Beautiful work from Harry

Amazing news! Harry got his black belt (1st Dan) in karate last night starting just over 2 years ago in May 2021; this is an epic achievement!

Harry has worked tirelessly to achieve this, training 4 times a week and practising wherever he goes.

Not only is he a 1st Dan, but he was also awarded his Junior Instructor last night too!

Beautiful work Harry!

Dear Families

We have continued to be impressed with our students this week and the HOWLs (habits of work and learning) they exhibit in sessions – and specific praise for G30 who have made such a fantastic start in the way that they are forming and strengthening great habits of work and learning in class.

G30 students determining important events to add to a timeline of The Industrial Revolution

Guiding Questions

This week immersion came to the end for all  year groups and after lots of wondering and suggestions, students in G28, G29 and G30 enjoyed the big reveal to find out their expedition guiding questions.

GQs (guiding questions) are a crucial part of the anatomy of an expedition.

GQs influence, shape and act as a reference point for student learning. GQs provoke thinking and deepen learning throughout the 12 week expedition and allow students to be engaged in authentic and purposeful work which makes connections between different subject areas and disciplines. During the course of a learning expedition, our children experience a range of case studies, with challenging texts which deepen their understanding and help them to develop an answer to the rich GQ for the expedition.

G30

Our G30 students’ first expedition is called ‘From the Ground Up’ and our students will be studying the guiding question ‘What do the communities of North East England owe to the miners?’. Case studies will involve the Industrial Revolution, Pit Disasters including Felling 1812, the growth and decline of local collieries and the 1984 Miners; Strike. Their final product will be a collection of folk songs which honour the stories of members of the mining community in the North East – students will interview these experts and put their stories to music, as well as a permanent display in St Mary’s Church in Heworth to honour those that lost their lives beneath our school in an explosion at Felling Colliery in 1812. The presentation of learning for this expedition will take place at St Mary’s Church on the evening of Monday 18th December.

G29

Our G29 students are now well underway with their new expedition, Being Human. The guiding question for this expedition is ‘What does it mean to be Human?’.

There are three case studies for this expedition each with their own question: What is a human?; What can we learn from how we see differences between humans?; How do humans and humanity grow and develop?

This week G29 students investigated the respiratory organ system with a dissection of the lungs.

The final product for this expedition will be an artwork installation in the QE hospital which promotes organ donation, as well as speeches in answer to the guiding question. These will be shared with you in a presentation of learning for this which will take place in school on the evening of Tuesday 19th December – more details on this soon.

G28

G28 students’ expedition is called ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ and has the guiding question ‘How are structures important in helping us to shape our world?’. 

Case studies for this expedition will examine the structure of government, the structure of habitations and the structures of the physical world down to the level of the atom.

The final product for this expedition will be a sculpture inspired by brutalist architecture which will be curated in the community, with a dedication to all citizens of our local community in recognition of the challenges they faced, and the support given to one another during the COVID pandemic.

Northern Stage – Cultural fieldwork

On Thursday our G28 students  visited the Northern Stage Theatre to see the critically acclaimed theatre performance of ‘ I, Daniel Blake’. This was a very powerful and moving experience for staff and students alike as the play explored the realities of life for people living in our area and how systems that are supposed to support people can in fact let them down. 

I was delighted to receive an email from a member of the audience on Friday morning which read:

Yesterday I attended a performance of I, Daniel Blake at the Northern Stage in Newcastle.  Sitting in front of me were two rows of pupils from your school aged 13-15!

I just wanted to compliment all of the young people – they were beautifully behaved and thoroughly engaged in the performance.  A number of them were moved to tears and their friends and teaching staff were just so supportive and caring in their attitude towards each other – it really was lovely to see.

Young people so often get a bad press these days, so I just wanted to take the opportunity to Buck the trend and share with you what a delight I thought your young people were and total respect to your school for choosing this performance for them the themes of which I’m sure may have resonated for some, given the current cost of living crisis.

A beautiful and important email, as we say to our students at XPG – we are judged by the quality of our work and the quality of our characters. 

The provisional date for G28’s presentation of learning is the evening of Thursday 14th December – more details to follow.

Our week ahead 

G28 students (Year 9) – Byker Wall Fieldwork, Monday 18th September

As part of their  G28 expedition “Another Brick in the Wall’, our students will be taking part in a  Human and Art fieldwork to Byker Wall on Monday 18th September. 

See our website post for full details.

G29 students (Year 8) 

On Wednesday, our students will work with their first expert for their ‘Being Human’ expedition. Reverend Lucy will give her view on what the Bible tells us about the sanctity of human life – students will discuss their GQ with a range of experts during the expedition to help them to develop their own answer which will be part of their speech. Engagement with experts is  an important part of our model. Teachers bring experts from the community into the classroom to collaborate with students, teach them skills from their field, and critique their work to professional standards.

G28 students (Year 7) – Beamish Museum, Thursday 21st September

As part of G30’s first expedition ‘From the Ground Up’, students will be taking part in important fieldwork at Beamish Museum in County Durham on Thursday this week. This is their first fieldwork and we will stress the importance of being ambassadors for our school. For more details please see Mrs Ross’ post here.

PE sessions this week

Please can parents make sure that their child has a PE kit (see website post). We expect students to change into their appropriate PE kit, and not wear the same clothes they wear in school. Similarly, students must change out of PE kit afterwards, into their normal school clothes.

  • G30 students (Year 7) have PE on Monday this week.
  • G29 students (Year 8) have PE on Wednesday this week.
  • G28 students (Year 9) have PE on Tuesday this week.

There is a change to PE for our G28 students (Year 9) this week due to Fieldwork and Staff Day on Friday. G28 will have one hour of PE this week for each class.

Extended Study

We will offer extended study sessions, from 3:15pm – 4:30pm each day this week Monday-Thursday.  These are study sessions where students can get support with their extended study. Students do not need to book into these sessions, but must stay until the end of the session at 4.30pm.

Working with our local Crime Prevention Team

On Thursday, Northumbria Crime Prevention Unit are running a workshop for our Year 9 students around keeping safe online. 

As part of our PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education) and RSE (relationships education, relationship and sex education) programme we will work closely with local experts to ensure our students get the best advice on how to keep themselves safe.

Staff Development Days

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 

This week and next sees the first of our staff days where students are not expected to be in school.

  • Friday 22nd September – Staff Development Day 
  • Monday 25th September – Staff Development Day 

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.

Students are expected back to school on Tuesday 26th September by 8:25am at the latest.

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].

Thank you as always for your ongoing support.  Together we are stronger #WeAreCrew.

Julie Mosley

Sharing our Stories: 15/09/2023

Beautiful Work This Week!

Family Learning at Carcroft!

Staff Crew at Plover: We are Artists with Joyce Dickinson

Beautiful Curation at XP Gateshead

Top of the Blogs

Star Reader Breakfast @ Carcroft School

Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead

Handwriting Superstars @ Plover

Garden Restoration Complete! @ Norton Juniors

Impressive home learning @ Green Top

What is Crew? @ Norton Infants

What a week in Crew MCO/CMO@ XP

Crew Malala getting creative with pledges! @ XP East

G28 Byker Wall Fieldwork

As part of the G28 expedition “Another Brick in the Wall’ which has the guiding question ‘“How are structures important in helping us to explain our world?”, we have organised some Human and art fieldwork to Byker Wall on Monday 18th September. 

The fieldwork has the learning target: I can explain the significance of Byker Wall to the Byker community. 

As part of the visit, students will listen to experts to gain an understanding of the importance of Byker Wall to Newcastle and how it has supported a thriving community. 

Students will be able to build on their experience at I, Daniel Blake by seeing the context in which it was set and develop their understanding of the welfare state further. 

In art, students have been studying artist Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen. Konttinen has photographed the Byker community from the 1970s-2010s capturing the change in landscape. Students will also have the opportunity to work with architects who have renovated the original design. They will also draw inspiration from Byker Wall to inform their own final product piece.

Students will leave at 8.45 from school and return at 3.00pm. Students will need a to bring a packed lunch. If your child receives free school meals we will provide one. Students will need their normal school kit and comfortable shoes. Currently the weather forecast suggests some light rain showers so please make sure your child brings a rain jacket.

Rebecca Jones

Dear Families

We welcomed all of our students into school last week and we are delighted by how they have all settled into school. A Kurt Hahn quote that has continued to resonate with us over these last weeks is

“We are crew not passengers, strengthened by acts of consequential service to others”

We build our culture of crew at XPGateshead so that all members of our school community are impelled to work together as a team, to pitch in, to help others.

We are still getting used to our new bigger site and enjoying new spaces – our new classroom and crew spaces, theatre and larger social spaces. We are really pleased with how well our students are using these spaces and the maturity they show whilst moving around the site.

Last week saw the start of  immersion for all new learning expeditions. Immersion is an opportunity for students to dip their toe into the content of the learning expeditions, to build background knowledge and generate curiosity about the guiding question for the expedition. Guiding questions will be revealed to students this week.

G30’s first week back in school

G30 started their week in Crews unpacking what they learned at Ullswater about ‘What it means to be Crew’ and considering how that is applied back at school. All Crews took time to curate their Outward Bound fieldwork and the individual journeys they had all taken along with the character traits they had demonstrated. They then spent time agreeing their crew norms and what they would look like, sound like and feel like in classrooms. 

All G30 students have resigned our ICT acceptable use agreement, which helps to ensure that students use technology appropriately and most importantly safely. All student iPads have now been delivered and we will be able to ensure that all students are online this week.

Our week ahead 

G30 students (Year 7) 

Students will continue with their immersion this week, thinking about what their guiding question can be having already held coal and considered its importance to the industrial revolution, as well as studying maps to consider how our landscape has changed since the 18th century.

PE sessions take place on Mondays for our Year 7 students so students need a full PE kit on this day.

G29 students (Year 8) 

Our year 8 students have had much deliberation on what their new expedition guiding question could be. This last week they have been learning about Peter Scott-Morgan, a man who defied biology by making more of his body digital after a diagnosis of motor neuron disease. They have been making connections between this, their anchor text – ‘The Curious incident..’ and a gallery walk which focussed on the transatlantic trade in enslaved people.

All will be revealed on Monday morning when there is a G29 expedition launch session. 

There has been a change to the timetable for this week for PE:

  • Class 1 have their PE session on Wednesday so will need their PE kit.
  • Class 2 have their PE session on Thursday so will need their PE kit

G28 students (Year 9) 

After last week’s immersion, which included building structures; 3D modelling; and atomic weapons our year 9 students will discover their new guiding question on Monday.

There is more fieldwork for G28 on Thursday as part of their new learning expedition. We have organised a cultural visit to Northern Stage to see the critically acclaimed ‘I, Daniel Blake’. We are delighted to be able to offer this to our students as tickets are difficult to get hold of. Students will have a slightly early lunch and leave site at 12:30pm to travel by metro to the theatre for the afternoon performance. Students should be back to school by 5pm. Please see the recent post for more details. 

G28 PE sessions take place on Thursday and Friday

  • Class 1 have their PE session on Thursday so will need their PE kit.
  • Class 2 have their PE session on Friday so will need their PE kit.

Making the right start

Punctuality

Can I remind all families that students need to be in school for an 8.30am start to sessions. They must arrive by 8.25am at the latest. There will be staff in school supervising so students can arrive from 8.00 am. The vast majority of our students had perfect punctuality last week but not all of them. Please support us with our high expectation around punctuality to school.

Extended Study 

For the next two weeks we will offer extended study sessions, from 3:15pm – 4:30pm each day apart from Friday when we finish at 3:15pm. These are study sessions where students can get support with their extended study.

Students do not need to book into these sessions, but must stay until the end of the session at 4.30pm.

We will be launching our new lunchtime and after school clubs programme at the end of September.

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].

Thank you as always for your ongoing support.  Together we are stronger #WeAreCrew.

Julie Mosley

G28 I, Daniel Blake Theatre Visit

As part of G28 upcoming expedition which they are currently in immersion for, we have organised a cultural visit to Northern Stage to see the critically acclaimed I, Daniel Blake.

Dan is a carpenter. A Geordie through and through. Just on the mend after a heart attack. Katie has just arrived from London. Finally got a council house for her and the kids. A fresh start.

I, Daniel Blake is one of the most important stories of a generation. A glimpse behind the headlines and the stark reality of what happens when the political system is stacked against you. With 14.5 million* people living in poverty in the UK, this is not fiction. It is reality.

A touching and vital story of how people come together in the face of adversity and how sometimes creating a family to support you just isn’t enough. The show is adapted for stage by Dave Johns who played Daniel Blake in the award winning 2016 film.

*Joseph Rowntree Foundation 2022 Poverty Report.

We feel that it is important for our students to have the experience of visiting a theatre to see a show (something we had to curtail last year).

The show has an age guidance of 14+ as it does explore some sensitive themes. We do feel that our Y9 cohort are mature enough to deal with this. We have consulted with people who have seen the show who have also advised that they think it would be appropriate for a mature Y9 cohort. Also, in the context of the upcoming expedition, exploring the realities of life for people living in our area and how systems that are supposed to support people can in fact let them down is crucial to their engagement with this expedition and our final product. You can view the specific guidance here if you would like to read anymore. Feel free to get in touch if you have any concerns.

This will take place on Thursday 14th September. Students will be having a slightly earlier lunch at 12pm so that we can leave school at 12.30 to travel by metro to Northern Stage. The show begins at 2pm and has a running time of 2 hours including an intermission.

We plan to be back to school by 5pm but we will update the website if this changes. Again, if this is a problem, please get in touch with your child’s crew leader.

Due to allergies within the cohort, students are not to bring any additional drinks or snacks for the performance. They should have their usual water bottle with them that we will ensure is filled before leaving school.

G30 Fieldwork – 21st September 2023

As part of G30’s first expedition of learning students will be taking part in important fieldwork at Beamish Museum in County Durham on Thursday 21st September. 

Students will be required to be at school by no later than 8:25am as usual and we will be leaving school after Crew at 9:15am. We have a later than usual finish and expect to return to school by 4:45pm. 

G30 students will need to bring their usual kit in a backpack:

A filled water bottle, Pencil case including: pens, pencils, ruler, eraser and pencil sharpener, notebook and reading book but will not need to bring their ipad.

They should wear comfortable shoes and bring a waterproof jacket and sun cream depending on the weather. 

A healthy packed lunch will also be needed (this will be supplied by school, for those students who are entitled to a free school lunch, if it is required) and as always we must stress that this should not include nuts, fizzy drinks or energy drinks please.



Sharing our Stories: 08/09/2023

Beautiful Work This Week – Double Edition!

#C30Aberdovey – Our Reflections

Last week our new Year 7s were the 9th cohort of students from XP to head off to the Aberdovey Outward Bound centre to answer the guiding question ‘What does it mean to be Crew?’. These are their reflections after just three days of their secondary school journey…

Orchestra in residence at XP

XP is now the official new home of the Doncaster Youth Jazz Association.

Fifty years ago John Ellis MBE created the Doncaster Youth Jazz Association (DYJA). 

Over the next half century, with three bands and a fourth ensemble made up of alumni, the organisation was to become internationally renowned.

The Doncaster Youth Jazz Orchestra has played at some of the awesome venues in the world, from the Royal Albert Hall to Buckingham Palace, the United Nations in New York to Ronnie Scott’s in London. Always delighting audiences and showcasing the young people of Doncaster’s talent and virtuosity.

Now, after many years at Beckett Road, DYJA are moving into our XP school, which will become their base. Their office, rehearsal and teaching rooms and music library – as well as full band rehearsal space will be here with us at Middle Bank.

Andy, our Chief Academic officer commented:

“We are absolutely delighted, across the XP Trust, that the Doncaster Youth Jazz Association is now based at our founding school, XP.

To support and be associated with an organisation that has travelled the world, sharing its music and the amazing talent of Doncaster’s young musicians, is very exciting and part of our ongoing commitment to the local community.

As we look forward to celebrating 10 years of XP in 2024, this feels like another landmark moment in our story – and we hope this is so for DYJA too as they continue their decades-long journey.”

Charlotte Arrowsmith, Chair of the Board of Trustees added:

“This feels like a new and exciting chapter for us at DYJA as we enter our 51st year. We’re delighted to have moved into XP School – and we’re looking forward to working and creating here, in such an inspiring place.”

#C30Austerfield

Plover’s Colour Run

Acts of Service: C28’s Sine FM Adverts for Moorends Foodbank

X28, X27 and X26 Building Crew

Top of the Blogs

BBK/Chotting @ Carcroft School

Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead

Student Ambassadors – First meeting of the year @ Plover

Stay and Challenge @ Norton Infants

Class 12: Crew Reading @ Green Top

Act of Kindness @ Norton Juniors

XP Outdoors – a (number) minefield! @ XP

Sports Day 2023 Video @ XP East

G30 iPads – After initial setup

After school your child’s iPad behaves exactly like any other iPad. During the day we manage the iPads so that only certain apps are available.

In order to download apps at home that you have agreed your child can have, you will need an Apple ID. If you do not have one, you can find instructions on how to set one up here.

If you have separate Apple ID’s – for example if your child already has an apple device – you can link Apple ID’s in a family sharing group. More info on that can be found here.

Screen time and other parental controls are also available. You can find guides to these here.

For additional protection we recommend that you filter what your children can access at home using your own Wifi. Most hubs for your Wifi at home will have settings that will also restrict content. Log in to your broadband provider account and search for parental controls.

iPad required set up 

Screen protector

The screen protector must be installed to keep the Applecare warranty  on the iPad valid, please do this first to ensure the most successful installation. 

You can follow this written guide or use our instructional video here:

https://youtu.be/Ai-GkrT-Wb4

Don’t unbox the iPad until you are ready to install the screen protector. 

Make sure you have lots of space and a clean dust free  flat surface before you start. 

  1. Remove the screen protector from its case and the iPad from the box.
  2. Take care not to touch the iPad screen before installing the screen protector. 
  3. If any dust particles fall on the screen you can remove them with the stickers in the toolkit.
  4. Very carefully remove the protective film from the screen protector, take care as the screen protector is made of glass. 
  5. Using the paper tab on the protector, remove the plastic protective film protection.
  6. Align the cutout  for the home button and applying a small amount of pressure to the middle of the protector touch it down to the middle of the screen. 
  7. If there are any air bubbles under the protector you can push these to the side using the polishing cloth. 

Installing the iPad in the logitech keyboard case 

This is really nice and easy, open the case from the box, align the camera on the rear to the top right of the case and clip it in.

First time login 

  1. Select English as your language
  2. United Kingdom as your region (this is really important)
  3. Select “Set up Manually” from the bottom of the page
  4. Select your Wi-Fi
  5. Enter the password and tap “join” and then “next”
  6. Wait while the iPad activates (this may take a few minutes)
  7. A screen with the title “Apps & Data” will appear – select “Don’t Transfer Apps & Data”
  8. A new screen will appear with the title “Remote Management” – click “Next”
  9. A page with a login box will appear
  10. Add your username. This is the start of your school email address. So for example if your email is [email protected]

Then then username would be marvin.shed

11. The default password this year is “xpipad2023”

12. The next page will ask you to click to “Enroll this device” tap the blue button

13. The next screen will ask you to “Enable Location Services” please make sure this option is selected. 

14. Your enrolment is now complete and default applications will now start to download.