Beautiful Work This Week
Here’s a selection of beautiful work from across the XP Trust over the last two weeks! To read about other stories from across the XP Trust, visit xptrust.org.
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Tomorrow during break and lunch is the last chance to buy tickets for 2 of our Christmas charity events. All details on the posters below.
Elina Donlan Jones took her Grade 2 singing exam last week and passed with merit. In addition to this she got the news that she has landed a part in a short film due to be filmed next year!
What a talented young lady! Well done Elina, we are all very proud of you.
On 24th November George Dobson, Crew Darling, successfully passed his Shodan 1st Dan at Kaizen Karate and is now a Black Belt in Shotokan Karate.
George has worked extremely hard, training twice a week with Kaizen for 6 years now and has travelled to their Dojo in Ashington every Friday for extra training for the last 6 weeks leading up to his grading.
He is now looking forward to becoming a mentor the younger students and help them progress in their training as well as training himself for his 2nd Dan.
A huge well done to George for his hard work and committment
Beautiful work George. We are all very proud of you!
Year 10 students will sit their end of expedition exam on Friday 13th December. Revision should focus on the following GCSE topics
Acids, Bases, Alkalis and Salts
Electrolysis
Chemical Quantity calculation
Metallic Bonding and Properties including Alloys.
Covalent Bonding
Development of the Atomic Mode
Helpful revision videos can be found here.
Dear Families
Over the next few weeks we will be fully into preparation for Presentations of Learning (PoLs). As stated in our core practices:
At XP we make our work public. One of the most important ways we do this is through PoLs. They are used as an opportunity for students to showcase their learning from their most current learning expedition. PoLs enable students to grow their character and further embed their learning through presenting their work in front of a range of authentic audiences and in a variety of contexts. In addition, students develop oracy skills by presenting to different audiences and in different contexts which builds confidence and further allows students to grow their character whilst developing key skills.
We look forward to seeing all families at the following Presentations of Learning for their children:
- G31’s PoL will be on the evening of Monday 16th December at St. Mary’s church in Heworth at 4.30pm.
- G30’s PoL will be on Wednesday 18th December in school at 4.30pm.
- G29’s PoL will be on the evening of Wednesday 11th December at the Farrell Centre and Great North Museum in Newcastle University Campus at 3.45pm.
- G28’s PoL will be on Thursday 19th December in school at 4.30pm.
Staff Days
On Friday our support staff were trained in First Aid, part of our ongoing training programme to ensure that we can support students. This week Year 9 have the opportunity to receive similar training as part of the Duke of Edinburgh award in readiness for their outdoor expeditions later this academic year.
Our teaching staff spent the day at Newcastle University discussing connections that can be made with the University and researchers to further contextualise our expeditions, connect with cutting edge research and also continue to raise aspirations for students about their future and possible pathways.
Today we have spent the day focussed on long term planning, in particular future expeditions and our wider support and pastoral provision for all students.
The Week Ahead
G29 Student Led Conferences
This week sees the second week of SLCs for Year 9 students. All families should have booked their SLC slot. Please contact [email protected] if you need more support with this.
G31 Expert in school tomorrow
Tomorrow students in G31 will meet Bill Elliott a local folk singer who is supporting students in their preparation for their presentation of learning. Next week students will work with Bill to complete their folk song compositions.
G28 In School PoL on Wednesday
On Wednesday afternoon, G28 will host their PoL connected to their studies of A Christmas Carol. This is an afternoon tea for members of the community that typically experience loneliness, especially around Christmas, all of which connects to their GQ: “Is charity enough?”
Families of G28 please note that this event will finish at around 4pm.
G29 First aid training on Wednesday
All G29 students will have First Aid Training on Wednesday this week. This is in preparation for their DofE expeditions later in the academic year.
PE sessions this week
Our PE sessions this week are as follows. Please ensure that your child has their full PE kit.
- For G30 students (Year 8)
- Due to the staff day there is no PE session this week.
- For G31 students (Year 7)
- G31 Class 1 students have PE on Tuesday.
- G31 Class 2 students have PE on Wednesday
- All G29 students (Year 9) have PE on Thursday.
- All G28 students (Year 10) have PE on Thursday.
As usual if you have any questions about your son or daughter please get in touch with your child’s Crew Leader in the first instance or email general enquiries to [email protected].
Julie Mosley
Dear Families
As always, weeks go by at XP Gateshead and they are filled with high quality, beautiful work from our students and staff.
On Tuesday G31 (Year 7 students) worked alongside music experts to develop lyrics, chord sequences and melodies for the folksong which will be the final product for their learning expedition. The songs will tell the stories of 5 local people who have left an impact on our region and the wider world:
- The Venerable Bede
- Humphry Davy
- Thomas Hepburn
- Catherine Cookson
- David Price
A special thanks to Dave Evans, Geoff Hewitt and Rob Kitchen for working with our Year 7 students throughout the day.
Crew Day
On Friday we had our Crew Day which gave all crews the chance to ‘tend’ to and strengthen the crew, to support and challenge each other to be the best versions of self and carry out some important work together. As you know, Crew is our support network at XPG and key to the continued success of everyone at our school.
G31 students continued their work on researching suitable people after whom to name their crews – people who have achieved great things and who display our character traits of courage, integrity, respect, craftsmanship and quality, and above all compassion. I’m pleased to introduce our four Year 7 crews:
- Crew Pankhurst – (Mr Azam’s Crew)
- Crew Curie – (Mrs Diamond’s Crew)
- Crew Shakespeare (Miss Jamison’s Crew)
- Crew Windsor (Mr Parry’s Crew)
G30 students worked on their pitches for which charity they wanted their crew to support, including presentations from G28 students who encouraged them to consider the charities with whom they were already working.
I’m pleased to introduce our Year 8 chosen charities are:
- Anxious Minds – Crew Einstein
- Daisy Chain – Crew Kahlo
- Sands – Crew Earhart
- The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation – Crew Darling (we are delighted that they will pair up with Crew Frank in G28 to support this charity.
G30 also had some time working with our LEGO robots to work on their collaborative, design and coding skills, creating robot hoppers which were then raced competitively.
G29’s Crew Day gave over time to students to work together as a Crew to prepare for charity events for their respective charities, connecting back to the plans that they made in their first week back in September. Crew Attenborough spent much of the day in the kitchen as they will be carrying out a charity event at G28’s presentation of learning later this term. More on this soon.
G29 also spent some of the day working on preparation for their SLCs (see below).
For Year 8 and 9, Crew Day was an important reminder that:
“We are Crew, not passengers, strengthened by consequential acts of service to others.”
G28’s Crew Day attended to wellbeing – mind, body and soul. Our students enjoyed sessions including:
- A Badminton Crew challenge
- Orienteering
- Advice on habits of mind that will support the step up to GCSE
- Yoga
Community Meeting
There was great excitement in our community meeting at the end of the day with Year 7 and 8 this week as students announced their crew names and crew charities. We also collected and shared appreciations from all crews:
I will share appreciations with you when we collect them so you can see the character values our students appreciate in each other each week.
Saturday with the Stemettes
On Saturday some of our students joined the Stemettes Vision Panel in Newcastle. This event ‘Dream, Listen, Connect’ gave young women the opportunity to hear from a panel of role models pursuing careers in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics). Our Year 9 students enjoyed the opportunity to listen and ask questions to a panel of experts and meet other young people interested in STEAM careers. Ms Marshall, Ms Jamison and I were incredibly proud and impressed with the dedication our students showed to their learning and contributions on the day from Eleanor, Scarlett, Winnie, Penny, Olvia, Lily, and Lyra.
XPG Ofsted Report
As you know we had our first Ofsted Inspection 15th and 16th October 2024. We emailed this out to all parents and carers last week. If you haven’t seen the report yet, here it is.
There have been changes to how Ofsted report back to schools this year. A main change is that there is no final judgement for overall effectiveness, just gradings around the four areas of quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management. We are delighted with our written report which talks about what it is like to attend our school, what we do well and the area which has been identified for improvement. Please sit back and enjoy the read – this report belongs to us all and is a testament to the hard work of our staff, students and families.
Our week ahead
G29 Student Led Conferences
This week sees the start of SLCs for Year 9 students. All families should have booked their SLC slot. Please contact [email protected] if you need more support with this.
G28 Preparation for PoL
G28 continue preparations for their PoL for their studies of A Christmas Carol. This is an afternoon tea for members of the community that typically experience loneliness, especially around Christmas, all of which connects to their GQ: “Is charity enough?”
This week students received invites to the PoL for members of the community that may experience loneliness at this time of year. Each student has been asked to invite one person to the event. More details can be found on the printed invite.
Crew Frank are cooking in the kitchen tomorrow morning, and Crew Parks on Wednesday. Students do not need to bring ingredients, but it is worth wearing clothes that are older. Long hair needs to be tied back in a bobble please.
PE sessions this week
Our PE sessions this week are as follows. Please ensure that your child has their full PE kit.
- For G30 students (Year 8)
- G30 Class 2 students have PE on Monday.
- G30 Class 1 students have PE on Thursday.
- For G31 students (Year 7)
- G31 Class 1 students have PE on Tuesday.
- G31 Class 2 students have PE on Wednesday.
- All G29 students (Year 9) have PE on Thursday.
- All G28 students (Year 10) have PE on Thursday.
Staff Days – Friday 29th November and Monday 2nd December
We have a staff day this coming Friday and next Monday. The focus for these staff days are forward planning, especially our exciting new learning expeditions for term 2 from January. On staff days our students do not attend school and there is no expectation that they complete work beyond their regularly set extended study (homework). Students will find this work on Google classroom.
Looking ahead – important dates
POLs (Presentations of Learning) this term – dates for your diary
- G31’s PoL will be on the evening of Monday 16th December at St. Mary’s church in Heworth at 4.30pm.
- G30’s PoL will be on Wednesday 18th December in school at 4.30pm.
- G29’s PoL will be on the evening of Wednesday 11th December at the Farrell Centre and Great North Museum in Newcastle University Campus at 3.45pm.
- G28’s PoL will be on Thursday 19th December in school at 4.30pm.
As usual if you have any questions about your son or daughter please get in touch with your child’s Crew Leader in the first instance or email general enquiries to [email protected].
Julie Mosley
Sharing our Stories: 22/11/2024
Beautiful Work This Week
How do we show we care? @ Green Top
EYFS pupils from Green Top embarked on a cross-curricular expedition to explore the guiding question, “How do we show we care?” Through engaging activities and three case studies, they learned about kindness, empathy, and their place in the world. Immersion began with The Everywhere Bear, inspiring children to care for a crew teddy bear and fostering classroom environments of love and kindness. Hook week focused on settling children into school while emphasising kindness as a superpower.
Case studies included visits from the school nursing team, exploration of stories like Dogger and The Smartest Giant in Town to examine feelings and actions, and activities like kindness pledges, litter picking, and porridge-making tied to Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Celebrations like Bonfire Night and remembrance activities deepened understanding of history and empathy. In the final case study, children compared global settings through books like Elmer and participated in charitable actions, including creating a board for the DRI children’s ward with the message “You are special. You are loved. We care,” alongside donations from their sponsored walk.
Gifts from our Visitors!
Since our first XP school opened we have been welcoming visitors from all over the world. In the last three years the number of global delegates across our Trust has run into the thousands.
Whether sole visitors or part of a group; for example twice in the last year over 60 students from Hong Kong joined us in one day; what these guests bring to our schools is invaluable.
Our students love to take them on Ambassador tours and our staff deliver CPD that allows us to share what we do and how and why we do it.
Sometimes we are presented with thoughtful gifts, which form part of a display in our Comms area shop at XPE.
A boomerang from Australia, a lucky panda drawing from a school in Hong Kong, biscuits from the Netherlands, Chocolates from Switzerland, pens from Australia and beautiful textiles from India are just some of the special thank you’s we have received.
Thursday Night Live!
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Find out more and apply here to #JoinOurCrew
Top of the Blogs
Share your stories with us!
As you may be aware, Year 9 are creating an audio installation of oral histories associated with Trinity Square in Gateshead, especially the car park and precinct that once stood on the site.
We are looking for member of our community to come into school to talk to our students about the car park and precinct, their memories of the area, and views on how the site is used now. The audio from these conversations would then be used in the installation as part of The Farrell Centre’s Concrete Dreams exhibition.
We anticipate this would involve talking to a small group of students who would have pre-prepared questions for around 30 minutes.
Ideally we would like to record these on Thursday 5th December in school.
If you or any of your family could support the students with your thoughts and memories of Trinity Square, please contact Mr Said on [email protected].
Dear Families
I look back on last week with a real sense of pride for the work our students are doing and the people they are becoming. The words of Kurt Hahn ring truer and truer every day
“There is more to us than we know. If we can be made to see it, perhaps for the rest of our lives, we will be unwilling to settle for less”
On Monday, we observed our two minute silence for Remembrance Day. This was signalled by Devin with a solo bugle call and a huge amount of courage . Students were also given the opportunity to listen to our remembrance broadcast on Memory Lane Radiothe opportunity to listen to our remembrance broadcast on Memory Lane Radio. If you have not yet done so, please take some to listen to this wonderful piece of work from G30.
At XP we work to ensure that our students grow their character, create beautiful work and achieve academic success. We develop our curriculum so that learning is relevant, purposeful and authentic and we encourage our students to be compassionate citizens, expanding opportunity so that they can impact positively on others both in the school and in the wider community. We work hard to nurture and develop an understanding of how kindness, empathy and concern for others must define us, as both individuals and also as part of society, if we are to create a more just and compassionate world.
Our G31 students had an expert session with Clare Price who told us about the extraordinary life and character of her husband David, about whom G31 will be writing a folk song. This is one of a series of songs about local figures of importance in our region’s story. As we have said before, David was a friend of XP and instrumental in the story of our school. A huge appreciation to Clare for bringing lots of David’s possessions and speaking so beautifully about a wonderful man.
At the end of the week our students took part in conversations with several organisations working regionally, nationally and internationally. These each exemplify how our approach to personal development means that students develop in confidence over time, are confident to speak to a range of audiences and can hold their own in discussion about important issues of our time.
Our G29 students had an expert session with Kate Osborne Member of Parliament (MP) for Jarrow and Gateshead East as part of their current expedition ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ and working to answer a guiding question ‘How are structures important in helping us to explain our world?’. As part of their work students have been looking at political structures in Government and been investigating housing policy of the Labour Party and other major political parties in the U.K. Our Year 9 really took the opportunity to ask Kate questions in discussions that covered climate action, sustainability, housing policy, immigration along with more personal questions around Kate’s passion for politics and the North East.
On Friday, Koen Timmers visited XP Doncaster to share his work involving young people and schools across the world on Climate Action. Koen set up the Take Action Global project and The Climate Action Project – with 5.3 million kids from 127 countries taking part. He has been nominated for the Bill Gates for the top ten Global Teacher Prize twice. Students from XPG Climate Action Group joined an online meeting with staff from across the Trust to hear Koen talk about his work and how XP schools could get involved. Our students will be updating our wider staff team in the near future about the The Climate Action Project and considering how XPG can get involved.
Our final example of activism in our students came from a group of G28 students who were amazing young delegates at a Humanist Conference on Poverty. The event brought together key individuals and organisations to share best practice: politicians, funders, schools, charities – including recipients of North East Humanists’ own microgrants scheme, and ‘Support and Grow’ who provide invaluable support in their local community. Our students’ maturity and contributions were praised by other delegates from many of the organisations present.
Our week ahead
G31 Music
Students are working with experts on Tuesday on the materials that will become the lyrics, harmonies and melodies for their folk songs. G31 families can look forward to hearing these live at St Mary’s church in our presentation of learning. They will then be recorded professionally and published to all of the big streaming sites. By the end of the academic year, all of G31 will be published songwriters.
G29 Expert
G29 are hosting an expert Michelle Bell who is Assistant Director of BCT (Byker Community Trust). This connects to their studies around structure of government and habitations and how these interact as well as modernist and brutalist art and architecture.
Michelle’s career in social housing spans 26 years that started at Newcastle City Council in 1995, followed by roles in Your Homes Newcastle and Homes England. Michelle joined the BCT project team in September 2011 and in July 2012 when BCT was formed, she became responsible for heading up Property Services within BCT.
G28 Preparation for PoL
G28 will this week start preparation for their PoL for their studies of A Christmas Carol. This is an afternoon tea for members of the community that typically experience loneliness, especially around Christmas, all of which connects to their GQ: “Is charity enough?”
Crew Stanton are baking tomorrow morning, and Angelou on Wednesday. Students do not need to bring ingredients, but it is worth wearing clothes that are older. Long hair needs to be tied back in a bobble please.
Crew Frank are baking on Monday 25th November, and Parks on Wednesday 27th next week.
Crew Day – Friday 22nd November
Every half term, we look to run a Crew Day which is an opportunity to ‘tend to and build’ crew and culture. Crew is our support network at XPG and key to the continued success of everyone at our school, we will revisit what it means to be crew and our responsibilities in getting everyone to the top of the mountain. In this week’s Crew Day:
G31 students will start their work on researching suitable people after whom to name their crews – people who have achieved great things and who display our character traits of courage, integrity, respect, craftsmanship and quality, and above all compassion.
G30 will start their work on looking at which charity they want to support. Students will be putting together their proposals and pitching to the rest of their crew their choice of charity.
G29 will continue their activism work, the awareness raising and charity work they are planning to carry out this academic year.
G28 students will focus on wellbeing and looking after their ‘mind, body and soul’.
On Friday, students will work with their crew and Crew Leader for the day developing their team work, crew identity and wellbeing.
PE sessions this week
Our PE sessions this week are as follows. Please ensure that your child has their full PE kit.
- All G30 students (Year 8) have PE on Monday..
- All G31 students (Year 7) have PE on Wednesday.
- All G29 students (Year 9) have PE on Thursday.
- All G28 students (Year 10) have PE on Thursday.
G29 SLCs
Year 9 will be carrying out SLCs in the fortnight commencing Monday 25th November. We will be in touch in the next couple of days to give you the opportunity to book a slot.
Looking ahead – important dates
Staff Days – Friday 29th November and Monday 4th December
We have staff days each term at XP so that our teachers can collaborate across the Trust to create and deliver the high quality curriculum that our students study. These are shown in blue on our calendar. On staff days our students do not attend school and there is no expectation that they complete work beyond their regularly set extended study (homework). Students will find this work on Google classroom.
POLs (Presentations of Learning) this term – dates for your diary – all now confirmed
- G31’s PoL will be on the evening of Monday 16th December at St. Mary’s church in Heworth at 4.30pm.
- G30’s PoL will be on Wednesday 18th December in school at 4.30pm.
- G29’s PoL will be on the evening of Wednesday 11th December at the Farrell Centre and Great North Museum in Newcastle University Campus at 3.45pm.
- G28’s PoL will be on Thursday 19th December in school at 4.30pm.
As usual if you have any questions about your son or daughter please get in touch with your child’s Crew Leader in the first instance or email general enquiries to [email protected].
Julie Mosley