Dear Parents/Carers

We’ve had a great first week back and our students have quickly got back into ‘work mode’ after their Christmas break. Thank you for the part you played in this – our students were fully equipped, on time and ready to go.

SLC Preparation and focus on HoWLs

A big focus for students this term is acting on the pledges they made after their first information snapshots and getting prepared for their Student-Led Conference. G29 students have spent time in Crew this week looking at what a quality SLC looks like and how they work towards this. Leading a 20 minute SLC is a big challenge and our students will be working to get their portfolios and scripts ready supporting each other in Crew and beyond. Our Year 8 students who have experienced SLCs have already offered their time to support Year 7 students with this work. You will be receiving an SLC invitation email from your child and find out how to book your SLC slot this week.

Immersion for new expeditions

Last week our students were immersed in their new expeditions for this term and were working hard to find out what their new guiding questions are.

In STEAM, G29 students have been reading a text called Station 11, set in a post-apocalyptic world where daily life is dangerous and challenging. Even so, there are still people travelling in caravans performing Shakespeare. They have also been investigating a range of apparently different stimulus materials including Marcus Rashford’s campaign for free school meals during the pandemic, inter-community and intra-community behaviours in primates and access to potable water in low economic status countries.

In HUMAN, G29 students have been exploring the historical British Empire, analysing the poem Salt by Trinidadian poet Anthony Joseph about the call to arms across the Empire in WWI. They have also been taking part in a gallery walk with images from 1914-1918 as well as family artefacts brought in by Mrs Downson from over a hundred years ago.

G28 students have been studying a modern prose, abridged version of Macbeth as an introduction to the plot and characters. They have also been studying how natural hazards can become disasters and had to attempt to develop an area of land prior to a natural hazard to protect as much life and infrastructure as possible. They have also been studying chemical changes, paying particular attention to the characteristics of the products in comparison to the reactants, and observing the reaction closely. Across G28 they have agreed that this is the most difficult they have found it to agree on the connections between the disciplines and how they could cohere to become and guiding question and expedition. Some students are very close in their predictions though!

The immersion activities above are a launch for our new expeditions, which aim to develop curiosity and build background knowledge about the content to be studied during the expeditions.

The big reveals will take place tomorrow; students will learn their guiding questions along with the big picture of their expeditions including the case studies, final products and crew reads which will support the expedition.

This coming week:

Pledges

Students will continue to collect evidence in sessions around their pledges they made after reflecting upon their snapshots last term. It would be great if you could talk to your child about their pledges and the progress they are making towards these.

Reading

As you know, as part of our reading strategy at XPG, we expect all students to read between 20 and 30 minutes every day. We do use some time in Crew at the start of the day for reading but students do need to be reading their AR (Accelerated Reader) book as part of their daily extended study too. Please encourage your child to read on a daily basis: talk to them about their current AR book and how they are progressing with it. Contact Crew Leaders if there are any issues or further support needed.

New ‘Crew Reads’ will be launched over the next two weeks. In the past students have read books that connect to their expeditions such as ‘Show us who you are’ last term in G28 which helped students to consider neurodiversity when thinking about what makes us human, and in G29 students read ‘Seedfolks’ – set in a community garden in Cleveland, Ohio – which showed how people from different walks of life can come together to form a community when they have a common goal or mission – just as the Dulais Miners in Wales and London’s lesbian and gay community did during the 1984 Miners’ Strike.

Our new Crew Reads  will be read and enjoyed by Crew during ‘Tranquil Tuesday’ morning sessions and will likewise support the new expeditions’ themes and build our students’ background knowledge and vocabulary. 

PE sessions

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

Dress code reminder

At XP we do not have a school uniform however we do have a dress code which asks students and staff to dress appropriately and modestly. See the link here for details on dress code from our website.

There is always going to be ambiguity with a dress code rather than a specific uniform,  so we do list items which we do not think it appropriate or recommend that students wear which included:

• Noticeable make-up, including false eyelashes
• Valuable, sentimental or impractical jewellery
• False nails
• Revealing clothing, i.e. crop tops, transparent leggings

I’ve included these items in particular here as we have had to give a few students reminders of appropriate dress this week.  I am sure that, as parents and carers, you will support us when we say that school clothing should be warm, comfortable and safe. If you have any questions about this please speak to your child’s Crew Leader.

Dates for your diary

Staff Days

A reminder that we have two staff development days this half term; Friday 20th and Monday 23rd January. 

Term Dates 2022/23

See link here for this year’s term dates. 

As usual, thank you for your ongoing support. Please get in touch with your child’s Crew Leader if you have any questions.

Julie Mosley

Co-Principal

XP Gateshead

Dear Parents/Carers

Happy 2023! We hope you have had a great Christmas and a safe and restful New Year. We are looking forward to welcoming students back tomorrow to the start of our new term at XP Gateshead.

Getting a good start…

Punctuality

School opens at 8:00am every morning. Students should arrive between 8:00am and 8:25 am and there are spaces available for socialising, reading or completing extended study. Students must be on site for 8.25am for the call to Crew. A calm start to the day is really important for students to settle into learning so we ask that parents support their child with this.

Daily kit list

As always, students need to bring a school bag with:

• A filled water bottle
• Pencil case including: pens, pencils, ruler, eraser and pencil sharpener
• A fully charged iPad 
• Their AR reading book (please remember that as part of our reading strategy, we expect all students to read between 20-30 mins. each day)
• Headphones 
• A healthy snack for break (no confectionery (sweets), fizzy drinks or energy drinks, nut products)
• A notebook

PE sessions

There are timetable changes for PE this week as there is no PE on the first day back.

• G28 students (Y8) will need their PE kit for Wednesday this week.
• G29 students (Y7) will need PE kit on Thursday this week.

Extended Study and Clubs

Clubs will all run this week along with extended study sessions every day except Friday. As usual, if a student attends an after school club or extended study session they must attend the full sessions until 4:30pm.

New Term – New Expeditions

A new term means new and exciting expeditions for our students. Immersion takes place this week and our students will be working hard to find out what their new guiding questions are and the challenges and new learning their expeditions will bring. 

Curriculum Updates 

There are some curriculum changes which continue to give our students a breadth and depth of experience at key stage 3. 

G29 are studying two new expeditions. As part of their studies for their new HUMAN and ARTS expedition, G28 will be continuing with drama with a new text and also studying computer science to help them to organise and analyse data from an expert.

G29 also have a new STEAM expedition which will include some food technology and a really great final product that will have an impact on our local community.

G28 are studying one new expedition that combines HUMAN, STEAM and ARTS. This will include some really challenging drama and music, both of which will be instrumental to their final product and presentation of learning.

Student-Led Conferences

SLCs (Student-Led Conferences) replace the conventional parents’ evenings at XP Gateshead. During an SLC, your son or daughter will share their learning with you and their crew leader. You will have an opportunity to look at work from their portfolio and ask questions about their HoWLs (Habits of Work and Learning) and AP grades (Academic Progress) .

These SLCs will take place this term in the two weeks commencing 24th January. In the coming weeks you will receive an SLC invite from your son or daughter’s crew leader.  

Over the coming weeks students will be working hard on their pledges and HOWLs in sessions. They will share their progress with you during the SLC and you will be able to ask questions around these. 

Staff Days

A reminder that we have two staff development days this half term; Friday 20th and Monday 23rd January. As normal, students are not expected to be in school on these days.

As usual if you have any questions please contact your child’s crew leader in the first instance. Thank you as always for your ongoing support.

Julie Mosley

Co-principal

Dear Parents/Guardians

What a fantastic week we had last week as our G28 students presented their learning to an audience of their parents and talked about their work in more detail sharing connections they made between different subjects in their expedition “Being Human”. Students were attempting to answer the age-old question – ‘What does it mean to be human?’ and I have to say I was blown away by the quality of their presentations and their work. Thank you to all of our parents for attending and helping to make this such a special evening.

Feedback from parents was overwhelmingly positive and some praises from parents who attended G28 POL were as follows:

“Impressed at the deep level of understanding, compassion, and appreciation.”; “praise the confidence of pupils”;  “impressed by student confidence and the way they presented their knowledge – shows real listening and progress in school”; “the confidence of all the students is astounding – it takes real courage to talk to an audience”; and “the depth of knowledge and thinking is wonderful”

This week

G29 PoL (Presentation of Learning) – Monday 12th December – live streaming event

This coming week we are equally excited about G29’s very first presentation of learning which will be live streamed on Monday evening. This is the culmination of G29’s very first expedition – From the ground Up and students will be answering the guiding Question – ‘What do communities of North East England owe to the miners?’ Our students have been working very hard on preparing for this and we are all excited to see the results.

You can join the live stream by clicking on this link on Monday Evening at 5.30pm.

Clubs and extended study

Please note that there will be no after school clubs or extended study on Monday 12th December because of the G29 PoL however clubs and extended study will be running as normal throughout the rest of the week

PE this week

We apologise for the short notice, but there has been a change that means we need to move PE sessions for this week.

Year 8 this week will be tomorrow: Monday.

Year 7 will have their PE sessions on Tuesday this week.

Early finish this Friday 16th December

Just a reminder to parents that students will be finishing early this Friday. They will be registered after lunch in crew rooms and then will leave school at 1.30pm. This is to allow staff to “de-gunge” and prepare for the start of next term.

Return to School on Tuesday 3rd January

students will be returning to school on Tuesday 3rd January at the normal time and we look forward to seeing our students again in January and starting some new expeditions.

Thank you

Thank you to all our parents and guardians for your ongoing support and trust. We are delighted with the progress your children are making in terms of their beautiful work, character growth and academic success – and know that we will continue to go from strength to strength in the new year. From all at XP Gateshead please have a Happy Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year. 

Best wishes

Mark Lovatt

Co-principal

Dear Parents/Carers

It is a bumper update this week with lots of information on:

• Our ongoing and exciting work in school
• Upcoming presentations of learning
• Reverse advent – student activism at Christmas

We are moving towards some really important and exciting times in our diary with Presentations of Learning for both G28 and G29 in the next two weeks.

Our students are working hard on their final products and preparing their responses to the guiding questions that they have been exploring all term. We cannot wait for them to share their beautiful work with you and know that as always they will impress with their compassion in supporting each other in the coming weeks, and the courage they will show when presenting their learning to the community. 

Our G29 students had a great fieldwork visit on Tuesday to meet interview members of the Northumberland mining community. This was the first time our year 7 students had carried out oral history interviews and they did a fantastic job. Experts were delighted that young people were so interested in their stories and moved that our students would go on to tell their stories in their final product – a book which will be published in the New Year. Particular praise was given to Peyton, Fallyn and Harry M for their enthusiasm, questions and sensitivity to their experts.

Some of our students enjoyed additional fieldwork at Woodhorn Colliery and the community around Burradon to carry out primary research on the pits in these communities. Connor, Nathan, Ryan, Braydon and Joe were all fantastically engaged and now have lots more information to include in their histories of these pits. A big appreciation was given to Braydon too, who had taken lots of photographs and shared these with his group on return to school to make sure that everyone was well-prepared to start writing.

And so, back in school, Year 7 have been writing up their interviews and these will form part of our final book alongside with histories of local pits. The quality of listening and note taking has really paid off and supported the drafting of their work for their book.

On Thursday, G28 had the privilege of spending time with the inspirational Luke Wigman ,who shared his response to our guiding question ‘What does it mean to be Human?’ Luke is a former RAF military serviceman and was part of an elite special operations unit until an injury during a tour of duty changed his life forever. After being medically discharged, Luke went on to become an international sportsman whose plaudits include:

• North Pole Marathon- Runner-Up- 2014.
• London Invictus Games – 1500m gold medalist – 2014
• Sports Personality of the Year Awards- Winner of the Helen Rollason Award- 2014
• Pride of Britain Awards- Special Recognition Award for GB Invictus Team- 2014

Luke was particularly impressed by the depth of our students’ questions and discussed with them how the simple things in life are often taken for granted and how he views the gift of our humanity, and how adversity can be a fuel that drives us on to fulfil our dreams.

Our clubs have continued to run this term. We are really pleased with the number of our students who have made a regular commitment to extended study or an after school club.

Student activism in the run up to Christmas:Charity initiatives

We are carrying out reverse advent in both Year 7 and Year 8 across all Crews, but a special appreciation to Crew KDO and Crew Frank (MRS) for coordinating our work. Any donations for these charities will be gratefully received, but it is by no means an expectation.

Year 7 Reverse Advent – Led by Crew KDO

Tomorrow sees the launch of Year 7’s ‘Reverse Advent’ collection on behalf of Gateshead Foodbank. This will run until Monday 12th December and is being organised by Crew KDO. Year 7 students will be able to access the full food bank list after tomorrow’s launch but everyday items on the list include tinned foods, dried pasta/rice/noodles, pasta sauces, UHT milk and biscuits. Gateshead Foodbank are also accepting donations for their Christmas Hampers, which include foods like tinned ham, shortbread, luxury biscuits, savoury crackers, tubs of sweets and selection boxes. Any donation really helps. Thank you in advance, Crew KDO.

Year 8 Reverse Advent – Led by Crew Frank (MRS)

Sr Josepha, an expert from our current expedition does a lot to support Bethany City Church in Sunderland and the St Vincent de Paul Society in Newcastle with their advent appeals. These appeals ensure that children and the elderly who would be unlikely to receive gifts this Christmas do indeed get one. As a thank you for the kindness of giving her time to support the learning of our students, our Year 8 crews will be putting together at least one shoebox full of small gifts that will make a huge difference to someone struggling this Christmas.

The types of families and people who benefit are those who are seeking asylum due to war or persecution in their own country, those who have had to flee domestic abuse and elderly people who are alone with no families this Christmas. So as well as receiving a small sweet treat from a crew Christmas advent we are asking our year 8 students to give something and give their time this advent in so that they work together as a crew and be activists this festive season. Crews may have already decided the age group for their shoebox/shoeboxes. Students should start to bring in things for their shoebox this week and early next week where they are able to.

This week:

G28 YEAR 8 Presentation of Learning – What does it mean to be Human?

On Thursday 8th December at 5:30pm, our Year 8 students will share their expedition work with parents and carers. This will be the first in-person PoL to take place in our school and we ask families to arrive from 5.20pm. We expect to be finished by 7pm.

Where possible if you could limit the number of adults attending to two, this would be much appreciated.

As was discussed at our very first meetings with families at the end of Year 6, it is an expectation that all students have at least one family member attend every presentation of learning.

YEAR 8 Parents: Please confirm your attendance by completing this Google Form.

G29 get ready for their Presentation of Learning

This week students will be preparing for their very first presentation of learning which will be live steamed via Youtube in our final week: Monday 12th December at 5.30pm. The link to join the stream will be shared in next week’s family update.

We discussed in our community meeting this week how brilliant we know your children will be and how students will need to show lots of compassion in supporting each other to show craftsmanship and quality in completing their work to the best of their ability, and to show the courage to present to the community.

During these coming weeks, students will share moments together that will become stories that they will tell each other for the rest of their time with us because there is more in them than they know. 

As usual, thanks for your ongoing support. Please contact your child’s Crew Leader with any questions or issues. 

Have a great week

Julie Mosley

Dear Parents/Carers

Welcome back after a long weekend. As a staff crew we have been working hard on our curriculum plans to ensure we continue to provide high quality for our students across all expeditions and subject areas. As always, there are lots of exciting things happening over the next few weeks.

Our students are working on their pledges around improving their HoWLs and academic performance. You will receive your child’s snapshot this week with a video which explains how the information is presented. Next week your child will share their pledges with you so that you can see which areas they are targeting for improvement over the coming months.

Presentations of Learning will take place at the end of term and our students continue to work hard on their guiding questions ready to share their learning with you. I’d like to take the opportunity to thank you in advance for your attendance at these events; it’s really important that students have an authentic audience when they present and is part of our design here at XP – academic success, beautiful work and character growth. We can’t wait to see them all shine (as they always do) and for you to be dazzled! 

This week:

G29 Fieldwork

Our Y7 students will be taking part in fieldwork on Tuesday as part of their expedition From The Ground Up. They will be spending time interviewing members of the Northumberland mining community in Ashington as they continue to answer their guiding question “What do the communities of North-East England owe to the miners?”.

Robotics Club

This Wednesday’’s robotic club is cancelled due to commitments of the external provider.

XP Trust School Review

As part of our ongoing monitoring, we welcome the XP Trust Performance Team into school on Thursday. The team will be looking at the quality of our work in all areas of XP Gateshead. As part of the review, they will spend time in sessions alongside students, looking at the quality of student work and talking to staff and students throughout the day. 

Advent

Like last year, we would like to run a reverse crew advent challenge. We will be preparing for Christmas by helping others and looking at how we can focus on giving rather than receiving at this time of year. We are set to work with North East charities who support vulnerable families. Crew Frank will coordinate G28’s reverse advent and will work with Sister Josepha in support of Oaklea Convent in their Christmas shoebox appeal. Crew KDO will coordinate G29’s reverse advent in connection with the Gateshead Food Bank. Your children will get more information on this in Crew this week.

Thank you as usual for your support. I would like to give a special thanks to our parents that have organised the Christmas trampoline party at Jump Giants. It’s great to see students from across both Year 7 and 8 socialising together in the break and we know that other parents are appreciative too!

Dear Parents/Carers

It has been another great week at XP Gateshead. Our students continue to impress us with the quality of their work and the commitment they have to being the best versions of themselves. In crew this week all of our students have been working hard writing pledges to improve their HoWL grades or academic progress and it has been great to hear their discussions and see how they are already supporting each other with pledges.

We had a Governor visit this week which focused on how we continue to ensure a strong culture as we grow by developing Crew. We’re really pleased with the feedback we received in our Local Governor Committee meeting on Thursday which included:

Students across both year groups talked about how valuable they felt Crew was and described the almost instant bonds that they felt with their crew members from their very first experience of Crew at Ullswater. They have complete ownership of what crew means for them and there were common themes that arose from these discussions; around support, nurture, friendship and resilience.   

“I would like to praise the G28 students for doing such a fantastic job of modelling and mentoring the new cohort of students and helping them to embrace the culture of XPG. They talked about taking on a parental role with the new cohort and helping them to learn what it means to be a student at XPG.”

We enjoyed a great Maths Week last week and our students stepped up to every challenge set; from scavenger hunts to paper aeroplane construction. All students got behind the Times Tables Rockstars’ ‘England Rocks’ competition and we are delighted with our positions in the final tables – on average scores, we achieved 2nd place in the 194 Secondary schools across England who took part in the competition and overall 7th out of all 3492 schools  (Primary and Secondary schools) who entered the competition. We are delighted with the combined efforts of all students, well done XPG!

Our G28 students enjoyed fantastic fieldwork this week with medical staff at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead as they continue to explore their guiding question ‘What does it mean to be Human?’. They experienced first-hand the challenges of working in a ward and were challenged with responding to simulated pulmonary issues in patients. Students worked in the clinical skills lab here at the hospital and felt the pressure of needing to think on the spot to some high level emergencies. We only lost one virtual patient!

Thirteen of our Y8 students spent the day with architects on Friday exploring how architects consider the needs of communities and end users in the design of buildings and spaces. Students developed some really interesting ideas to make use of a plot in the Helix development in Newcastle having surveyed the area and did an analysis of the surrounding community.

Our huge appreciation goes out to Dr Ruth Sharrock from the Division of Medicine at the QE Gateshead, and to Jess Goodwin at Ryder Architecture for organising these days for our students.

This week: 

Accelerated Reader

This week we will be launching our  Accelerated Reader (AR) programme with G29 students. As part of our reading strategy we expect all students to read between 20 and 30 minutes each day. The AR programme monitors reading practice and progress. Students are guided to read at the individual level and take short quizzes after each book to check their understanding. 

Thank you to G28 parents who provided feedback on AR. We have used this along with feedback from staff and students to make AR even better this year.

Staff Days

Remember that we have two staff development days this half term; Friday 25th and Monday 28th November. Our staff will be working on final products for current expeditions and planning next term’s expeditions. As usual, students are not expected to be in school on these days.

Looking forward, dates for your diary: 

Monday 28th November – Staff Day

Tuesday 29th November – Provisional day for G29 Year 7 fieldwork to Ashington to interview members of the Northumberland mining community. We are awaiting final confirmation of that and should have more information early this week.

As usual, thanks for your ongoing support. Please contact your child’s Crew Leader with any questions or issues. 

Have a great week

Julie Mosley

Co-principal

Dear Parents/Carers

Welcome to another exciting week at XP Gateshead. Our students and staff continue to work hard and, as always, produce high quality work. 

This week we took time to remember and commemorate military and civilian service, thinking of those who have defended and protected the nation’s democratic freedoms and our way of life. During our crew sessions this week we have considered what service means, looked at poetry from WW1 and created painted pebble memorials which will be added to our memorial sculpture above our doors in reception.

On Remembrance Day it was great to see Delaney and Lily standing proud in their cadet uniforms.

G28 continue to explore the guiding question ‘What does it mean to be Human?’. In HUMS sessions they have considered Humanism and interviewed two experts from North East Humanists finding out more about how their beliefs and views could link to the guiding question. As always, our students were very impressive with their questions and willingness to be open to debate.

In STEAM sessions, as part of our expedition – Being Human, Students in G28 have been learning about the human reproductive system and normalising discussion of our reproductive organs. Students were fantastic at showing kindness and understanding to each other and discussing such important learning maturely.

In ARTS student have been working on various media in preparation to complete a self-portrait. These last few lessons have focussed on digital pop art, with portraits in the style of Julian Opie.

As part of their learning expedition ‘From The Ground Up’, students in Year 7 continue to consider the guiding question: “What do the communities of North-East England owe to the miners?”. In HUMAN students have been redrafting their historical enquiry into the growth and decline of Whitburn Colliery and have been reading extracts of our anchor text Billy Elliot. In STEAM, students have been delving deeper into the particle model to learn about atoms, elements and compounds as a means to better understand important chemical changes such as combustion.

In ARTS students have been experimenting with different mark-making techniques to create mono-prints of mining artefacts. Here are some examples of their beautiful work.

Thoughtful Thursday – Pledges

During Thursday’s crew session, all of our students have been analysing their new assessment information and identifying areas they want to focus on to improve their learning. They have started to work on pledges around these areas; what they want to improve and how. When the pledges are complete, they will be shared with you along with the information snapshots.

Attendance information forms part of our snapshots and Crew Leaders will be talking with students about how important attendance is to academic achievement and success in school. This poster is on display in all of our Crew rooms in school and referred to often:

At XPG we celebrate attendance and will support those students and families who need to improve their attendance. Please share any worries you have around attendance with your childs’ Crew Leader.

This week: 

Maths Week

This week is England Maths Week AND Times Tables Rockstars’ ‘England Rocks’ competition. We’ll be making sure we celebrate and enjoy the challenge of Maths in as many ways as we can this week: taking on schools from across England in TTRS, looking for maths in nature, finding our way around a maths scavenger hunt, paper aeroplane competitions and much more! Look out for the Maths posts this week which will keep you updated on what our students get up to.

G28 Fieldwork- 2 pieces of fieldwork on Friday 18th November

13 students from our G28 student-leadership group are carrying out a one-day architecture project linked to their guiding question: “What does it mean to be human?”. This fieldwork project will look at the link between our built environment and how we live and act as members of society. Parents of these students have been contacted by Mr Said, as these students will need to bring a packed lunch for the day. Students will travel by metro to Central Station at Newcastle, and will walk to the station at Heworth from school. A huge thanks to our partners Ryder Architecture for organising the day – which will be a pilot for similar future projects for other students in Year 7 and Year 8.

The other 37 students in Year 8 will be carrying out fieldwork at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Sherriff Hill. This fieldwork Students will walk to the hospital from school but will be in school for lunch so no packed lunch is needed.  The fieldwork will connect to the work students have been doing on the respiratory system and associated anatomy/physiology.

Reading 

Miss Tatters’ post last week gave details around Reading at XPG, please read this by clicking here if you missed it. Accelerated Reader is part of our reading strategy and will be in place soon for all of our students and as part of this programme we expect all students to read between 20 and 30 minutes every day. 

In order to continually improve what we do at XPG, we gather feedback from our stakeholders and are currently doing this around Accelerated Reader (AR). Can I ask all G28 parents (who haven’t already done so) to complete the short parent voice questionnaire on AR by clicking on this link. Your feedback is important and will help us get AR even better this year.

Looking forward, dates for your diary: 

We have two staff development days this half term: Friday 25th and Monday 28th November

As usual, students are not expected to be in school on these days.

Thank you as always for your support and 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

Dear Parents/Carers

We’ve had a great first week back and our students have returned to school approaching learning in their usual manner – working hard, getting smart and being kind. As always, much has been achieved in one week!

Common Mission

Common Mission started this week for both G28 and G29. This is an hour each week where we personalise our curriculum to support and challenge students to become the best versions of themselves?”. Common Mission provides our students opportunities to uncover and develop passions in areas outside of our core offer, with some students getting additional academic support where appropriate. 

For the first time, this weekly session was an opportunity for both year groups to work together. It was a fantastic scene when we walked around sessions and a real testament to the strong culture and community we are building when we saw our students step up to fresh challenges with new people and readily support each other. 

This term’s Common Mission sessions are:

Creative Writing; Directed Numeracy; Directed Literacy; Fitness; Mandarin; Mindful Arts; Personalised Research and a STEM project.

Clubs

Our clubs started this week and lunchtimes and after school have been full of activity. Students have enjoyed a real variety of clubs:

Expedition sessions

As always our students have been working hard in sessions striving always for high quality. G29 have been producing beautiful artwork, exploring mark making using mono printing.

G28 showed courage this week in STEAM sessions when they carried out heart dissections. They demonstrated real maturity approaching this challenge, carrying out these experiments with care and precision, working as scientists.

HoWLs – Habits of work and learning

HoWLs snapshots were shared with students in Thoughtful Thursday Crew this week and our students got to see teacher reflections on their HOWLs alongside their own weekly HOWLs self reflections. 

There were some real highlights in this snapshot from both G28 and G29. In G29 we now have 42% of students who have achieved an average HoWL of 3.5 and above. This means that they are demonstrating consistently great habits of learning: working hard,  getting smart and being kind in all sessions. These students will take greater leadership roles this term and have been offered the opportunity of being the first students to attend a one-day project with one of our careers partners,  linked to their current expedition with an architecture focus. More details on this for students involved this week. 

G29 students who have demonstrated similar greatness in HoWLs will join our G28 HoWL leaders in student focus groups taking place this term. These are sessions which allow students to work with staff and share their insights on different areas of school (sessions, extended study, clubs, etc) as part of our school improvement and student voice.

Over the next few weeks all students will be working on pledges to improve areas of their HOWLs  and these will be shared with you. Crew Leaders and Y8 Crew Buddies will support our new Y7 students with this process.

This week: 

We will be taking time this week to work with our students on remembrance of service and the importance of honouring those who serve to defend our democratic freedoms and way of life. 

We will explore this in our Crews and take the opportunity to revisit the radio podcast from last year’s ‘Do Your Bit’ G28 expedition which had the guiding question ‘Why do we need to honour all those who sacrificed in WWI?’.

For our new parents who haven’t heard this, here is the link to a really beautiful product from Y7 last year.

I did say that it has been a great week back and we have achieved lots! 

Thank you as always for your support and 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

Dear Parents/Carers

Welcome back after what I hope has been a restful and safe half term holiday.

We are looking forward to seeing all of our students again, raring to go and ready to continue their hard work on current expeditions.

G28 students are continuing with their Being Human, exploring the guiding question ‘What does it mean to be Human?’. Last term in Case Study 1 they looked at what it means to be human from an anatomical perspective in science and art through drawings and dissections and also from a theological perspective looking at beliefs about the importance of humans and the sanctity of life. In their second case study they will be looking in more depth at our shared humanity, and mistakes of the past such as slavery held up against the genetic evidence of just how similar we all are, regardless of ethnicity – and yet how such a small difference in our DNA gives rise to such wonderful diversity.

Our students continue to work with some amazing experts and none more so than Sister Josepha Matthews who spent the final morning of last term with G28 discussing how her beliefs and the teachings of her catholic faith have informed the way that she has lived her life and her opinion on what it means to be human. Our students were full of admiration for Sister Josepha and the great work that she has done in service to her community and to those in need around the world.

Tyler from Crew Stanton said to Sister Josepha: “You must be very proud of the life you’ve led and the lovely things you do for people. You are inspiring.” which sums up just what an incredible and compassionate life that Sister Josepha has led as a practising nun and headteacher in Walker.

It was fantastic to hear our students share their thoughts and appreciations in our final community meeting. She commented on how thoughtful and mature our students were and the eloquence of their questions and discussion. 

Our G29 students are also continuing in their expedition,  ‘From the Ground Up’ with the guiding question ‘What do the communities of North East England owe to the miners?’. 

Last term in Case Study 1 students learned about the industrial revolution and how we began to harness the properties of matter on a massive scale. We kicked off Case Study 2 in our final week of last half-term with some fieldwork to Marsden and Whitburn – this gave students important insights and background knowledge to help them to study the growth and decline of Whitburn Colliery as a practice historical enquiry in readiness for writing about Northumberland pits for their final product. Students are also going on to study the rock cycle and how Britain came to be a place of mineral wealth, and the associated challenges with taking coal from the strata beneath our feet.

In the coming weeks G29 will also start to interview experts from the Northumberland mining community, with a particular focus on the 1984 miners’ strike.

This week: 

Getting organised

Daily kit list – As always, students need to bring a school bag with:

• A filled water bottle
• Pencil case including: pens, pencils, ruler, eraser and pencil sharpener
• A fully charged iPad 
• Headphones – ideally not expensive ones
• A healthy snack for break (no confectionery (sweets), fizzy drinks or energy drinks, nut products)
• A notebook
• A reading book (e-reader book, school library book or book from home)

PE sessions

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

Extended Study and Clubs

Our clubs will all run this week (see schedule below) along with extended study sessions every day except Friday. If a student attends an after school club or extended study session they must attend the full sessions until 4:30pm.

Thank you as always for your ongoing support. 

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