Dear Parents/Carers

We have come to the end of another full and busy half term and, as always, our whole community have worked together demonstrating courage, respect, craftsmanship and quality, integrity and above all compassion.  

Our students have continued to work hard across this half term and I’m sure that after seeing your child present their Student Led Conference, you would all agree that they continue to be challenged (and supported) to strive for beautiful work.  Thank you all again for your support in SLCs, it is vital that our students share their progress regularly as ‘Leaders of their own Learning’.

It has been a busy final week and here are a couple of highlights:

Our G29 students visited the Gurdwara Siri Guru Singh Sabha on Thursday to find out more about Sikhi and how temples operate as part of their expedition ‘Do your bit’ which includes a focus on the experience of Sikh soldiers. 

As you can see, our students had an amazing experience and we are extremely grateful to Jaswinder Singh who helped to organise the cultural fieldwork so that our students could carry out ‘sewa’, an act of service. 

On Friday our G28 students worked alongside several experts as part of their ongoing expedition ‘What is Power?’. In drama they worked with Christina Berriman Dawson, an acclaimed writer, actor and director who supported students in the preparation for their performance of Macbeth on 30th March.

G28 also continued our work with Alice Roberts and colleagues from Newcastle University around nutrition.

Nature Club also hosted a badger expert who talked to students about the species and the challenges that they face in the wild.

Outside of classrooms, it has been busy with three full days of interviews. I am delighted to say that we have appointed three new teachers to our staff crew:

Rebecca Marshall who joins us as a STEAM teacher (teaching mathematics and some science), Tilda Macphail who joins us as an Arts teacher and Rebecca Jones who joins us as a HUMAN teacher.

We are delighted with our new appointments and look forward to them joining us in June to start their induction with us. 

I think that we can all agree that it’s time now for a well deserved rest!

Have a great half term break and we look forward to seeing all of our students on Monday 20th February. Thank you, as always, for your ongoing support. 

Julie Mosley

Co-Principal

Dear Parents/Carers

Welcome to our final week of this half term.

It has been great to see you all at Student-Led Conferences over the last two weeks and I’m sure that we can all agree that our students have worked really hard since their return to us in January. I have really admired their courage this term along with their craftsmanship and quality and it has been lovely to talk to so many proud students and parents.

This week our G29 students started their second case study in  ‘Do Your Bit’. Having studied the outbreak of war, the second case study is called ‘The call of the Motherland’ which focuses on how the Commonwealth Countries (part of the British Empire at the time) were called upon to help the war effort and how their diverse cultures and religions impacted them on the battlefield.

To kick start the case study, students worked with experts from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and Newcastle University and worked as historians to discover the global scale of the war putting skills they have learned in Computer Science to the test.

Students also engaged with an expert from ‘A Little History of the Sikhs’ who talked to the students about how Sikhi soldier’s faith impacted on them and their battlefield experiences, in advance of the cultural fieldwork to the Gurdwara this week.

G29 also worked with an expert from Newcastle University on nutrition and digestion as part of their STEAM expedition with GQ “Is survival sufficient?”.

Our G28 students continue to work hard on their current expedition ‘What is Power?’ and last week the long awaited cast list for Macbeth was announced. Students will be performing an abridged version of Macbeth as part of their Presentation of Learning. This will be on the evening of Thursday 30th March. More details on this very soon.

This week:

Our usual programme of Extended Study and clubs are running this week with the exception of Chess Club on Thursday lunchtime.

PE sessions

As usual G28 students (Y8) will need a PE kit for Tuesday, G29 students (Y7) will need a PE kit on Wednesday.

Interviews for new staff

Interviews will take place across this week (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday). We have had lots of interest in the advertisement and are really looking forward to meeting the applicants at interview this week. As always, our staff and students are involved in the interviews to ensure we get the best teachers to join XPG Crew as we continue to grow.

LGC Meeting

Our Local Governing Body (LGC) Spring meeting takes place this week on Thursday 9th February.

Half Term and 1:30pm finish on Friday 10th February

Please remember that this is our last week of this half term and as always, we finish early to allow staff to de-gunge and replenish rooms and teaching spaces ready for next half term. 

Thank you for your continued support throughout this half term and we hope everyone has a good holiday. We are looking forward to the next half term where we will continue to work hard on current expeditions and the final products and presentations of learning for these.

As usual if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact your children’s crew leader in the first instance.

Julie Mosley

Co-Principal