Dear Parents/Carers

It is a bumper update this week with lots of information on:

• Our ongoing and exciting work in school
• Upcoming presentations of learning
• Reverse advent – student activism at Christmas

We are moving towards some really important and exciting times in our diary with Presentations of Learning for both G28 and G29 in the next two weeks.

Our students are working hard on their final products and preparing their responses to the guiding questions that they have been exploring all term. We cannot wait for them to share their beautiful work with you and know that as always they will impress with their compassion in supporting each other in the coming weeks, and the courage they will show when presenting their learning to the community. 

Our G29 students had a great fieldwork visit on Tuesday to meet interview members of the Northumberland mining community. This was the first time our year 7 students had carried out oral history interviews and they did a fantastic job. Experts were delighted that young people were so interested in their stories and moved that our students would go on to tell their stories in their final product – a book which will be published in the New Year. Particular praise was given to Peyton, Fallyn and Harry M for their enthusiasm, questions and sensitivity to their experts.

Some of our students enjoyed additional fieldwork at Woodhorn Colliery and the community around Burradon to carry out primary research on the pits in these communities. Connor, Nathan, Ryan, Braydon and Joe were all fantastically engaged and now have lots more information to include in their histories of these pits. A big appreciation was given to Braydon too, who had taken lots of photographs and shared these with his group on return to school to make sure that everyone was well-prepared to start writing.

And so, back in school, Year 7 have been writing up their interviews and these will form part of our final book alongside with histories of local pits. The quality of listening and note taking has really paid off and supported the drafting of their work for their book.

On Thursday, G28 had the privilege of spending time with the inspirational Luke Wigman ,who shared his response to our guiding question ‘What does it mean to be Human?’ Luke is a former RAF military serviceman and was part of an elite special operations unit until an injury during a tour of duty changed his life forever. After being medically discharged, Luke went on to become an international sportsman whose plaudits include:

• North Pole Marathon- Runner-Up- 2014.
• London Invictus Games – 1500m gold medalist – 2014
• Sports Personality of the Year Awards- Winner of the Helen Rollason Award- 2014
• Pride of Britain Awards- Special Recognition Award for GB Invictus Team- 2014

Luke was particularly impressed by the depth of our students’ questions and discussed with them how the simple things in life are often taken for granted and how he views the gift of our humanity, and how adversity can be a fuel that drives us on to fulfil our dreams.

Our clubs have continued to run this term. We are really pleased with the number of our students who have made a regular commitment to extended study or an after school club.

Student activism in the run up to Christmas:Charity initiatives

We are carrying out reverse advent in both Year 7 and Year 8 across all Crews, but a special appreciation to Crew KDO and Crew Frank (MRS) for coordinating our work. Any donations for these charities will be gratefully received, but it is by no means an expectation.

Year 7 Reverse Advent – Led by Crew KDO

Tomorrow sees the launch of Year 7’s ‘Reverse Advent’ collection on behalf of Gateshead Foodbank. This will run until Monday 12th December and is being organised by Crew KDO. Year 7 students will be able to access the full food bank list after tomorrow’s launch but everyday items on the list include tinned foods, dried pasta/rice/noodles, pasta sauces, UHT milk and biscuits. Gateshead Foodbank are also accepting donations for their Christmas Hampers, which include foods like tinned ham, shortbread, luxury biscuits, savoury crackers, tubs of sweets and selection boxes. Any donation really helps. Thank you in advance, Crew KDO.

Year 8 Reverse Advent – Led by Crew Frank (MRS)

Sr Josepha, an expert from our current expedition does a lot to support Bethany City Church in Sunderland and the St Vincent de Paul Society in Newcastle with their advent appeals. These appeals ensure that children and the elderly who would be unlikely to receive gifts this Christmas do indeed get one. As a thank you for the kindness of giving her time to support the learning of our students, our Year 8 crews will be putting together at least one shoebox full of small gifts that will make a huge difference to someone struggling this Christmas.

The types of families and people who benefit are those who are seeking asylum due to war or persecution in their own country, those who have had to flee domestic abuse and elderly people who are alone with no families this Christmas. So as well as receiving a small sweet treat from a crew Christmas advent we are asking our year 8 students to give something and give their time this advent in so that they work together as a crew and be activists this festive season. Crews may have already decided the age group for their shoebox/shoeboxes. Students should start to bring in things for their shoebox this week and early next week where they are able to.

This week:

G28 YEAR 8 Presentation of Learning – What does it mean to be Human?

On Thursday 8th December at 5:30pm, our Year 8 students will share their expedition work with parents and carers. This will be the first in-person PoL to take place in our school and we ask families to arrive from 5.20pm. We expect to be finished by 7pm.

Where possible if you could limit the number of adults attending to two, this would be much appreciated.

As was discussed at our very first meetings with families at the end of Year 6, it is an expectation that all students have at least one family member attend every presentation of learning.

YEAR 8 Parents: Please confirm your attendance by completing this Google Form.

G29 get ready for their Presentation of Learning

This week students will be preparing for their very first presentation of learning which will be live steamed via Youtube in our final week: Monday 12th December at 5.30pm. The link to join the stream will be shared in next week’s family update.

We discussed in our community meeting this week how brilliant we know your children will be and how students will need to show lots of compassion in supporting each other to show craftsmanship and quality in completing their work to the best of their ability, and to show the courage to present to the community.

During these coming weeks, students will share moments together that will become stories that they will tell each other for the rest of their time with us because there is more in them than they know. 

As usual, thanks for your ongoing support. Please contact your child’s Crew Leader with any questions or issues. 

Have a great week

Julie Mosley

Dear Parents/Carers

Welcome back after a long weekend. As a staff crew we have been working hard on our curriculum plans to ensure we continue to provide high quality for our students across all expeditions and subject areas. As always, there are lots of exciting things happening over the next few weeks.

Our students are working on their pledges around improving their HoWLs and academic performance. You will receive your child’s snapshot this week with a video which explains how the information is presented. Next week your child will share their pledges with you so that you can see which areas they are targeting for improvement over the coming months.

Presentations of Learning will take place at the end of term and our students continue to work hard on their guiding questions ready to share their learning with you. I’d like to take the opportunity to thank you in advance for your attendance at these events; it’s really important that students have an authentic audience when they present and is part of our design here at XP – academic success, beautiful work and character growth. We can’t wait to see them all shine (as they always do) and for you to be dazzled! 

This week:

G29 Fieldwork

Our Y7 students will be taking part in fieldwork on Tuesday as part of their expedition From The Ground Up. They will be spending time interviewing members of the Northumberland mining community in Ashington as they continue to answer their guiding question “What do the communities of North-East England owe to the miners?”.

Robotics Club

This Wednesday’’s robotic club is cancelled due to commitments of the external provider.

XP Trust School Review

As part of our ongoing monitoring, we welcome the XP Trust Performance Team into school on Thursday. The team will be looking at the quality of our work in all areas of XP Gateshead. As part of the review, they will spend time in sessions alongside students, looking at the quality of student work and talking to staff and students throughout the day. 

Advent

Like last year, we would like to run a reverse crew advent challenge. We will be preparing for Christmas by helping others and looking at how we can focus on giving rather than receiving at this time of year. We are set to work with North East charities who support vulnerable families. Crew Frank will coordinate G28’s reverse advent and will work with Sister Josepha in support of Oaklea Convent in their Christmas shoebox appeal. Crew KDO will coordinate G29’s reverse advent in connection with the Gateshead Food Bank. Your children will get more information on this in Crew this week.

 

 

Thank you as usual for your support. I would like to give a special thanks to our parents that have organised the Christmas trampoline party at Jump Giants. It’s great to see students from across both Year 7 and 8 socialising together in the break and we know that other parents are appreciative too!

Dear Parents/Carers

It has been another great week at XP Gateshead. Our students continue to impress us with the quality of their work and the commitment they have to being the best versions of themselves. In crew this week all of our students have been working hard writing pledges to improve their HoWL grades or academic progress and it has been great to hear their discussions and see how they are already supporting each other with pledges.

We had a Governor visit this week which focused on how we continue to ensure a strong culture as we grow by developing Crew. We’re really pleased with the feedback we received in our Local Governor Committee meeting on Thursday which included:

Students across both year groups talked about how valuable they felt Crew was and described the almost instant bonds that they felt with their crew members from their very first experience of Crew at Ullswater. They have complete ownership of what crew means for them and there were common themes that arose from these discussions; around support, nurture, friendship and resilience.   

“I would like to praise the G28 students for doing such a fantastic job of modelling and mentoring the new cohort of students and helping them to embrace the culture of XPG. They talked about taking on a parental role with the new cohort and helping them to learn what it means to be a student at XPG.”

We enjoyed a great Maths Week last week and our students stepped up to every challenge set; from scavenger hunts to paper aeroplane construction. All students got behind the Times Tables Rockstars’ ‘England Rocks’ competition and we are delighted with our positions in the final tables – on average scores, we achieved 2nd place in the 194 Secondary schools across England who took part in the competition and overall 7th out of all 3492 schools  (Primary and Secondary schools) who entered the competition. We are delighted with the combined efforts of all students, well done XPG!

Our G28 students enjoyed fantastic fieldwork this week with medical staff at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead as they continue to explore their guiding question ‘What does it mean to be Human?’. They experienced first-hand the challenges of working in a ward and were challenged with responding to simulated pulmonary issues in patients. Students worked in the clinical skills lab here at the hospital and felt the pressure of needing to think on the spot to some high level emergencies. We only lost one virtual patient!

Thirteen of our Y8 students spent the day with architects on Friday exploring how architects consider the needs of communities and end users in the design of buildings and spaces. Students developed some really interesting ideas to make use of a plot in the Helix development in Newcastle having surveyed the area and did an analysis of the surrounding community.

Our huge appreciation goes out to Dr Ruth Sharrock from the Division of Medicine at the QE Gateshead, and to Jess Goodwin at Ryder Architecture for organising these days for our students.

This week: 

Accelerated Reader

This week we will be launching our  Accelerated Reader (AR) programme with G29 students. As part of our reading strategy we expect all students to read between 20 and 30 minutes each day. The AR programme monitors reading practice and progress. Students are guided to read at the individual level and take short quizzes after each book to check their understanding. 

Thank you to G28 parents who provided feedback on AR. We have used this along with feedback from staff and students to make AR even better this year.

Staff Days

Remember that we have two staff development days this half term; Friday 25th and Monday 28th November. Our staff will be working on final products for current expeditions and planning next term’s expeditions. As usual, students are not expected to be in school on these days.

Looking forward, dates for your diary: 

Monday 28th November – Staff Day

Tuesday 29th November – Provisional day for G29 Year 7 fieldwork to Ashington to interview members of the Northumberland mining community. We are awaiting final confirmation of that and should have more information early this week.

As usual, thanks for your ongoing support. Please contact your child’s Crew Leader with any questions or issues. 

Have a great week

Julie Mosley

Co-principal