Post inside this category will show up on the front page
Harris has successfully passed the JLC (Junior Lawyers Club) Bronze Award, demonstrating high levels of presentation skills.
In fact his presentation on a proposed law which further protects the ‘right to strike’ was so accomplished that he has been awarded with a distinction level.
Harris will now be working towards taking the JLC Silver Award to demonstrate advocacy and critical thinking skills! Great work Harris.
This week SLCs start for G30 and G29 students. This is an important moment for your children to share their progress with you.
We have talked with students a lot about culture this week. Our G29 students attended a performance of Macbeth at York – the conduct of our students was exemplary from beginning to end of the visit. Class 1 in particular have been praised for their work in class this week following the performance and the battle scene from the opening of the play is really coming together. Many of the peer appreciations in our community meeting this week were in praise of students’ efforts in Drama sessions.
G28 students have made a strong start to the academic year, our community meeting this week was full of appreciations for working hard and for students that are changing behaviours in a positive way – it is wonderful that this is noticed by students.
We also had a strong community meeting with Year 7. G30 students showed great courage in making stands for our character traits and our culture. As families of G30 will know, and have seen from their first Presentation of Learning, our Year 7 have made such a brilliant start to their time at XP Gateshead. One of the strengths of our school model and of Crew is that students have a genuine voice in their school. Students this week made stands for our culture because they care, and because we sweat the small stuff.
Before looking at the week ahead, we just wanted to share some feedback from a Local Governing Committee visit this last week from Jane Sutton, who was looking at how inclusive our practices are – in particular how we support students with SEND.
This was a very positive visit, and has given us some important pointers on how we can further strengthen our offer. In particular our skilled learning coaches were praised for their knowledge and skills in the classroom.
However this feedback from conversations with our children is particularly impressive and indicates just how well students can articulate what our school is about.
“I was… impressed and inspired by the students I spoke to. They were eloquent and confident to speak about the personal challenges they face due to their
additional needs and how these challenges are addressed by all the staff in school. They spoke about the strong relationships they were able to build with staff and that they felt they could talk to trusted adults. The support being provided for these students is clearly having a positive impact on their confidence and self-belief and they feel their needs are being met. They are proud of their achievements and credit the staff and school for this.
They spoke positively about the number of extended learning opportunities they were given such as fieldwork, clubs, common mission, theatre visits, Duke of Edinburgh Awards, Leader of your own learning activities and Crew activities.
They told me how they felt Crew was a great support to them. One student explained how she had delivered a presentation to her crew about her ASD/ADHD and the positive response she had to this.
She felt that this now enabled her to open up to her peers more which helped her.”
Our Year 7 climate leaders – Isaac, Elina, Freya, Molly, Lizzie and James – are working with Tyne and Wear Museums on a six week-long project to design some digital curation connected to decarbonisation and fossil fuels. They are meeting with curators from TWM each week on tuesday afternoons this term.
A team from Performance in Education are working with G28 and G29 this week on Thursday afternoon during the school day to give them an insight into careers in the NHS. The NHS is one of the world’s largest employers, and is the number one employer in our region and the UK. More info on NHS careers can be found here.
We continue to work with our colleagues in Trust to develop our practice. This week we will have a focus on PE, Assessment Information and Wellbeing.
If you have not already done so, please make sure that you have booked an SLC slot, you should have received an email from our office@ email address. Please contact us if you have not received this.
A reminder that passage presentations will take place during the day on Monday 11th March, and Tuesday 12th March. You will be given an opportunity to book a slot in a similar way as you have done for SLCs.
This event will take place on the evening of Thursday 8th February at 5.30pm.
Julie Mosley
Principal
The Staff Day in January saw the launch of our proposed teaching and learning model as part of our Festival of Learning. The event took place at XP Doncaster and was attended by staff from across all schools in the Trust. All staff had the opportunity to explore the model in more depth as well as attending other workshops on different parts of the model.
This is part of the Trust’s commitment to ensure that we expose more students to more impactful teaching more of the time.
There is now an awesome display at XP to celebrate the Christmas Carol Study Guide – the beautiful work of last year’s Year 11s. Be sure to go and admire their hard work on display!
Thoughtful Thursday @ Norton Infants
Year 5 Photography Club @ Green Top
X28 Crew Lovelace Beautiful Work @ XP
Bobby’s awesome home learning @ Plover
C27 Community Meeting @ XP East
Exploring Carnivores, Herbivores and Omnivores @ Carcroft School
Our Learning Journey – Hook Week @ Norton Juniors
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!
Our estimated arrival time back at school is now 16.55pm.
This week we have revealed the full details of our new expeditions for all cohorts.
G30’s HUMAN expedition has the guiding question: ‘Why do we need to honour all those who made sacrifices during WWI?’.
This involves study of unheard voices of WWI; students will put together a radio broadcast narrating their own creative writing – this will be broadcast as part of remembrance later this year.
G30’s STEAM expedition has the guiding question: ‘Is survival sufficient?’. Students are studying nutrition & digestion, energy stores and transfer and separating mixtures through respective lenses of food poverty, fuel poverty and access to clean drinking water. Working with our partners Edberts House, students will put together food boxes to share with families in need, with a balanced set of recipes for a week.
A date for your diary – G30’s presentation of learning is scheduled for Thursday 28th March. More details to follow.
G29’s expedition has the guiding question ‘What is Power?’. In this cross-curricular expedition students will explore the concept of “imbalance” and how this often leads to changes both in a social or historical setting but also in a scientific context, bringing them back to the idea of what power means in science, in the context of tectonic forces and in society..
This PoL will be anchored by performances of key scenes from the play.
A date for your diary – G29’s presentation of learning is scheduled for Wednesday 27th March. More details to follow.
G28’s bumper 16-week long new expedition has the guiding question: ‘How can we continue to make progress on public health?’ Students are looking at public health over time since the Medieval Period and will write a report into health inequalities in Gateshead today, based on a variety of factors which contribute to our health including smoking, diet. Students will do the complex task of looking at the correlation between disease and deprivation.
G28’s PoL will be a ‘Cost of Living Conference’ which is scheduled to be held in school on Friday 10th May. Again more details to follow.
Monday is the second of our staff days this half term. Our staff team will be working on school priorities as part of our ongoing school improvement plan. Students will not be expected to be in school on Monday.
Year 8 students are travelling to York to see a performance of Macbeth. This is the English Literature text for their current expedition. We are delighted to be able to provide this opportunity for our children.
See our website post for details on timings for the day and lunch requirements.
Local Governors Committee (LGC) meeting, Thursday 25th January
On Thursday, we will have our Spring term LGC meeting. Our LGC is set up to provide support and challenge to XPG leadership around the three dimensions of XP: Beautiful Work, Character Growth and Academic Success.
Our LGC:
| Andrea Mead | Chair | Headteacher , Specialist provision |
| Jane Sutton | Governor/Parent | Primary Link Advisor, Gateshead LEA |
| James Renwick | Governor/Parent | Y6 primary teacher |
| Elizabeth Shipley | Governor/Parent | Senior Clinical Psychologist |
| Phil Latham | Governor | CEO Endeavour Academies |
| Julie Mosley | Principal | XP Gateshead |
| Steph Oliver | Staff/Governor | Leader at Norton School, XP Trust |
If you have not already done so, please make sure that you have booked an SLC slot for the SLCs which start from Monday 29th January.
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. Your children will present to a panel of you, their Crew Leader and a guest for e.g. governing body member or expert professional. Their presentation will reflect on their progress from Year 7 to now and will outline their thoughts about potential future pathways.
These passage presentations will take place during the day on Monday 11th March, and Tuesday 12th March. You will be given an opportunity to book a slot in a similar way as you have done for SLCs.
As well as passage presentations which will feed into students making decisions about future studies at GCSE level, our Duke of Edinburgh programme will also accelerate over this coming term.
We are inviting all families of G28 students to attend an information evening where we can share our rationale and key dates for Passage, Duke of Edinburgh and GCSE studies with you, and of course importantly how you can support this process.
This event will take place on the evening of Thursday 8th February at 5.30pm.
As we grow as a school, it becomes increasingly challenging to schedule presentations of learning across cohorts. We have been delighted with your engagement with these PoLs as families and want this to continue. PoLs are an important part of our planned approach to character development and students demonstrating and leading their own learning.
Moving forwards, we are going to schedule PoLs earlier in the daytime – typically at around 4.30pm. This will make it more manageable for us to be able to staff these events. We recognise that may be more challenging for families to attend which is why we are giving as much notice as possible for dates. We will confirm the times for the upcoming PoLs mentioned above as soon as we can.
One of the things that we are really proud of and think makes us special as a school is the level of parental engagement and support that we get from you.
Julie Mosley
Principal
On Friday, staff across our Trust gathered to launch the first phase of our exciting new Teaching and Learning model, with a focus on our culture of Crew, underpinning principles, deliberate & intentional teaching/learning behaviours at its heart…
Staff from our secondaries and primaries grappled with this exciting new model and took part in a wide range of workshops to develop teaching and learning at XP.
More on this next week…
In Autumn 2023, Years 5 and 6 completed an expedition looking at the impact we are having on the planet and what we could do to make a difference now and for future generations. They held their presentation of learning last week!
Their final product for this expedition was a picture frame made from sustainably-sourced materials. Students then chose their favourite piece of writing from across the expedition to publish in the frame alongside (or behind) a simple piece of artwork reflecting elements of our learning. Beautiful work!
Delicious Recycling @ Norton Infants
Crew Oldridge’s Experiments @ Green Top
Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead
XP Outdoors – Mindfulness Walk @ XP
Crew Challenge @ Carcroft School
Problem Solving – Square Numbers @ Norton Juniors
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!
The National Youth Choir are holding workshop day at Newcastle Sixth Form College which will take place on 3 – 4 February and they are really keen to encourage young people to sign up from across the North East. There is still time for families to register their interest for this free event.
A weekend of singing with young people from across the North East! Learn new songs with the friendly team of vocal leaders from National Youth Choir, make new friends and develop your musical skills. At the end of the weekend, there will be a short celebration performance for your families so you can share what you have learnt together!
We are sorry that there has been a delay, G28 theatre visit students are now expected back in school at around 4pm.
As an important piece of cultural fieldwork connected to their expedition “What is Power?”, Year 8 students are visiting the York Grand Opera House on Tuesday 23rd January to see a performance of Macbeth. This is the English Literature text for their current expedition. The Presentation of Learning for this expedition will include a performance of Macbeth by your children in March.
The school day will start at the regular time. Students will be travelling down by coach from school departing at 10.15am. We will be eating lunch in York so students will need a packed lunch. If your child has free school meals we can provide a packed lunch.
The performance finishes at 2.45pm and we will return from York at 3.00pm by coach. We expect to be back at school at around 4.45pm but will update the website if there any traffic delays.
We are delighted to be able to provide this opportunity for our children.
If your child needs to take travel sickness medication. For the return journey, it is important that we know if children are self-administering medication. If your child will be doing this, please ensure that please:
Gateshead College
This is a brand new programme that looks at the Music, Production and Performing Arts disciplines. If you’re excited about one of these areas and wish to develop your skills and make friends, this is the course for you!
Delivered in Gateshead College’s Performing Arts section, you’ll have access to a theatre, recording and dance studios as well as rehearsal areas to develop your performance, compositional and group working skills through gaining an understanding of the creative process.
Club members also take part in national events including Masterclasses with leading industry professionals and the Summer Show, where Saturday Clubs nationwide exhibit their work in a public exhibition – all for free!
Club dates:
20 January 2024 – 17 April 2024
Saturdays, 10:00 – 13:00
