle, Twenty Twenty, Ringtons, Go Gateshead, BlankWallArt, Northumberland FA, Gateshead Football Club, Emily’s Treats and Ticketyboo Hairdressers
We have 3 prizes left to be claimed! If you have the ticket please come to claim the prize in January.
126- selection box
797 – Hair dryer
108- Family swim voucher
Have a very Merry Christmas!
Crew Frank
G30’s Presentation of Learning for their first expedition, From The Ground Up, here at XP Gateshead was absolutely fantastic. This was the first time that our youngest students have put together a live POL as the previous 2 years has seen Year 7’s first POL being a virtual one online. G30 did themselves proud with some very clear, well presented explanations of their learning across their different subjects making links to the guiding question, ‘What do the communities of the northeast owe to the miners?’. In addition there were some beautiful performances which included a choral poem, The Ballad of the Big Hewer, and some wonderful drama scenes from the play Billy Elliot.
The ‘pièce de résistance’ was the wonderful songs that our students wrote alongside song writing experts Mr Said and Joe Solo to tell the stories of the experts they interviewed about their time during the miners’ strikes in the 1980s. These were performed brilliantly and the lyrics brought a tear to the eye of some members of the audience in the beautiful church of St Mary’s, Heworth.
Here are some of the comments from parents on the exit tickets:
“All students have shown great knowledge and confidence.”
“Amazing singing and great presentations.”
“Very inclusive, amazing hard work that has paid off.”
“All students showed courage to stand up and performances tonight showed all of the hard work and dedication students and staff have put in.”
The students and staff are delighted that the raffle on the night, with the prize donated by Ringtons, raised an amazing £125.00 for church funds as a thank you for the support Priest Lucy and the church warden have given us this term and of course for allowing us to hold our POL there.
We are so proud that we have made such strong links with the church and that some of our students’ beautiful work, in the form of creative writing about the 1812 Felling Pit disaster, is now on permanent display at St Mary’s where the poor souls who perished in the catastrophe are buried.
In Autumn 2023, Year 5 and 6 across the trust embarked on an expedition with the guiding question: Why should we help our planet survive?
As part of the Expedition, students created their own soft toys based on a chosen animal from the Amazon rainforest – learning about why it is endangered and what we can do to protect the species. The students used ‘The Great Kapok Tree’ as a model text. The pupils wrote their own version of the story through rainforest animals’ eyes for younger children in the form of a book and shared them with Year 2 pupils (along with the soft toys) with the purpose of teaching them about deforestation and its impact.
In the Autumn term of 2023 students at XP Gateshead studied an expedition called ‘From the ground up’ with the guiding question “What do the communities of the North-East of England owe to the miners?”. They presented their learning from this Expedition on Monday at St Mary’s church – sharing their story and performing the songs they have written to tell the stories of the mining community.
These songs will be recorded in New Year and a CD will be produced!
As part of the presentation, students unveiled a board full of their beautiful work – including narrative accounts, diary entries and artwork relating to the Felling Pit disaster.
The chosen venue for the presentation was also historically significant. Not only is St Mary’s the site of a memorial to the disaster and those who lost their lives, but it is also the final resting place of Thomas Hepburn – the famous miner, Trade Union leader and advocate of better working conditions for miners. The building that XP Gateshead is now based in was once named after him.
We were deeply saddened across the XP Trust to hear about the death of Sir Tim Brighouse on 15th December.
Sir Tim was considered to be one of the most important voices and thinkers in education, and a great champion of state schools.
We were very fortunate to be able to welcome him to XP on a couple of occasions and to hear him speak about our school with warmth and encouragement.
He has left a legacy of equity and advocacy for education for all and we are very proud that he is part of our story.
Rail City Launch @ Doncaster Free Press
Enjoying Christmas Lunch in our festive clothes! @ Norton Infants
Crew Spetch Christmas Fun @ Green Top
Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead
There’s s’more from XP Outdoors @ XP
Primary School Christmas Musical @ Norton Juniors
E28 Crew Malala Roundup @ XP East
Visit xptrust.org/vacancies to find out more and apply to #JoinOurCrew
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!
