Dear Parents/Guardians

Welcome to another week at XP Gateshead

Expeditions

DO YOUR BIT – Presentation of Learning

Students are currently working hard on their final product for their expedition “Do your bit” as they build towards their Presentation of Learning to answer the guiding question “Why is it important we honour all those that sacrificed in WWI?”. This will be held at Newcastle University on Thursday 31st March at 6pm.

If you have not already done so, please complete this Google Form to indicate how many family members you will be bringing to the Presentation of Learning.

STAYING ALIVE

In “Staying Alive” students will complete their second case study which is about keeping warm, which is particularly topical in light of recent rises in fuel prices and heating bills. We will then begin case study three. Case study three is about access to clean water, again which is particularly relevant with recent stories in the press about sewage in our national rivers. Students will be learning to separate mixtures and will attempt to produce clean water from a mixture of sand and salty water by filtration, evaporation and condensation.

In both case studies we will be able to make connections to what many in Ukraine are enduring at the moment. These case studies are designed to help students to answer teh guiding question “Is survival sufficient?”.

The final product for this expedition will take place in the week after the easter break and I am delighted to announce that we will be working with the local community based Charity, Edberts House, to donate ingredients/recipe boxes that our students will create.

There will be more information about our ‘fight food poverty’ recipes soon, as we hope to encourage parents and children to try some of the recipes – watch this space.

Crew

In crew this week students will continue to research suitable people after whom to name their crews. These will be people who have achieved great things and who display our character traits of courage, integrity, respect, craftsmanship and quality, and above all compassion. Students will research and present possible contenders to the rest of their crew who will decide on their crew name. Among names I have heard students mention so far are – Zelensky, Marie Curie, Malala Yousafzai, and Kurt Hahn. Crew presentations and student voting will take place after Easter and we will let you know what students decide.

Robotics

Considering the short amount of time that our students have had their robotics kit, we are so proud of their efforts and achievements. In particular it was wonderful to hear of the way that they communicated with teams from other schools to agree strategies for the team challenges in the afternoon. At one point we were riding high in 7th place overall but in the end our students came 13th out of 16 entries. Look out NISSAN and Sunderland though because next year – “We’ll be back”.

HoWLs

This week teachers will be reviewing student Habits Of Work and Learning (HoWLs) as we update assessment information based on the learning behaviours in their lessons and communicate with students how well they are working hard, getting smart and being kind.

Staffing updates

From September 2022 and throughout the next year it will be unavoidable that some of my time is taken up preparing for our move into our permanent building in September 2023. As chunks of my time will be taken up working with the Department for Education, Architects and builders, the Trust have asked Mrs Mosley to share some of the Headteacher roles and functions. For this reason from next year we will operate a co-headship model with myself and Mrs Mosley sharing the role between us. Mrs Mosley will focus largely on continuing to develop staff and student crew and I will focus mainly on school strategy and performance. This change will take place from September 2022 and we will release more details about how this will work in practice later in the academic year.

Extended Study and after school clubs

• Extended Study and after school clubs will be running as normal this week.
• MONDAy: Extended study
• TUESDAY: Extended Study
• WEDNESDAY: Extended Study
• THURSDAY: Sports / Extended Study / Minecraft

Lateral Flow Testing

Please complete these this evening, and again on Wednesday.

COVID infections are still high in the community and rising again. Given our scale, an asymptomatic case in school could cause issues if it were to spread, for example in terms of being able to staff the school. Please continue to support us with lateral flow testing each Sunday and Wednesday evening and make sure you enter results into our website on each of these occasions.

We really do appreciate your support. Timely completion of the Google Form is really helpful to us. If you can imagine, at 8.25 once all students have arrived, if there are a number of students that need to be tested this has an immediate impact on our staffing and also means that students miss part of Crew, which is such an important start to the day.

Now that the government has decided to remove the wearing of face coverings as one of the mitigation measures in schools, we are happy for students (and staff) to continue wearing masks if they feel more comfortable doing so. 

If you require any extra LFT kits please let us know. 

We will continue to keep doors and windows open for ventilation so students are advised to bring multiple layers to school to keep warm. This is how we look after each other – #wearecrew

Calendar dates

Our calendar can be found here.

As usual if you have any questions please get in touch with your child’s crew leader in the first instance.

 

Best wishes

Mark Lovatt

Principal

 

Dear Parents/Guardians

Monday 14th March is a staff development day and students return to school on Tuesday 15th March at the normal time.

Accelerated Reader

Students this week will begin to choose books from our recently launched Accelerated Reader platform. This is part of our reading strategy at XP Gateshead and students have already completed a baseline assessment which will be used to steer children towards the most suitable books to support and challenge their reading. Accelerated Reader tracks what students are reading and Crew Leaders use this to ensure that students develop as readers.

Learning Expeditions

Students will also continue with their expeditions – in Staying Alive, they will begin case study two and consider the importance of staying warm, different energy stores, insulation and how heat energy transfers through conduction, convection and radiation. In Do Your Bit students are beginning to work on their final product and we would encourage you to talk to your children about this. We will have details on the Presentation of Learning very soon.

Next Expedition planning 

During our staff development days we have been working to plan and resource our next learning expedition – Top secret ! (That’s not what it’s called by the way, we’re just not telling anyone what it’s about yet). Students will begin this expedition after our Easter break.

Robotics

Students will be entering their robot for the Robotics competition on Wednesday of this week and will make their own way to the competition. Mr Said has been in touch with parents about arrangements for the day but as a reminder:

 

• 8.30 – 9:15 Teams arrive at NISSAN Sports Complex
• 16:30 – Teams ready for collection

Good luck to our students! They have worked so hard developing our inaugural XP Gateshead entry, including building the robot from scratch, building the practice field and coding and testing the robot in a virtual environment. Also we’d like to give a special appreciation to Dr Steve Bunce who has been working with the students as part of their Common Mission time each week. There will be many experienced teams at the competition so this will be a great learning experience for our students.

Student Assessment Information and reflective narratives

Families have now received their child’s report containing information on attendance, academic progress and HOWLs. You will also have received a second document with your child’s reflective narrative describing their own learning journey and containing comments from their crew leader. Please let your child’s crew leader know in the first instance if you have any questions or wish to follow anything up.

Extended Study and after school clubs

Extended Study and after school clubs will be running as normal this week.

• TUESDAY: Extended Study
• WEDNESDAY: Extended Study
• THURSDAY: Sports / Extended Study / Minecraft

Lateral Flow Testing

Please complete these on Monday evening this week  in readiness for return to school on Tuesday 15th.

COVID infections are still high in the community and rising again. Given our scale, an asymptomatic case in school could cause issues if it were to spread, for example in terms of being able to staff the school. Please continue to support us with lateral flow testing each Sunday and Wednesday evening and make sure you enter results into our website on each of these occasions.

Now that the government has decided to remove the wearing of face coverings as one of the mitigation measures in schools, we are happy for students (and staff) to continue wearing masks if they feel more comfortable doing so. 

If you require any extra LFT kits please let us know. 

We will continue to keep doors and windows open for ventilation so students are advised to bring multiple layers to school to keep warm. This is how we look after each other – #wearecrew

Safeguarding Review

Thank you to our parents for your fantastic support and overwhelming positive feedback in response to our safeguarding review – some of the comments literally brought tears to our eyes. We also received a very positive report from the Trust team and as ever will be using any feedback we received to do even more to ensure our students are safe and happy at XP Gateshead.

Calendar dates

Our calendar can be found here.

As usual if you have any questions please get in touch with your child’s crew leader in the first instance.

 

Best wishes

Mark Lovatt

Principal