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

Dear Parents/Carers

Welcome to the final week of this half term! 

It is hard to believe that we have only been together for 6 weeks having achieved so much!

The work of our Comms Team brought this to light last week after installing some new displays. Seeing more beautiful expedition work showcased and more student images has been great and enjoyed by all.

Our weekly community meetings continue to be a highlight of every week. These are a time when each year group comes together to share key messages and make appreciations, apologies, stands and pledges. 

In the G29 community meetings we have continued to ‘tend to’ our new community and students are now confidently using their voice in these sessions. G28 community meeting this week was a special one, students who have been completing a personalised research project during their Common Mission time took the opportunity to present their work to the rest of the year group. Our students showed real courage in doing this and their work was high quality – we learned about subjects such as :

• The ‘life cycle’ of stars and what evidence there is to support this
• Forensics and the importance of treating crime scenes very carefully
• The world of macro photography of the very small
• The threats faced by curlew and how conservation efforts are helping

Congratulations to all who presented on Friday and a huge appreciation from all staff and students for the new learning you shared.

This week:

G29 fieldwork

As part of their ongoing expedition, ‘From the Ground Up’, G29 students will be carrying out fieldwork at the location of the former Whitburn Colliery and Marsden Village near to Souter Lighthouse in South Tyneside. More details on kit etc. were shared in this post last week. They will be working alongside geological experts and carrying out a historical enquiry at the site of the former pit village, including a visit to Souter Lighthouse to see their exhibition with excerpts from former residents of the village.

Open Evenings

As you know, we are hosting open evening events for Year 6 families on Wednesday 12th and Thursday 13th October. Many of our students are working with us to prepare for these evenings and getting ready to present their school to the wider world. Keep an eye on our website for short films about XP and the work we do here. 

HoWLs

Students will continue to discuss their Habits of Work and Learning in academic crew this week. We are really proud of how honest and reflective our students have been during this process and look forward to sharing some teacher reflections on HOWLs with them after the half term break.

Early closure this Friday

Don’t forget that we will be closing early this Friday at 1.30pm to allow us time to “de-gunge” and set up for the next half term. Please make arrangements to pick up your children at the school gate for 1.30pm this Friday.

Extended Study and Clubs this week

Please note that there are no clubs taking place this week. We ran taster sessions last week so our students got a real flavour of what’s on offer. Clubs will start after the half term break.

Extended study this week will run on Monday and Tuesday only. This is due to our Open Evenings on Wednesday and Thursday. 

 

Thank you for your continued support through this half term and we hope everyone has a good holiday. We are looking forward to the next half term where we will be focussing on our academic work and adding work to our “beautiful” work portfolios. We will also be organising our student-led conferences which will be an opportunity for you to see some of the work your children have been doing – more on this later.

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

XP Gateshead

Dear Parents/Carers

It’s been another great week at XPG. We continue to be impressed by how hard our students are working both in and outside of classrooms exhibiting our character traits and demonstrating HoWLs. There’s a real ‘feeling of Crew’ as you walk around the school and talk with students and we celebrated this in our Community Meetings on Friday.

As you know, on Monday, all of our staff team travelled to Doncaster for an XP Trust wide inset day focused on teaching and learning. The day was attended by all staff employed by XPTrust (over 300 people) .We all enjoyed a day of hard work, challenge and the chance to spend time and collaborate with our colleagues from primary and secondary schools across the Trust. 

We were reminded of the schools we are in XP Trust: schools that have a relentless focus on character growth, creating beautiful work and achieving academic success. The following short film is well worth a watch, bringing this to life – Why is it important to share our stories? 

Another moment of real pride this week has been our first football team outing. We couldn’t have been prouder of our Year7 and 8 students who displayed real courage this week in playing against other, much larger secondary schools in Gateshead. Although the final scores were not great, our students shone in terms of their conduct and character. Staff at the event praised every one of our students for their courage, respect and above all compassion.

This week: 

Trials in clubs are starting this week

Students will have the opportunity to try out our offer of extra-curricular clubs this week, having expressed an interest in each club last week. We will still be running the support for students that want to work on Extended Study each evening from Monday-Thursday too.

Advance notice for next week

Open Evenings

We are hosting open evening events for Year 6 families on Wednesday 12th and Thursday 13th October, and will be asking for support from students on those evenings. More details will be given to those students that are helping out via a letter this week.

Extended Study next week

Due to our open evening, we will run Extended Study after school on Monday 10th and Tuesday 11th only next week.

Half Term and early finish on Friday 14th next week

Please be aware that it is half term for two weeks from w/c 17th October and so as normal students will finish at 1.30pm on Friday 14th October to allow staff to replenish resources and to de-gunge rooms and teaching spaces ready for after the half term holiday. Students will return to school at the normal time on Monday 31st October.

Thank you as always for your ongoing support.

Julie Mosley

Co-Principal

Dear Parents/Carers

It’s been a short but busy week at XPG. Our students have been working hard in sessions this week and have spent time getting themselves organised around the extended study planner we shared with you last week. Crew Leaders will continue to support students with time management,  managing workload and meeting deadlines. We know for some, this can be a challenge and it has been great to see so many of our students attending after school extended study sessions.

As a reminder, here is our extended study planner:

This week has seen the first of our staff days for this term. We have two staff days each term at XP so that our teachers can collaborate across the Trust to create and deliver the high quality curriculum that our students study. On Friday we worked as a staff crew focusing on how we build our culture and community at XPG. We carried out some Outdoor Education work which will set us in good stead for future student learning opportunities and Year 9 DofE challenges.

On Monday we will complete the second of our staff days and our whole staff team are heading to Doncaster to take part in a XP Trust wide teaching and learning training event. 

On staff days our students do not attend school and there is no expectation that they complete work beyond their regularly set extended study (homework). Students will find this work on Google classroom.

This week: 

Monday 26th September – Staff Development Day

Students are not expected to be in school.

Back to school – Tuesday 27th September

Please note PE sessions this week:

G28 students (Y8) will need a PE kit for Tuesday 27th September.

G29 students (Y&) will need a PE kit on Wednesday 28th September. 

Students need to have a full change of kit for PE please. 

Extended Study 

Sessions run until 4:30pm every day except Friday when all students leave the site at 3:15pm.For full details of our rationale for extended study, please click here.

Clubs

This week we will launch our extra-curricular clubs programme (lunchtime and after school) with our students. This will be done on Thursday and forms part of our JASS award. We will publish the full schedule on our website and more details about the JASS award after we have shared it with our students. 

Reminders

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

Cycling to school

We are really pleased to see so many of our students cycling or scooting to school. 

Can I remind parents that if  students are to bring bikes or scooters to school then they must have a bike lock. In terms of safety, students should also have a bike helmet. Please check that your child’s bike is in good condition frequently.

Please note that electric scooters (e–scooters) are not allowed in school. This includes all other  ‘powered transporters’ too such as hoverboards and electric unicycles.

Looking forward, dates for your diary: 

XPG Open Evenings for prospective students, 12th and 13th October. 

We will be asking for student involvement in these evenings – they are our ambassadors and our best advertisements! More details will follow as we get closer to the events.  

Last day of term Friday 14th October

On Friday 14th October students will finish the school day at 1.30pm, this allows staff to de-gunge classrooms and ensure all necessary resources are in place for the start of the new half-term.  We return to school at the regular time on Monday 31st October 2022. 

 

This year’s terms dates can be found on XP Trust Calendar 2022/23

On a final note, thank you to G29 parents who have been in touch with us this week with feedback on how their children have settled into XP Gateshead. One parent commented:

“The transition from primary to secondary has been so smooth we have to sometimes remind ourselves that it has taken place at all. My daughter seems to be so happy, has made lots of friends, is enjoying the work, is organising herself (including setting her own alarm in the mornings and packing her own bag!)”

This is great feedback and exactly how we want our students and families to feel. Please do continue to support each other on our Parents’ Facebook group and as always if you do want to get in touch about your child, please contact their Crew Leader in the first instance. 

 

Thank you as always for your ongoing support. 

 

Julie Mosley

Co-Principal

Dear Parents/Carers

It’s been another busy and exciting week at XPG. Our students have been working hard both in and outside of sessions as we continue to build our community and strengthen our character values of courage, respect, craftsmanship and quality, integrity and, above all, compassion.

This week immersion came to the end for both year groups and after lots of wondering and suggestions, students in G28 and G29 enjoyed the big reveal to find out their expedition guiding questions.

Our G28 students are now well underway with their new expedition, Being Human. The guiding question for this expedition is ‘What does it mean to be Human?’

Our G29 students found out about their first expedition on Thursday. The expedition is called ‘From the Ground Up’ and our students will be studying the guiding question ‘What do the communities of North East England owe to the miners?’

Our staff were also working hard this week and, as well as their usual planning and teaching, they successfully completed their Youth Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) qualification. We are really proud now that as a staff, we have 12 members of our team fully qualified as MHFA. The course enables staff  to recognise mental ill health and help find the support required. 

We care deeply about our students safety and wellbeing at XP Gateshead and this includes families too! As a group of schools in XP Trust, we have created a website XP Cares: Wellbeing Hub. We hope that this is a useful site for both students, parents and carers and a ‘one stop shop’ for your wellbeing needs, making it as easy as possible to find the support available to you. 

This week: 

Monday 19th September – Bank Holiday

Back to school – Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 

Please note that PE sessions will resume this week:

G28 students (Y8) will need a PE kit for Tuesday 20th September.

G29 students (Y7) will need a PE kit on Wednesday 19th September. 

Friday 23rd September – Staff Development Day

Students are not expected to be in school.

Extended Study 

Extended study sessions started well this week. Sessions will run until 4:30pm every day except Friday when all students leave the site at 3:15pm. Like all of our after school provision, students who attend extended study must attend full sessions until 4:30pm. Please contact your son/daughter’s Crew Leader if there is an issue with this.

Our extended study timetable is as follows:

Initially G29 students will be set more Times Table Rockstars, with less Hegarty Maths Memri set to account for this.

For full details of our rationale for extended study, please click here.

Clubs

Please note that because of the shortened three day week, we have decided not to start our extra-curricular clubs (lunchtime and after school) this week. Clubs will start on Tuesday 27th September and we will be publishing a full schedule next week. 

 

Reminders

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

Looking forward, dates for your diary: 

Monday 26th September – Staff Development Day.

Students are not expected to be in school.

XPG Open Evenings for prospective students, 12th and 13th October. 

We will be asking for student involvement in these evenings – they are our ambassadors and our best advertisements! More details will follow as we get closer to the events.  

 

Thank you as always for your ongoing support. 

Julie Mosley

Co-Principal

Dear Parents/Carers

Another great week for us at XPG as we brought all of our students together in school this week. We are building a great community, with staff and students going the extra mile this week to make sure everyone was settled, felt supported and cared for in our school. Our shared responsibility of ‘getting each other to the top of the mountain’ has really been apparent in the compassion shown by all.

Our G29 students spent the first part of last week working with their Crews getting familiar with routines and considering what Crew looks like in school. We launched our first Crew Read ‘Seedfolks’ with them which will support with their understanding around what makes a successful community and iPads were distributed along with initial Google training which will continue this term to ensure our students make best use of the collaborative technology we have. On Thursday G29 started immersion into their new learning expedition and enjoyed a great day of fieldwork at the National Coal Museum on Friday.

This week G29 students will continue their immersion which builds curiosity and background knowledge in readiness for the first case studies. Year 7 students will find out the guiding question to their new expedition later this week.

Our G28 students demonstrated great leadership skills last week and really supported us in settling in our new Y7 students. We couldn’t have been more proud of them. 

G28 have been fully immersed in their new learning expedition last week and will find out the guiding question for the expedition tomorrow. There has been some brilliant thinking around what this could be in sessions so we look forward to the big unveil tomorrow!

Our week ahead 

Extended Study

From Monday 12th, we will offer extended study sessions until 4:30pm. 

Sessions will run every day except Friday when all students leave the site at 3:15pm. Teachers will start to set extended study this week and sessions after school allow space and time for students to complete extended study with the support of peers and staff on hand.

Please note that our extra-curricular clubs (lunchtime and after school) will not start until next week. More details will follow on this.

Mental Health Training

As part of our commitment in providing the best support for our young people, all of our staff will complete Day 2 of Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training this week. Following this we will have 11 fully trained MHFA staff in school, this will be a real achievement and acknowledges the importance we place on our Narrative for Success at XP Trust.

PE this week

As part of Mr Devitt’s ongoing professional development he is out of school this week. As such there are no PE sessions this week. PE sessions will return in the week beginning 19th September.

Reminders

Immunisation letters

All consent forms need to be completed and returned to Crew Leaders by tomorrow. 

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)

It would be great if students could also bring in a notebook and a reading book. This won’t become essential kit yet to allow time for students to gather these.

Looking forward, dates for your diary

Monday 19th September – Bank Holiday

Friday 23rd September and Monday 26th September – Staff Training Days

 

Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

XP Gateshead would like to pass on our condolences and pay our respects to the Queen’s family on the sad news of her passing. She was a remarkable woman who performed her duties with grace and dignity. Queen Elizabeth brought a sense of constancy through a changing times and the world is a lesser place without her. 

Thank you for your service Ma’am.

Dear Parents/Carers

What a first week back we have had!

Our G29 students had a fantastic week at Ullswater finding out what crew means. I hope they returned to you parents full of tales of their outward bound adventures. It was incredible to see them make new friends, begin to form strong bonds with their crew and crew leaders, and rise to the challenges set. We could not have been more impressed by our new year 7 students. They were compassionate, courageous, respectful and showed integrity in equal measure across the week. To listen to their presentations on ‘What does it mean to be Crew?’ in our final community meeting on Friday at the summit of Hallin Fell was something really special.

Our G28 students returned to school stronger than ever and spent a fantastic first week considering the question ‘How can we support each other to lead the learning of our new Year 7 Crew?’. Crew Leaders have been blown away by the quality of student work and the depth of thinking. There is no doubt that our pioneering Y8 students will work with us to ensure that our new students are welcomed into XPGateshead and are quickly part of our school community. The week ended with a great day of fieldwork in Gateshead and Newcastle which was planned fully by our students with their crews.

We could not have had a stronger start to our school year and can’t wait to welcome all students tomorrow.

 

Our week ahead 

G29 students (Year 7) 

Students will be working in their Crews on Monday and Tuesday reflecting on their Outward Bound experience and thinking about what Crew looks like in the Classroom. 

They will find out their new classes on Wednesday and will have their first PE session on Wednesday (so will need their PE kit).

Immersion for their new learning expedition will start on Thursday and they will carry out fieldwork on Friday at the National Coal Museum in Wakefield (a packed lunch will be required on Friday.)

We will hand out iPads to G29 students on Monday. These will come  with instructions on how to set these up on the school management system which is a fairly straightforward process. Students will need to set these up at home on Monday evening. It is really important that the screen protector is applied as soon as you take the iPad out of the box.

G28 students (Year 8)

Students will begin a week-long immersion for their new learning expedition this week. 

They will have their first PE session on Friday so will need their PE kit.

 

Start times and kit list

All students need to be in school for an 8.30am start so they must arrive by 8.25am at the latest. There will be staff in school supervising so students can arrive from 8.00 am.

We will finish formal sessions at 3.15pm and there will be no extended study or activities after school this week. There are staff available if any student needs to stay later than 3:15pm, please contact your child’s crew leader or school office [email protected]  if this is required. Students must leave school by 3.30pm on Friday.

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

• A filled water bottle
• Pencil case including: pens, pencils, ruler, eraser and pencil sharpener
• A fully charged iPad 
• Headphones – ideally not expensive ones, for example here

We also suggest that students bring a healthy snack for break time – no confectionery (sweets), fizzy drinks or energy drinks please as we do not allow these in school. Please note there are to be no nut products in snacks or packed lunches – this is especially important as we have students in this cohort who are highly allergic to nut products.

Lunches

On Monday, we will be sending out letters regarding ParentPay for our new students. 

Students can choose to bring in a healthy packed lunch (no nut products, confectionary, fizzy or energy drinks) or have a school meal with us. We think that our meals are very good value at £2.50 per day. Our school dinners are very popular with our students, thanks to our wonderful cook Suzanne. Students make a daily food choice in crew each morning and we have a three week menu.

If your child receives a free school meal, we will provide lunch. Please contact the school office if you have any questions around school meals.

 

We are really looking forward to welcoming all of our students back tomorrow. As usual if you have any questions about your son or daughter please get in touch with your child’s Crew Leader in the first instance or email general enquiries to [email protected].

Thank you for your ongoing support and a special thanks to G28 parents who have been sharing their XPG knowledge and expertise with our new G29 parents. Together we are definitely stronger #WeAreCrew.

 

Best wishes

Julie Mosley

Co-Principal