Sharing our Stories: 21/07/2023

21st July 2023Geoff Hewitt

Beautiful Work This Week

G29: From The Ground Up – launch at Seven Stories!

G29 Students at XP Gateshead launched their book ‘From The Ground Up’ which answered the guiding question ‘What do the communities of North East England owe to the miners?’ at Seven Stories in Newcastle!

They also celebrated all of their beautiful work from their first year at XPG – you can view a collection of it here!

Plover’s Mining Gala

Year 5 and 6 Students at Plover School launched their awesome new Poetry Anthology ‘At the Coalface’ at a Mining Gala they hosted for their local community – beautiful work!

Beautiful Curation at XP Gateshead

Plover Early Years: Transport Day

Celebrating Success at Green Top

Over 5 years ago Miss Stewart and Miss O’Neill started their journey with us at Green Top as apprentices.  They then progressed and secured Learning Coach positions whilst studying towards a degree in Education.  Over the last two years they have both completed their degree and qualified as teachers!  We are so unbelievably proud of them both and grateful that we were a part of their special journey.  Sadly we didn’t have any teaching positions for them at Green Top so they have secured teaching positions in other schools.  Again, we are so, so proud of them!  We wish them both lots of luck in their new schools and know that they will be wonderful teachers inspiring many children in the future!

School Cook retires after 30 years at Green Top

This year we say goodbye to Sue, one of our school cooks.  She has been looking after us all for 30 years and we will be sad to see her leave!

We presented Sue with flowers and gifts today and celebrated her time at Green Top!

Good Luck Sue!

XP Students gift their gorgeous terrariums to care homes in Doncaster

Year 9 students from XP and XP East gifted 30 terrariums they created for the residents of the Oaklands Care home this week. The home on Bawtry Road was delighted to accept the miniature indoor gardens, which the residents will look after and keep.

Darren the Oaklands manager is pictured here accepting the terrariums – all of which are low maintenance and were happily handed over to residents.

Ed Miliband praises XPCC23

Ed Miliband shared an update from his Facebook page about XPCC23, praising students for their awesome work and involvement in the conference.

Top of the Blogs

Pizza Party! @ Carcroft School

Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead

Red Carpet Celebrations @ Plover

Final Word @ Norton Infants

Products at the Picnic @ Green Top

Ahoy there, Shakespeare? @ Norton Juniors

Year 10’s Final Year Group Community Meeting @ XP

Jeff’s Law – exciting Expeditions on the horizon! @ XP Comms

Thank you for joining us for another great year of beautiful work and stories from across the XP Trust – we hope you have a wonderful summer!

We’ll see you in September!

XP Comms Crew

G29: Purchasing a book this evening

By Martin Said18th July 2023

We are very excited for our Celebration of Learning at Seven Stories this evening – which includes the launch of your children’s first book – From the Ground Up.

The book will eventually be on sale in the store at Seven Stories for members of the public to buy. For tonight, it will be £10 cash if you would like to purchase a book as we will be selling these directly from the school’s stock.

We look forward to seeing you this evening!

G28 Celebration of Learning

By Martin Said18th July 2023

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.

G29 Celebration of Learning Tomorrow – Confirm attendance and any accessibility issues.

By Martin Said17th July 2023

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.

TRANSITION: XPG Instrumental Music Lessons – Expression of Interest

By Martin Said17th July 2023

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.

  • Option 1: Individual lessons are 1:1 tuition and we ask for at least £100 per set of 12. (£300 per year)
  • Option 2: Small group lessons are with one or more other students and we ask for at least £75 per set. (£225 per year)

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.

Gateshead Music Service operate on a financial year basis from April to April. Once we have your responses to this form, we would then work with the service to check capacity in the service and get back to you when we can finalise the provision for your child.

Weekly update for families – W/C Monday 17th July 2023

By Julie Mosley16th July 2023

Dear Families

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.

If it’s good enough for our students…

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. 

Personalised research projects

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.

More migrant experts interviewed…

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.

Crew Day Sports

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.

This week

PE sessions

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.

Extended Study and clubs

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.

G29 Celebration of learning at Seven Stories in Newcastle, Tuesday 18th July at 6pm

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.

G28’s Celebration of Learning at XP Gateshead, Thursday 20th July at 6pm

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.

End of year reflections from students, Crew leaders and updated snapshots

Towards the end of this week, parents will receive a final progress update and review of the year from their child and Crew leader.

Friday 21st July – Last day of term

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

Sharing our Stories: 14/07/2023

14th July 2023Geoff Hewitt

Beautiful Work This Week

XPCC23

“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. 

A Visit to the Dickens Museum

C29 Edale Fieldwork

Top of the Blogs

Crew Marsh Transition @ Carcroft School

Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead

Crew 5&6 are loving XP Outdoors @ Plover

Sports Day Fun @ Norton Infants

Y6 Leavers Party @ Green Top

Glorious Sports Day @ Norton Juniors

iPad Parental Contribution Scheme 2023

By Martin Said11th July 2023

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.

The iPad scheme for September 2023 includes:

  • An iPad 9th Generation
  • A logitech keyboard and trackpad
  • AppleCare + for two years 
  • Jamf – (device management and security)
  • A glass screen protector

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:

  • Apple Pencil – Touch sensitive
  • Skriva – Not touch sensitive but does shade on the angle of the nib. 

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.

Cost of the scheme

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.

  • £12.53 per month for 36 months (£2.89 a week)
  • £18.79 per month for 24 months (£4.44 a week)
  • Pay the balance at any time within three years at comfortable amounts for your circumstances.
  • Speak with your child’s Crew Leader if you need financial support with this.

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.

Weekly update for families – W/C Monday 10th July 2023

By Julie Mosley9th July 2023

Dear Families

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. 

This week

Assessments

Our students continue to complete  assessments in sessions this week. This follows extended study revision tasks and preparation in sessions.

PE 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:

  • Monday PE sessions for Y8 Class 1
  • Tuesday PE sessions for Y8 Class 2
  • Wednesday PE sessions for both Y7 classes

Extended Study and clubs

Extended Study and clubs are running after school this week. 

G28 working with experts

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.

Mental Health First Aid Training for our new staff 

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.

Crew Day, Friday 14th July

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.

Looking Ahead:

Tuesday 18th July at 6pm

G29’s Celebration of Learning at Seven Stories in Newcastle. .

Thursday 20th July at 6pm

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

Upcoming Celebrations of Learning for G29 and G28

By Martin Said7th July 2023

G29 Celebration of Learning

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:

  • The launch of their book ‘From the Ground up’
  • Articles written to promote conservation of important local species
  • Students’ radio play inspired by sacrifice in World War I
  • The film of students’ presentation at King’s Hall

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 Celebration of Learning

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.

Formal occasions

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.