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Category : Front Page News
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We wanted to congratulate and express our pride in Lily in Y8 who is attending a training day with Band of Bugles at Durham ACF on Saturday.
Well done Lily!
We would like to share a training course opportunity we have for our parents/carers and gauge the level of interest in the course.
One in six children aged 5 to 16 were identified as having a probable mental health problem in July 2021 (Youngminds website).
As part of our commitment to supporting the wellbeing of our students, you may be aware that all of the current staff at XP Gateshead achieved the Mental Health First Aid qualification (two day training course) in July 2022. Our new staff joining us this year will also complete this course.
Youth Mental Health First Aid (MHFA®) courses are for everyone who works with, lives with or supports young people aged 8-18.
We are delighted now to be able to offer our parents/carers the opportunity to attend a half day (3 hours) Youth Mental Health Aware training course as part of our wellbeing programme. The training is designed by Mental Health First Aid England and delivered by Jane Nyberg, who has worked as a Mental Health Social Worker for over 30 years.
The introductory three hour session raises awareness of young people’s mental health.
It covers:
- Some of the common mental health issues affecting young people, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders and psychosis
- Understand some of the issues young people living with mental health issues may experience
- Ways to support young people with a mental health issue and relate to their experiences
This course is available as either an online or face-to-face training session in school.
Learning takes place through a mix of presentations, group discussions and workshop activities.
We are looking to limit numbers to 12 people per course so that the instructor can keep people safe and supported while they learn.
Everyone who completes the session gets:
- A certificate to say they are Youth Mental Health Aware
- A manual to keep and refer to whenever they need it
The course usually costs £125 but we are able to provide this free of charge. The only charge will be £15 to cover the cost of materials and course manual for each delegate.
We are only able to offer the Mental Health Aware course this academic year, so we would like to find out how many parents/carers would be interested in this opportunity. Please complete this form so that we can gauge the level of interest we have for this course.
Olivia in G29 has been enjoying our current expedition ‘Hold Back The River’ so much that she has been conscientiously looking for links to our guiding question, ‘How does water shape our world?’, everywhere and producing extended study that has not been set for her or requested. Olivia watched a film Avatar, The Way of Water and was so inspired by the water speech in that film that she then wrote her own poem. Olivia’s class 2 crew all agreed that both the speech from the film and Olivia’s own poem were examples of beautiful work linking so well with our expedition that we should share on our website.
Enjoy, and well done Olivia.
Avatar, The Way of Water Speech:
The way of water has no beginning and no end.
The sea is around you and in you.
The sea is your home before your birth and after your death
Our hearts beat in the womb of the world.
Our breath burns in the shadows of the deep.
The sea gives and the sea takes.
Water connects all things.
Life to death.
Darkness to light.
Olivia’s poem inspired by the speech:
Water runs through our veins cleansing the body and soul.
It is around and in us.
The blessing brings us the joy of life, family, friends.
Our hearts beat in unison with the life around us
as our passion burns within the deep ocean of life.
Water is our family before and after life.
It connects us all.
It’s our guardian and home.
Water is our world
We have one world and one chance to save it.
Grace has completed a 6-week course and assessment and has now qualified as a mentor at Stepney Banks Stable. This enables her to support younger riders in the arena and guide them round during lessons. She is also now able to prep ponies for lessons and look after them after lessons. Fantastic work Grace!
Dear Families
Welcome to the final week of another half term. It looks like Summer is finally on its way and I hope you have enjoyed the sun this weekend.
This week has been a busy one again and our students have enjoyed some great learning experiences.
To celebrate National Numeracy Day on Wednesday, our Year 8 students undertook numeracy Crew Challenges. Miss Power had devised a great chocolate slab challenge which incorporated work covered this year on ratio, sequences and geometry. Crews were challenged with design, planning and making tasks which required high levels of cooperation and clear communication.
As we say,’ if we get Crew right, we get everything right’ at XP so time to challenge ourselves as a crew, develop our skills and take time to reflect on experiences is key to the ongoing success of Crew.
In the words of Kurt Hahn: “We are crew, not passengers, strengthened by acts of consequential service to others” The culture of crew impels all members of a school community to work together as a team, to pitch in, to help others.
On Wednesday our G29 students enjoyed a day of fieldwork on the NorthEast coast. They worked with the Wild Oyster Project to gather data from crates where oysters are being bred. This data will help the scientists at the research station gather evidence for the importance of oysters as a keystone species. Students will be writing articles about the importance of oysters later in their expedition. In the other part of the fieldwork students carried out a survey of two contrasting beaches to see how the topography of each beach had impacted on the way that it was used by humans.
It is also worth noting the courage shown by our Year 8 students who got HPV vaccinations in school this week. Several of our students were concerned about injections but all supported each other and we had an incredibly successful vaccination session. The immunisation team were overwhelmed with the crew of staff and students at XPG and thought our school was a real pleasure to work in. I’d like to extend this thanks to parents too for all of your support around vaccinations.
This week
PE sessions
All students will have a PE session on Monday this week. To maximise time in each PE session, we ask that G28 (Year 8) come to school dressed in their PE kit on Monday so they are ready for a sharp start to the session. They will then be able to change into fresh clothes at the end of the session. G29 (Year 7) students will change to PE kit at the start of the session and will be able to wear this until the end of the day on Monday.
Young Carers drop-in session
On Tuesday we welcome Charlotte Osgerby from Carers Trust, Tyne and Wear. Charlotte will be available; at lunchtime to talk to our students and support our Young Carers at XPG.
G28 Knife Crime Awareness Session
On Wednesday, John Ord from Northumbria Police Violence Reduction Unit will run a session for our Y8 students on the dangers of knife crime.
Youth Mental Health First Aid (MHFA®) courses
One in six children aged five to 16 were identified as having a probable mental health problem in July 2021 (Youngminds website). As part of our commitment to supporting the wellbeing of our students, we would like to offer our parents/carers the opportunity to attend a half day Youth Mental Health Awareness training course.This course is certified by Mental Health First Aid England and would be fully funded by us (apart from session materials). Please look out for the website update coming later this week where you will be able to register your interest and preference on course dates in the Summer term.
G30 Transition
We have enjoyed meeting many of our new students and their families this week online. Family meetings will continue this week. As part of our transition, we are ready to start our visits to feeder primary schools.
Half Term and 1:30pm finish on Friday 26th May
As usual, if you have any questions please contact your child’s crew leader in the first instance.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
Julie Mosley
Co-Principal
Sharing our Stories: 19/05/23
Beautiful Work This Week
C27: You Give Me Fever
In January 2023, students in Year 9 studied a joint HUMAN and STEAM expedition called ‘You give me fever’ where students had to answer the guiding question:
Is Science enough to save lives?
The final product was a charity drive in order to raise money for local health charities. We did lots of school events in order to raise money for the charity chosen by each school. We conducted a sponsored walk, bake sale, PJ day, sponsored silence and a bikeathon.
For our presentation of learning, we created short flip book animations that were projected in XP East. There were zones set up outside around XPD made to look like the time periods of each case study (Black Death, Cholera Outbreak, Spanish Flu & Aids). We were dressed up in period costumes and spoke to the audience about the science and history or each case study. Students also displayed their artwork and sketchbooks to showcase the skills they had acquired this term. At the end of the PoL we presented the funds raised for equipment at NHS Doncaster.
Green Top Year 3/4 – Lest We Forget
Comms: Curation case notes from Norton
Eco Pledges at Frenchgate!
It has been wonderful to partner with Frenchgate on this important project – we can’t thank them enough for giving our Schools the opportunity to make their own pledges and display them for all to see within the Centre.
Top of the Blogs
Active maths lesson @ Carcroft School
Beautiful work from Ben @ XP Gateshead
Subtracting Fractions Treasure Hunt @ Norton Juniors
Reading for pleasure @ Norton Infants
Ben spent last weekend at Live Theatre being directed by Robson Green for a television performance. It looks like we have a future star in our ranks. Great work Ben, what a fabulous experience. More information and photographs can be found here:
https://www.culturednortheast.co.uk/2023/05/14/robson-greens-weekend-workshop-at-live-theatre/
Students are expected to be back at school at around 4.15 pm this afternoon.
