Post inside this category will show up on the front page
As you know, we are hosting a big event for Year 8 on Thursday evening in school from 6pm. This event will celebrate work from throughout the year, and will also include a preview of the trailer for our film ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go?’.
Part of the evening will involve a hosted gallery walk from your child.
Please could all Year 8 families complete this Google Form to confirm how many people will be attending the event for your child, and to let us know of any accessibility issues.
As you know, we are hosting a big event for Year 7 tomorrow evening at Seven Stories in Newcastle. This will celebrate their work from throughout the year, including the book launch for From the Ground Up.
Part of the evening will involve a hosted gallery walk from your child.
Please could all Year 7 families complete this Google Form to confirm how many people will be attending the event for your child, and to let us know of any accessibility issues.
At XP Gateshead we have a partnership with Gateshead Music Hub to provide our instrumental music lessons. There are 36 lessons over the course of a financial year from April 2023 until March 2024. Each term is divided into 12 lessons. Each lesson is 30 minutes long. These will be delivered during the school day by staff from Gateshead Music Hub.
We work to make the timetable for instrumental lessons have the least impact on students in terms of missing time from expedition lessons. We ask for a minimum contribution from parents towards the cost of the lessons, this is charged to your ParentPay account on a termly basis.
There are two options for your child’s lessons.
If you would be interested in signing up for instrumental music lessons, please complete this form.
To be clear, this is not a commitment from you at this stage. This is an expression of interest.
Welcome to our final week of the Summer term. As always, it has been a week filled with hard work from students and staff here at XPG.
Our teachers’ Educator Led Conferences (ELC’s) have taken place this week. This is where adults present their learning to an audience of their peers, sharing their work and success from the year. The high quality work and thinking shared, the integrity and honest reflection from staff and the level of professionalism displayed was simply stunning and a testament to the great staff crew we have at XPG.
The leadership team also presented their work to colleagues from Trust this week in the Annual School Review (ASR). The review is an opportunity to understand and celebrate how well we have done this year and identify our development priorities for the coming year.
On Thursday G28 students who have studied a personalised research project in their Common Mission time presented their work to the rest of their year. Archie presented on complex ideas in cosmology including: spinning black holes and time dilation, Dyson spheres with a focus on how increasing understanding of the universe may make future technological leaps that support the evolution of human intelligence. Holly and Katie presented on criminology and the motivations behind some of history’s most notorious criminals. Bella presented on the difficulties in diagnosing child mental health problems, with a focus on resources available and attitudes in today’s society. All three presentations dealt with complex issues and were presented professionally and sensitively. All four presenters also fielded questions from their audience with accuracy and integrity. A great piece of work – we look forward to more presentations this week from our Year 7s and Charlie in Year 8.
Our Year 8 students interviewed more experts to hear their stories about moving to the UK. This will form part of the celebration of learning for Year 8 later this week on Thursday.
On Friday we enjoyed our final Crew Day of the year. Like always, this day was about building crew but this time, the theme was sport. Students were challenged to design crew mascots which represented their crew, compete in a Sports Quiz then represent their crew in a variety of physical activities: handball, dodgeball, rounders, athletics.
The day finished with awards in a full school community meeting were much anticipated crew totals were announced. Crew Attenborough won the trophy for G29 and for G28, we had a tie with Crew Angelou and Crew Frank.
It was a fantastic day, enjoyed by students and staff alike and the chance to remind ourselves of the importance of crew. Like we say, ‘If we get Crew right, we get everything right’. Huge thanks and congratulations goes to Mr Devitt for coordinating our first Crew Sports Day and to Mr Currie, Miss O’Grady our XP Doncaster colleagues who supported us with the planning and delivery of the event.
PE sessions will take place on Tuesday for Year 8 and Wednesday for Year 7 students this week. Please make sure that your child has a full PE kit.
Our usual extended study and clubs will not run this week due to our two Celebrations of learning. We will run an extended study session on Monday only.
Please see the website post for full details on this event. We expect that families ensure that someone is there to support their child at this event and also ask that students dress formally. Our XP polo shirts are suitable for occasions like this.
Students will remain in school on Tuesday and we will transport students from school to Seven Stories. We would recommend that they bring a healthy packed tea or snack to eat after school. Students will return home with their families after the event.
As above, please see the website post for full details on this event. We expect that families ensure that someone is there to support their child at this event and also ask that students dress formally. Students will remain in school on Thursday. We would recommend that they bring a healthy packed tea or snack to eat after school.
Towards the end of this week, parents will receive a final progress update and review of the year from their child and Crew leader.
As always at the end of term, our students finish at 1:30pm. This allows for a full de-gunge of the school before the Summer break. This one is especially important as we will need to move some of our resources to new spaces in August with our expansion to larger parts of the building.
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
“Every young person should learn about climate change in school. It’s marginal to most people’s curriculums – not XP School as you’re such a brilliant school”
Ed Miliband – Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero
After the success of our inaugural conference last year and with climate change at the heart of our activism as a Trust, we held this year’s event on 13th July with the question: If not now, when? If not us, who?
The programme for the evening featured the work and research of our Year 10 students and the contribution of experts from across our region.
Powerful keynote speeches, delivered by six students left the audience in no doubt that the planet is in crisis and action has to be taken now.
What that action might be was ably and inspiringly answered by the panellists taking part in our Q & A.
These were The RT. Hon Ed Miliband MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero; David Pulham, UK Manager Vossloh and Tim Newton, Sustainability officer, Doncaster City Council.
The conference also featured many stalls covering such subjects as Sustainability and ‘greener’ food, as well as scientific demonstrations and break out discussions.
One of the breakout presentations was delivered by Dr Mike Sprakes, Gastroenterologist, Mid Yorks Hospitals NHS Trust and Peter Leighton Jones, Head of Sustainability, Mid Yorks Hospitals NHS Trust.
Their talk focussed on Climate Change and the NHS.
We’re already thinking about next year’s conference – but more importantly if you can pledge to make a difference all year round we can all work together to save our planet. There is no Planet B.
Crew Marsh Transition @ Carcroft School
Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead
Crew 5&6 are loving XP Outdoors @ Plover
As you know a school-managed iPad is part of the standard kit required of students in secondary schools across XP Trust. We have brokered a successful Parental Contribution Scheme to enable this for all our children for the last 4 years and continue to do this again for 2023/24.
We will have a bank of Apple Pencils for use in Art and Design sessions. You are welcome to purchase an apple pencil of your own, should you wish, and we would recommend either:
The extended warranty is covered by Apple for the first two years. You handle your own claims through an app. Further information can be found here:
https://www.apple.com/uk/support/products/ipad/
There is a claim excess for broken screens at £29, we will supply a glass screen protector free of charge. This will be checked regularly by Crew Leaders as part of our kit checks.
You can get support and make warranty claims here: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/apple-support/id1130498044
Loss or theft of the iPad needs to be covered by your personal home insurance.
The total retail cost of these items bought separately would be £598. Through our new purchase scheme the cost to you is £451.
This balance will be applied to your Parent Pay account and you can manage your own payments. Here are a few options.
At the end of your child’s time in school the device can be kept by the family if the balance has been paid in full.
To order your child’s ipad, please complete this Google Form.
We had a very successful week last week, managing two successful G30 transition days alongside G28 and G29 fieldwork days. We also enjoyed time with parents and carers on our final twilight MHFA® course and on Thursday, our new Y7 Crew Leaders met with their new parent crew.
G30 students worked with us on Monday and Tuesday to explore the guiding question ‘What will it take for me to be the best version of myself at XP Gateshead?’. They spent time in smaller Crews exploring our character values and making new friends then sampled sessions with us – Human, PE, Arts, Steam sessions in Science and Maths and Spanish.
We were delighted with how well our new students settled into their new school and how well our G28 and G29 students supported their transition days. We are really looking forward to August when we welcome all three year groups together.
G28 undertook fieldwork on Monday in Gateshead and Newcastle linked to their current expedition “Is migration worth the risk”. They spent time ‘looking at sustainable energy solutions in Gateshead, and also evidence of the migrations and conquests that have happened within our region since the times of the Romans.
On Tuesday, our G29 students travelled to North Yorkshire to complete geography fieldwork connected to their current guiding question: “How does water shape our world?” . Students worked at a river site testing a hypothesis on the observable differences in the river as it runs its course.
Our students continue to complete assessments in sessions this week. This follows extended study revision tasks and preparation in sessions.
There are timetable changes this week which means some changes to PE sessions. Please note the following and make sure that your child has full PE kit:
Extended Study and clubs are running after school this week.
On Monday, as part of their expedition Should I Stay Or Should I Go, with the guiding question: ‘Is migration worth the risk?’ our G28 students will be interviewing people who have made the choice to migrate to and from our country this week. The Interviews will be part of their final product for this expedition which will be a feature length film to honour their stories which will be screened in the new academic year.
Once again, our new staff are completing a two day MHFA course. When completed, this will mean that all of our team will be fully qualified as MHFA. The MHFA courses we have run for both staff and parents enable us to recognise mental ill health and help find the support required for our young people. We are grateful to the expertise of Jane Nyberg for making this possible along with the support of Sophie Pegg.
On Friday our students will spend the whole day working with their Crew and Crew Leader. The focus for their final crew day is getting active as well as developing their team work, crew identity and wellbeing. For both Year 7 and Year 8 the school day will start and finish at the usual time. Students will need to be in their sports kit for the full day.
G29’s Celebration of Learning at Seven Stories in Newcastle. .
G28’s Celebration of Learning at XP Gateshead.
See website post for more details of both of these events.
Friday 21st July – Last day of term
This is a 1:30pm finish for students to allow for degunge of the school before the Summer break.
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
We are delighted to be able to confirm that G29’s Celebration of Learning will take place on Tuesday 18th July at Seven Stories in Newcastle.
Students will remain in school and we will transport students from school to Seven Stories. We would recommend the bring a healthy packed tea or snack to eat after school.
Families should arrive at 6pm. Students will be dismissed after the event to return home with you.
This event will be in two parts.
First will be a celebration of the work of students across the year, including:
Secondly, students will also present to you their learning from their current expedition Hold Back the River with the guiding question ‘How does water shape our world?’
Following this copies of your child’s local history book From the Ground Up will be available to purchase for £10. All proceeds raised from book sales will go back into the education of your children.
G28’s Celebration of Learning will take place on Thursday 20th July in school at 6pm.
This event will also celebrate work from across the year, including your children’s Banksy-inspired postcards which address issues of social justice identified by your children as part of their last expedition – What is Power?.
Students will host you on a gallery walk, where they will be able to talk through their learning from across disciplines connected to push and pull factors that lead to migration, and the reality of the lived experience of migrants.
We will also share an excerpt of the film that students are making as part of their learning expedition Should I Stay Or Should I Go, with the guiding question: ‘Is migration worth the risk?’
This will be a longer feature length film which we will screen in the new academic year, and honours the stories of people that have made to choice to migrate to and from our country.
A reminder that for these events we expect that families ensure that someone is there to support their child. We also ask that students dress formally for these events. Our XP polo shirts are suitable for these occasions.
This week, the awesome guide created by our Year 11 Students has been published on the Charles Dickens Museum website as a free educational resource! You can find it amongst a plethora of different resources on Dickens’ work.
We’re looking forward to visiting the museum next week to celebrate the work the students have created.
Finding doubles – outdoor maths @ Carcroft School
G30 Transition Days @ XP Gateshead
KS3 Girls Football Team do XP proud! @ XP
EYFS Vehicles Celebration Event @ Plover
What a delight it has been to welcome your children into their new school for the last two days. A reminder that on Thursday we have an event in school for adults from families at 5pm.
This is an opportunity to reinforce some really important messages, and to meet your child’s Crew Leader.
Children do not need to come to this event.
