On Wednesday 17th May G29 students will undertake a day of Fieldwork at Sunderland Marina collecting scientific data to support the Wild Oyster Project. Students will also carry out surveys at Seaburn and Roker beaches. This will help students to study how the topography of the beach and land around impacts on the way that it is used and valued by people.

Students must be in school by 8.10am at the latest on this morning so that they can be registered before leaving.

We are leaving school by coach at 8.30am.

We expect to return to school between 4.00pm and 4.30pm (please check the website for updates during the day)

Students will need a packed lunch for the day. If your child receives a free school meal, we will provide a packed lunch.

The visit will be outdoors, so students need layers to keep warm. The forecast is dry but a waterproof outdoor coat is needed too. 

Whilst at Sunderland Marina students will be working on the pontoons. Life jackets are provided during this work. Students will also walk from Roker Beach to Seaburn Beach. Comfortable shoes with a decent grip are recommended. 

Students need to bring their regular kit for the day in a bag as there are exhibits in the site where students can take photographs and make notes using iPads for example.

The Wild Oyster Project have asked permission to take photographs. Permission slips have been issued. Please return them to Mr Mead at school.

Beautiful Work This Week

A Christmas Carol: Year 11 Study Guide for GCSE – created by Year 11 at XP!

Students at XP in Year 11 have been preparing for their GCSE English Literature Exam studying a range of different texts. One of these was A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. 

As we learn predominantly through Learning Expeditions at XP Trust, students embarked on a Humanities based expedition entitled Is Charity Enough? Students studied A Christmas Carol whilst considering the work they had completed, and were continuing to study, as part of their GCSE History in the thematic module Health and Medicine through the Ages. Students focussed on A Christmas Carol considering what life was like particularly social conditions at the time the novella was written.

Students then began a detailed study of the Dickens classic by reading and writing about characters, themes and the intent of the novella. This was the foundation for the study guide that includes this content as well as beautiful artwork, interviews with Lucinda Hawksley (the Great Great Great Granddaughter of Dickens himself) as well as curators from the Dickens museum in London.

The result of this work is a fantastic guide for the students to use to help them in their GCSE revision as well as a beautiful product that reflects the students authentic voice and deep engagement with the text. However, this guide isn’t just for our students and their studies  – it’s available to everyone studying A Christmas Carol at GCSE, as well as anyone else with a keen interest in Dickens!

You can buy your copy of the guide here!

All students in X25 were given a copy of the guide and further copies can be purchased through our website.

Beautiful Curation at Norton Campus!

Doncaster Minster – E27 Ethics

Top of the Blogs

LKS2 Recount Writing @ Carcroft School

Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead

Investigating tectonic plates @ Norton Juniors

Year 8 Spanish fashion topic @ XP

Our Coronation crown winners @ Plover

Celebration Crew @ Norton Infants

C27 Visit to York Chocolate Story @ XP East

Green Top Winners! @ Green Top

Dear Families

As you know, we put out a consultation to families about our term dates for the next two academic years.

We received 78 responses to our consultation, 36 from G29 families, 39 from G28 families and 2 from our new G30 families. These are shown here:

 

Thank you to those parents who shared details about the challenges they faced when our holiday dates have not lined up with Gateshead schools. It was very sobering to read how some parents have had to take unpaid leave from work to cope with mismatched holidays and how difficult some families were finding not having holiday time together. Some families shared the frustrations of their children being unable to spend time with friends from other schools during holidays or join local holiday clubs when term dates did not align.

In light of this consultation we have decided that, from the next academic year (2023/2024), we will better align our holiday dates with Gateshead Schools where possible. This means we will commit to changing our half term holiday breaks to align with other Gateshead schools. Please see our new XP Gateshead holidays in the diagrams at the bottom of this post.

As stated, there are some holiday dates that we cannot change – Christmas, Easter, Summer – this is due to the set length of term time we need for our expeditions. All XP Trust schools keep the Easter break in the same position to maintain the usual length of the term, around which we plan the content and calendars for the Spring and Summer learning expeditions. 

We appreciate that changing dates at this stage may affect some families with holidays booked. We will honour these holiday dates and authorise any absence. Please contact us at [email protected] if you are in this situation.

So, for the next two years, our calendars are shown below. As soon as Gateshead LEA release 2025/26 term dates we will publish ours for 2025/26 with alignment of half term holiday breaks.

 

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch at [email protected]. 

Thank you as always for your support.

Julie Mosley

Co-Principal

It’s @ELeducation‘s #BetterWorldDay! Here’s a beautiful example of how the community at Plover School are stepping up and doing their bit to make the world a better place with their Plover Pantry food bank.

Year 7 students at XP Gateshead carried out a day of fundraising! Working together in Crews, our students carried 5 litre bottles of water around as many laps of the 400m track as they could…

Be sure to follow #BetterWorldDay on Twitter to see schools around the world sharing their stories!

Here’s a selection of beautiful work from across our Trust this week!

For more stories, make sure you visit http://xptrust.org/stories #WeAreCrew

Dear Families

As some of you may know, Mr Devitt is completing his training to be a PE teacher this year. For part of this training, he needs to have experience of Key Stage 4 so is undertaking a 20 day placement in Castleview Enterprise Academy. 

We have been lucky enough to secure support from XP Doncaster and a member of their PE team, Mr Currie, is going to work with our students for one day a week over the next four weeks. Mr Currie is an experienced PE teacher who teaches across both XP secondary schools in Doncaster so understands our culture and ethos. He will be leading PE sessions with each of our classes.

During this time, our students will get one hour of PE each week. Our next Crew Day, which will take place at the end of June, will be focused on physical exercise and getting active so we will ensure that our students get PE time.

Mr Devitt is also a Crew Leader to Crew Parks in Year 8. Mr Said will be covering this Crew with support from Miss Pegg. Both of these staff know the students in Crew Parks really well and will continue to provide the level of pastoral care and attention that Mr Devitt did.

On a final note, Mr Devitt and his team mates at Hebburn Town FC lifted the Durham Challenge Cup on Wednesday evening to the delight of local fans. 

Congratulations to Mr Devitt and all at Hebburn Town FC!

Dear Families

Just to bring you up to date on current plans for our school building. Discussion on a permanent home for XP Gateshead is ongoing between the Local Authority (LA) and the Department for Education (DfE) however it is likely that we will continue to remain on our current site for at least the next two years. The plan is currently that after this time we will move into a purpose-built and brand new school building on a location close to our current site.

In the meantime we continue to grow as a school and over the next two years will welcome another two year groups into the XP Gateshead family. To accommodate the additional numbers of pupils we are working closely with the DFE and the LA and are expanding into rooms in the larger building next door. Work will begin soon to ensure these rooms are ready for September 2023 and we will have fully specialist spaces including Science labs and Design Technology areas. We will continue to make use of existing grounds and the sports hall and will be utilising the larger dining area in the main building atrium at lunch and break times. We will have access to a large performance area just off the atrium in the main building. 

We will be taking steps to ensure that any work on site is not disruptive to our students’ learning and we will continue to update you as this work progresses.

Mark Lovatt

Co-Principal

Dear Families

From September I will be taking up a new role working across XP Trust. As a result of this Mrs Mosley will take over as Principal and as you know we have been working closely together this year to ensure the transition is as smooth as possible. I will continue to support leadership at XP Gateshead as the school grows in size and will continue to be in school on a regular basis. In addition I will be working closely with the Trust CEO, Gwyn Ap Harri, and XP University, on developing high impact models of teaching and learning and  also on curriculum planning for high performance.

It has been the privilege of my life to be the founding Principal of XP Gateshead and I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for all your support over the last couple of years. I look forward to checking in on the school as we continue to thrive and to catching up with the pupils on what will be my frequent visits to the school next year.

I am also looking forward to working with XP Trust in a more central role and supporting the work of XP Trust as it continues to develop.

Mark Lovatt

Co-Principal

Find out more and apply here to #JoinOurCrew