We hope you are all enjoying the last week of your Summer holidays and are looking forward to next week’s Outward Bound trip to Ullswater – we are!

Following government guidance on COVID testing, before we head off to Ullswater we are required to test all of our students. To facilitate this we will need to organise a staggered start to the day with earlier start times for some crews. We will need parental consent to test your son/daughter and will post a parental consent form on our website which you will need to complete this week before 5pm on Thursday 26th August.

 

Arrangements for the morning of Tuesday 31st August are as follows:

We will welcome each crew in to school separately with the following timings:

7:45am   Mr Said / Devitt’s Crew

8:00am   Miss Tatters’ Crew

8:15am   Mr Dobson’s Crew

8:30am   Mrs Mosley’s Crew

 

Please park on Swards Road as space for visitors is limited onsite.

Students will be signed in to school at the front gate with Mr Lovatt and their Crew Leader and will leave their parents at that point. 

We are expecting to leave the site by coach for Ullswater between 10.00am – 10:30am once testing is complete.

We acknowledge that this means that parents will not now be able to wave students away on the coach, however this is beyond our control due to the updated government COVID guidelines. We will be posting videos and photographs online regularly, including our departure from school to keep you updated.

 

Safety measures in school during COVID testing

At XPG safety of our students is our top priority so we ask that students wear masks as they enter school and move around the building on that morning. Students will also be socially distanced until negative tests are confirmed.

If your son or daughter does test positive, then we will contact you and you will need to collect them as soon as possible. If a student does test positive, then unfortunately as a safety measure, they would not be able to attend Outward Bound Ullswater and we will provide work for them for the rest of the week.

Reminders

Please remember to bring:

• £10 refundable deposit

• Packed lunch (for the first day only)
• Personal medication (tablets, inhaler, epipen for example) – we will post further instructions on this, this week.
• XPG Transition pack including the artefact and answer to the guiding question

As well as your kit bag!

Please contact [email protected] if you have any questions.

Have a great final week of your holidays, stay safe and we will see you on Tuesday 31st August.

We will use this post to share photographs and video from Ullswater. You can also follow on Twitter by searching for the hashtag #G28Ullswater .

Good morning, we hope that you and children are enjoying the break. It has been great to continue to receive examples of beautiful work, and so lovely to see families supporting each other on the Facebook group too.

Kit for regular school days

Some parents have asked about kit for regular school days. Our dress-code addresses items of clothing but additional essential kit that students will need day-to-day are:

• A school bag that can hold the following:
  • A water bottle
  • A device appropriate for school work – such as the iPads through the school scheme
    • IMPORTANT: Smartphones are not appropriate for school work. Students can bring phones to school but they must be switched off and out of sight during the school day
  • Headphones – ideally not expensive ones, for example here
  • Pencil case including: pens, pencils, ruler, eraser and pencil sharpener

 

Kit for Ullswater – reminder

What to bring…

• £10 refundable deposit
• Packed lunch (for the first day only)
• Personal medication (tablets, inhaler, epipen for example)
• XPG Transition pack including the artefact and answer to the guiding question
• A case or bag with the following:
  • 2 x Dry activity kit: T-shirt (football type material is ideal), hoodie or fleece, tracksuit bottoms, leggings or shorts in warmer weather, 1 pair of old trainers for the dry activities
  • 2 x Wet activity kit: T-shirt (football type material is ideal), shorts, a different pair of old trainers for wet activities
  • 6 pairs of socks (3 pairs of thick hiking type socks or football socks)
  • 6 pairs of underwear
  • Tracksuit bottoms, leggings, hoodies, sweat tops or fleece tops are ideal, (try to avoid sending jeans to use during activities)
  • Sun hat or cap and sun cream
  • Pyjamas
  • Toiletries: toothpaste, toothbrush, shower gel and/or shampoo, deodorant

Useful items but not essential…

• Notepad and pen
• Maximum of £5 for the shop, this is optional

More information on Ullswater can be found on our transition website here.

We will post more information in the coming weeks about arrangements for when you arrive at school on the morning of 31st August, including parking etc. As some of you have seen, work is now underway on the building.

We’re so excited to be able to welcome you to our new school very soon!

If you have any questions, please do continue to contact us at [email protected]

All of the team at XP Gateshead would like to wish our families a great summer. Don’t forget our challenges which are themed on each of our character traits. Keep sending your beautiful work and evidence of your completed challenges to [email protected] .

 

 

Likewise over the summer break our staff members will make sure that we check the [email protected] email account so if you have any questions, please direct them to there rather than to staff emails.

Any further updates will be posted on our school website here.

See you all on Tuesday 31st August!

Good morning G28 parents

Between now and Wednesday of next week, staff will be making contact with you to introduce themselves as Crew Leader for your son or daughter.

It may be that Crew Leaders also need to ask for additional information to be provided if this has not been completed – for example the forms in your welcome packs.

This is another really important moment for our pioneering XPG  students. Crew Leaders will be an advocate for your son or daughter. They will know them very well and ensure that they are supported and challenged to produce beautiful work, develop their character and see academic success.

When we open, Crew Leaders will be your first point of contact with the school. As a family you will get to you know your son or daughter’s Crew Leader very well too.

Please continue to keep an eye on our website for updates. Over the summer holidays, if you have any queries please contact [email protected] as we will continue to pick up emails to this address.

Wishing you a safe and restful summer. See you on 31st August!

From the whole XPG team.

#wearecrew

#wearexpgateshead

#weareg28

We’re looking for a Cleaner/Caretaker to join our Crew here at XP Gateshead – find out more here.

Good morning

A reminder that we will be hosting a video meeting this evening in Google Meet at 6pm. I will email out a reminder with the link this morning too.

During this video meeting we will be able to show video and photographs from the Ullswater site, and will be able to answer your questions about our visit there in our first week of our new school.

Again, if you have not already done so, we do need you to complete a separate participant information form for the visit.

It is important that you complete the form as fully and as honestly as you can as it contains important details such as medical needs.

The form should take around 15-20 minutes to complete.

The form must be completed by Tuesday 20th July please.

The link to fill in the form is here.

Thanks for your continued support. This is the last time that we will meet as a school before our first day on Tuesday August 31st.

We’re continually posting the beautiful work that you send us from the transition packs. Please keep sending on the work that your sons and daughters are proud of. You can click on the image below to go straight to our transition website.

G28

You may have noticed on our transition Google Site the name G28.

This is the name of our new Year 7.

G is for Gateshead.

28 is for 2028. Whilst we are an 11-16 school, our mission is for all students to be on a path to university readiness when they leave us. 2028 is the year that they will be accepted to university, if that is what they choose to do.

In Doncaster we have X28 for XP School’s new Year 7, in XP East it’s E28.

We are G28!

#wearexpgateshead

#wearecrew

---

Beautiful Work

Already we have some beautiful work from students sent as part of their transition work, and some work that they wanted to show that they are proud of. This is lovely to see.

https://sites.google.com/xpgateshead.org/g28-transition-xpg-2021/beautiful-work