Dear Families

We hope you have enjoyed your long weekend break, our staff have all been really busy at XP Gateshead planning our curriculum and next term’s expeditions. As you can imagine, there is a huge amount of time and effort spent on planning and preparing for our expeditions which include immersion, work with experts, fieldwork opportunities, guiding questions, anchor texts, high quality final products and presentations of learning. 

Thank you to all G28 families who have attended SLCs over the last two weeks. It has been great to read your exit tickets and see how proud you have been of your children who, once again, have stepped up to the challenge of presenting their work to you, sharing their progress and plans for next step development. We look forward to January now when we will have our next round of SLCs for G29 and G30 students. In advance of this we will have updated snapshots to share with you in the w/c 18th December.

Our week ahead 

Experts in school this week

G30 students will be working with our expert composer Joe Solo turning their mining community interviews into folksong.

Extended Study and Clubs

Our full after school offer is available this week with extended study and clubs running on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. 

Congratulations to Mr Devitt

As you may know, last year Mr Devitt was training in school to gain his full teaching qualification. Mr Devitt has his graduation ceremony this Friday. I know you will join us in congratulating Mr Devitt. We look forward to sharing pictures of Mr Devitt in his full academic gown and mortar board!

PE sessions this week

Due to our staff days and the above, G28 and G30 students will not have PE this week. We will look to rebalance this in a future week.

All G29 students (Year 8) have PE on Wednesday this week. Please ensure that your child has their  full PE kit.

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].

Julie Mosley

Principal, XP Gateshead

Dear Families

Last week was another busy week for us at XP Gateshead. On Monday students were given the opportunity to listen to our remembrance broadcast on Memory Lane Radio. If you have not yet done so, please take some to listen to this wonderful piece of work from G29.

G30 – What do the communities of NE England owe to the miners?

This week G30 students have interviewed more experts from the mining community: Alan Cummings, MP Ian Lavery, Jean Spence & Norman Strike, each with different perspectives on the turbulent times of the 1984 Miners’ Strike and our guiding question.

Students will continue to work with these interviews to turn them into folksong next week with our expert composer Joe Solo who will be working alongside the students to hone their work ready for their Presentation of Learning on the evening of Monday 18th December at St Mary’s Church in Heworth.

G29 – What does it mean to be human?

This week, students have begun to turn more of their attention towards their final product and how we can promote organ donation through our artwork and responses to the guiding question. Andrew Lowes, consultant in anaesthetics and intensive care and clinical lead in organ donation for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital talked to our students about the importance of organ donation and therefore how important their work will be in saving lives in the future. We were also thankful to have Prahalad Nadella in school to talk to students about how Hindu teachings and beliefs contribute to his view on what it means to be human. You will be able to see a temporary installation of the artwork and hear our students; speeches in response to the guiding question at their Presentation of Learning on the evening of Tuesday 19th December at XP Gateshead.

G28 – How are structures important in helping us to explain our world? 

As well as their ongoing work to prepare for and host their SLCs, G28 students have been continuing in their studies of the structure of the atom, including reactivity, isotopes and radiation. Another area of study has been structures in government and society, with students making connections to our anchor text Lord of the Flies. On Friday students spent time preparing for a visit from Alice Wiseman – Director of Public Health for Gateshead who will talk to students about the structures that gave rise to the local response to the pandemic as well as the potential for careers in health. On the subject of careers, G29 students will also have some workshops with SOS connected to our school Climate Action Plan. The workshops this week will focus on Green Careers, an important and growing sector in the Local and National Labour Market.

G28 will be presenting their learning on the evening of Thursday 14th December. We should be able to confirm the venue for this event this week, once some final details have been arranged.

Climate Action Plan Launch

Congratulations to our Climate Action Plan Student Leaders from Year 7: Isaac, Elina, Molly, Freya & James; from Year 8: Reuben S; from Year 9: Hannah, Charlie, Harris &  Evan.

This group of students will be taking feedback from all students across the year to help develop a plan for how our school can be more sustainable.

Our week ahead 

Flu immunisations on Monday

Tomorrow morning nurses will be in school to administer flu vaccinations across all year groups for those students that have been given permission. These should be completed by lunchtime.

G28 Student Led Conferences

For the second week,  our Year 9 students will be presenting their SLC to families. 

Experts in school this week

As mentioned above G28 have Alice Wiseman in school tomorrow morning for their expedition. G28 also have their Careers workshops on Thursday.

On Tuesday, G29 will have experts on organ donation in school, some of whom have direct experience of the life changing impact of donation.

Staff Day on Friday this week and Monday of next week

We have a staff day this coming Friday. The focus for these staff days are forward planning, especially our exciting new learning expeditions for term 2 from January. Students are not expected to be in school on Friday and can work on their accelerated reader programme and any extended study – details of which are on Google Classroom.

PE sessions this week

Our PE sessions this week are as follows. Please ensure that your child has their  full PE kit.

• All G30 students (Year 7) have PE on Monday this week.
• All G29 students (Year 8) have PE on Wednesday this week.
• For G28 students (Year 9)
  • G28 Class 1 students have PE on Thursday this week.
  • G28 Class 2 students would normally have PE on Friday this week but are not in school. We will look to rebalance this in a future week.

Extended Study and Clubs

Like last week, there are some changes to our clubs this week due to SLCs.

This mostly impacts on Thursday’s after school offer; there will be no Nature Club, Geography Club or Multi Sports due to G28 Crew Leaders taking part in SLCs.

Our new dance, multi sports and robotics clubs after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays continue.

If your child attends a sports club, they will need a full PE kit. For dance sessions, students can wear leggings, loose T-shirts and must be in socks or bare feet rather than trainers.

Remember, if a student attends an after school club or extended study session they must attend the full sessions until 4:30pm. 

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].

Julie Mosley

Principal, XP Gateshead

Dear Families

What a great first week back it has been! Our students have returned well and quickly got back into the swing of things, working hard and enjoying the great learning opportunities they have had this week. We’ve had some amazing expert sessions in and outside of school which continue to feed into current expedition work around student response to their guiding questions.

G30 – What do the communities of NE England owe to the miners?

Our year 7 students have worked with several experts this week. On Monday they worked with Alfie Joey who discussed how growing up in a mining community has coloured his life and what he thinks our communities owe to the miners. On Tuesday they worked with Mel and Geoff from our Comms team, respective experts in journalism and podcasting to prepare them for more interviewing members of the mining community. Students will take these stories and turn them into folksong.

On Thursday students went to St Mary’s Church, Heworth where they met with Reverend Lucy to learn more about the connection between the church and the Felling Pit Disaster and to see where they will carry out their presentation of learning in December.

G29 – What does it mean to be human?

This week Year 8 students carried out fieldwork at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Sheriff Hill. This fieldwork connected to the work students have been studying in STEAM sessions on gas exchange and circulatory  systems. Students enjoyed hands-on sessions  in the Respiratory Simulation Room and met the clinical lead for organ donation. They also got the chance to see the area where their final art product will be exhibited.

There has been some stunning artwork this week too from students, which will go towards the final product promoting organ donation in Gateshead Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

   

Climate Action Plan Launch

On Friday, all students met virtually with colleagues from SOS (Students Organising for Sustainability). SOS will be running workshops with all students across the year around their four foci:

• Decarbonisation (Year 9)
• Green careers (Year 9) 
• Adaptation and resilience (Year 8)
• Biodiversity (Year 7)

For example, soon Year 9 students will work on Energy Auditing our current building to determine how efficient it is, and make recommendations on their findings.

As a result of these workshops, a group of student leaders will develop a Climate Action Plan for our school. Students can apply to be part of this leadership group by clicking here. This will be shared with them through student notices too.

G29’s stunning Memory Lane Radio broadcast 

I think that the  biggest highlight of our week though must be our G29 radio  broadcast of unheard voices from WWI. This was played on Memory Lane Radio on Saturday 11th November at 11am as part of their Armistice Day programme. Listening to the beautiful voices and words of our students was simply stunning, their writing was powerful and really emotive. If you didn’t get the chance to tune in on Saturday, here is the recording:

I highly recommend you sit back and enjoy 30 minutes listening to their really important work. Well done to all students and staff involved in this piece of work.

Our week ahead 

G28 Student Led Conferences

This week and next, our Year 9 students will be presenting their SLC to families. 

PE sessions this week

Our PE sessions this week are as follows. Please ensure that your child has their  full PE kit.

• All G30 students (Year 7) have PE on Monday this week.
• All G29 students (Year 8) have PE on Wednesday this week.

For G28 students (Year 9)

• G28 Class 1 students have PE on Thursday this week.
• G28 Class 2 students have PE on Friday this week.

Extended Study and Clubs

There are some changes to our clubs this week due to SLCs (see the schedule below). We are really pleased to add a further two sports clubs on Wednesdays where we will be working with external providers.

If your child attends a sports club, they will need a full PE kit. For dance sessions, students can wear leggings, loose T-shirts and must be in socks or bare feet rather than trainers.

Remember, if a student attends an after school club or extended study session they must attend the full sessions until 4:30pm. 

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].

Julie Mosley

Principal,

XP Gateshead

Dear Families

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.

As always, a return to school gives us all the opportunity to make a strong start in terms of getting into good habits and being organised. I would like to remind everyone of the importance of punctuality, attendance and being fully prepared for learning and ask for your support in this to make sure that all of our students are getting it right.

This week G28 parents will receive invites to upcoming SLCs. G29 and G30 students will finalise their studies in the part of our curriculum called “leading our own learning”. This is an hour each week on Thursday mornings where students can consolidate their learning if needed in literacy/numeracy or stretch themselves by following interests or skills. Our offer includes:

• Targeted Support* – Literacy, Numeracy, Life Skills
• Mandarin
• Fitness
• Creative writing
• Personalised research with a focus on ethics and worldviews or STEM.
• Art across time
• Theatre

If your child is in Year 7 or Year 8, please talk to them about what they are considering or feel that they need to become the best version of themselves.

Punctuality

All students need to be in school for an 8.30am start so they must arrive by 8.25am at the latest. A minority of students were regularly late for school last half term which impacted on the learning of others (staff and students). Please talk to your child about their punctuality and ensure that they are arriving on time every day. 

Attendance

At XPG we celebrate attendance and will support those students and families who need to improve their attendance. The snapshots shared with you last half term included attendance information and Crew Leaders will be talking with students and their families  about how important attendance is to academic achievement and success in school.

As you may have seen in the news over recent months, school attendance continues to be a concern across the country. At XPG, we were really proud of our attendance last year with attendance figures higher than local and national. There is no doubt that this was down to the hard work of all – students, parents/carers, Crew Leaders and our inclusion team. We all understand that school attendance is vital to the life chances of young people and that being in school improves health, wellbeing and socialisation throughout life. 

In the winter months we are all more susceptible to mild respiratory illnesses including general cold symptoms. It is usually appropriate for parents and carers to send their children to school at these times but it can be tricky making these decisions. The following NHS guidance includes information which may be useful – NHS ‘Is my child too ill for school?’ guidance.

Please share any worries you have around attendance or punctuality with your childs’ Crew Leader. 

Being organised

As always, students need to bring a school bag every day with the following items. Please make sure your son/daughter is fully equipped for learning and contact us if there are any problems.

• A filled water bottle
• Pencil case including: pens, pencils, ruler, eraser and pencil sharpener
• A fully charged iPad (80%+)
• 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)

Our week ahead 

Working with experts and fieldwork

G30 – What do the communities of NE England owe to the miners?

Students will this week learn from an expert journalist to prepare them for interviewing members of the mining community. They will also work with a musician to help them to prepare for the writing of folk songs to honour these stories.

G30 students are also carrying out fieldwork to St Mary’s Church at Heworth to see the location of their PoL and also to see the site where their information and artwork boards honouring the Felling Pit Disaster will be located and hear from Reverend Lucy about the close relationship the church has to the disaster. Students will be walking to and from the site so will need to be prepared for the weather. They do not require a packed lunch as they will return to school for normal lunchtime.

G29 – What does it mean to be human?

Students will hear from members of the humanist community to hear their perspective on what it means to be human.

G29 Students are also carrying out fieldwork at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital connected to their studies in Science around organ systems in the human body. They will also meet our contact at the hospital who has commissioned their final product: artwork which promotes organ donation.  More details on this fieldwork can be found here. 

PE sessions this week

Our PE sessions this week are as follows. Please ensure that your child has their  full PE kit.

All G30 students (Year 7) have PE on Monday this week.

All G29 students (Year 8) have PE on Wednesday this week.

For G28 students (Year 9)

   G28 Class 1 students have PE on Thursday this week.

   G28 Class 2 students have PE on Friday this week.

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. We are working with external providers to offer further sports sessions after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays and will update you as soon as we have more information.

G29 Remembrance Radio Broadcast 

We are extremely proud that the work of our G29 students from last year’s ‘Do Your Bit’ expedition,  “Why is it important that we honour all those that made sacrifices in WWI?” will be broadcast on Memory Radio as part of their Remembrance programming on 11th November. More details on how to listen will be shared in a separate post.

 

Like I have said at the start of this post, we are really looking forward to our next half term where we will be continuing to focus on our culture of beautiful work, character and academic success.

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].

Julie Mosley

Dear Families

Welcome to the final week of this half term! 

It is hard to believe that we have only been together for 7 weeks having achieved so much!

The work of our Comms Team will bring this to light again this week when they return to XPG to install more new displays of our students from all three year groups. We are also hoping to agree final details for our external signage and look forward to the installation on site soon. 

There is more building work planned over the holidays as we get to the bottom of work required to ensure that our temporary space is of the high standard we need. Our huge thanks go out to the Gateshead teams who have continued to support us and the companies who have been contracted to carry out work on site. We are very lucky to be able to have the temporary space we have here at XP Gateshead.

G28 Crew Charity Events

This week saw the first of our Crew Charity events and Crew Stanton organised and ran a Halloween Disco for nearly 100 staff and students. They raised £245.81 for their chosen crew charity, Tiny Lives which is a charity in Newcastle that supports premature and unwell babies and their families. Our students loved the event with many dressing up for the occasion…

 

The night was a brilliant effort from everyone in Crew Stanton but I would like to praise standout work from Mason and Anya!

On Monday morning I will meet with representatives from all G28 crews to go through their plans for charity events in school this year.

G28 – How can structures help us to explain the world around us?

On Friday our local MP Ian Mearns worked with our G28 students as an expert for their current expedition. Our students had questions for Mr Mearns on Labour policy around social housing and also about his career as a politician.

Thomas Hepburn Memorial Service 2023

On Saturday 14th October some of our staff, students and families from G30 attended the annual memorial service for Thomas Hepburn at St Mary’s Church, Heworth. The service commemorates the life of Thomas Hepburn who spent his life working to improve the lives of miners and their families as well as being the founder of the Colliers United of Durham and Northumberland in 1825. 

It was a real honour to be invited to the ceremony where the acclaimed filmmaker, Ken Loach, spoke about Thomas Hepburn’s life and his fight for social justice as a leader of the first miners’ trade union. The service also featured readings from the local MP for Easington Grahame Morris, the Mayor of Gateshead, Cllr Eileen McMaster and the Reverend Lucy Moss. The Durham Miners Association Brass Band were wonderful and accompanied the service throughout.  Following the service, wreaths were laid at Thomas Hepburn’s grave and the Felling Banner group gave our students the great honour of laying their wreath.

Here’s a short film of the event made by Lonely Tower Film and Media.

Snapshots

Updated assessment information snapshots will be shared this week. For year 8 and year 9, these include HoWLs and academic progress. For Year 7 the first snapshot gives you an indication of HoWLs – we will put out a separate website post on Tuesday to help you to understand these snapshots.

Leaders of their Own Learning

Students in Year 7 and 8 have been considering how they can use our Thursday morning sessions to lead their own learning and become the best versions of themselves. Students have given us an initial indication of their preferences but please do discuss this at home. The sessions we have planned are:

• Targeted Support* – some students will be directed to these sessions
• Mandarin
• Fitness
• Creative writing
• Ethics and worldviews
• Personalised Research
• Art across time – learning about art history by making art
• Climate Action Plan
• Theatre – drama and performance
• French

These sessions will start on Thursday mornings after the half-term break.

Thursday morning sessions for Year 9 this year will have careers and Duke of Edinburgh as a focus.

Our week ahead 

PE sessions this week

Our PE sessions this week are as follows. Please ensure that your child has their  full PE kit.

All G30 students (Year 7) have PE on Monday this week.

All G29 students (Year 8) have PE on Wednesday this week.

All G28 students (Year 9) have PE on Friday this week.

Extended Study and taster sessions for clubs

As usual, we offer extended study sessions, from 3:15pm – 4:30pm each day this week Monday-Thursday. 

Our taster sessions for clubs at lunchtimes and after school continue this week. Students will continue  trying some sessions to help with decisions on weekly clubs they will sign up to attend after the holidays.

Early closure this Friday

Don’t forget that that school finishes at the earlier time of 1.30pm this Friday. This is to allow us time to “degunge” 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. As always, please be conscientious of our neighbours if parking as it is always very busy when students all leave school at the same time.

We return to school on Monday 6th November 2023. 

G28 SLCs

Advance notice that Year 9 will be carrying out SLCs early in the next half-term in the fortnight commencing Monday 13th November. Crew Leaders will be in touch soon to give you the opportunity to book a slot.

 

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 continuing to focus on our culture of beautiful work, character and academic success. Students will be adding work to our “beautiful” work portfolios and getting ready for student-led conferences and presentations of learning 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 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].

Julie Mosley

Dear Families

Open Evening

On Tuesday we held our Open Evening and welcomed over 350 people to our school. As you know, on evenings like this our students take centre stage and as always, they shine.

Families attended 4 sessions – XPG Mythbusting, Beautiful work, Character and Academic Success. Every session, apart from the Mythbusting one, was a showcase ran by students who shared the work done at XPG and answered questions from their audience.

Exit ticket feedback was really positive and our students definitely communicated our culture well with very few questions left unanswered. The confidence shown by our young people and their ability to articulate what we do and why we do it is stunning and we are extremely proud and grateful to all students who were involved. A thank you to families too who supported this event.

Personal Development at XPG

We also received some feedback this week from an external review of personal development at XPG. Areas of personal development include: developing responsible, respectful and active citizens; promoting equality of opportunity; promoting an inclusive environment; developing pupils’ character; giving pupils the qualities they need to flourish in society.

The feedback was positive and included the following

“Crew and the Expedition curriculum, as well as routines such as Common Mission, Community Meetings, Field Work all serve to ensure that students know what they are learning in order to shape their character, and work towards being positive members of society.”

“The interlinked approach to personal development means students can talk about how and why they learn as they do, how it will help them in the future, and why it is important.”

“Students can articulate themselves very well, and confidently. This is the case within Crew, in lessons, at social times, and when interacting with adults – even when they do not know the adult.”

“The school ensures that statutory regulations around RSHE are implemented and thanks to the repeated and lived-out protocols, as well as the consistency of the approach to the different elements of the school day, the students are knowledgeable of the RSHE curriculum and are able to speak sensitively about certain matters.”

“Students show each other and adults respect at all times. This is evident in learning and Crew, as well as at social times.”

An area for continued development is our careers programme – how we support students in their next steps, from GCSE and further education choices, making them aware of the diverse future pathways available to them and what they need to do to achieve their goals. Our work continues this year, look out for our website updates.

G30 What do the communities of NE England owe to the miners? 

The character of our G30 students continues to impress us. It is hard to believe that our year 7 students have only been with us for 6 weeks when you see them in and outside of classrooms, look at their high quality work and hear them speak about their progress. The experts who work alongside G30 have continued to praise their hard work, craftsmanship and quality and the respect they exhibit towards each other and staff who work with them. 

As part of their expedition, our Year 7 students have interviewed  songwriting expert Joe Solo, a folk musician, in preparation for their work in taking stories of the mining community and immortalising them in song.

They also carried out fieldwork at the location of the former Whitburn Colliery and Marsden Village near to Souter Lighthouse in South Tyneside working as geologists and archeologists.

G29 – What does it mean to be Human?

High quality work has continued in art this week with students capturing the most expressive object in the known universe – the human face. Students have been developing their skills in monoprinting.

In STEAM sessions, after carrying out heart dissections earlier in the week, students have been learning about the human reproductive system and normalising discussion of our reproductive organs. Students have been fantastic at showing kindness and understanding to each other and discussing such important learning maturely. 

G28 – How can structures help us to explain the world around us?

This week students have been digging further into their anchor text Lord of the Flies, which examines what happens to a group of children when the adults are not their to provide structure. In addition they have also started to create isometric drawings and using CAD software to create digital designs of their Lego moulds in order to create plaster casts of brutalist-inspired structures.

Our week ahead 

PE sessions this week

Our PE sessions this week are as follows. Please ensure that your child has their  full PE kit.

All G30 students (Year 7) have PE on Monday this week.

All G29 students (Year 8) have PE on Tuesday this week.

All G28 students (Year 9) have PE on Friday this week.

Extended Study and taster sessions for clubs

As usual, we offer extended study sessions, from 3:15pm – 4:30pm each day this week Monday-Thursday. Please ask your son/daughter about extended study and support them in their organisation. Where students continue to struggle to get organised or need additional support we will direct them to attend Extended Study sessions after school on Mondays and Thursday with Mrs Mosley and Mr Said.

All Extended Study tasks are posted on Google Classroom. Year 7 parents should receive an invite to receive weekly Google Classroom updates this week.

The schedule for setting extended study with deadlines can be found here. More information on our rationale for Extended Study can be found here.

Extra -Curricular Clubs

Students have signed up for some taster sessions for clubs this week and next. We offer clubs at lunchtimes and after school and students will be able to try some sessions to help with decisions on weekly clubs they will attend after the holidays.

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 as always for your ongoing support.  There is more in us than we know #WeAreCrew.

Julie Mosley

Dear Families

I start with a repeat of last week’s starting sentence: it was another very busy and productive week, even with four days due to our second staff day on Monday. We really do work hard here to produce beautiful work with our staff and students always striving to be the best versions of themselves.

If it’s good enough for our students…

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 22nd September we focused on our teaching and learning model at XPG and on Monday 25th September we carried out some Outdoor Education work which focused on crew development including crew reads, crew initiatives and outdoor safety. This work sets us in good stead for future student learning opportunities and Year 9 DofE challenges.

Visitors in school …

We have had several visitors in school this week meeting our students and looking closely at the work they do. As adults, we always step back and let our students take the floor when visitors come and our students always talk openly and honestly about their school and work here at XP Gateshead. 

Verbal feedback from Ron Berger’s visit and our external school review last week has been really positive praising our strong school culture and the quality of our work. We will share more detailed feedback when reports come our way. 

Our Local Governors Committee (LGC) meeting …

On Thursday we had our first LGC meeting of the year. Our LGC is set up to provide support and challenge to XPG  leadership around the three dimensions of XP:

Our LGC focus on our school improvement priorities and regularly visit school to validate, support and challenge our work. We have a very strong LGC group as you can see below

Andrea Mead	Chair	Headteacher , Specialist provision
Jane Sutton	Governor/Parent	Primary Link Advisor, Gateshead LEA
James Renwick	Governor/Parent	Y6 primary teacher
Elizabeth Shipley	Governor/Parent	Senior Clinical Psychologist
Phil Latham	Governor	CEO Endeavour Academies
Julie Mosley	Principal	XP Gateshead
Steph Oliver	Staff/Governor	Leader at Norton School, XP Trust

In our first meeting we looked at last year’s review, this year’s school improvement priorities and the work we plan to undertake. LGC visits are scheduled across the year to check on our progress around these priorities.

Our week ahead 

G30 Fieldwork – Whitburn and Marsden

As part of their  G30 expedition “From the Ground Up’, our Year 7 students will be carrying out fieldwork at the location of the former Whitburn Colliery and Marsden Village near to Souter Lighthouse in South Tyneside.

• G30 Class 2 will be going on Tuesday 3rd October
• G30 Class 1 will be going on Wednesday 4th October

Please see the website post for full kit details and times of the day.

Open Evening Tuesday 3rd October

On Tuesday we will open our doors to prospective families that are considering XP Gateshead as a destination school for their children in the next academic year (from September 2024). Our students will host sessions across the evening around our 3D approach, sharing their responses to key questions:

• Beautiful work – How do we create beautiful work and why is this so important?
• Academic success  – How do we lead our own learning to ensure that we are successful?
• Character – How do we grow our characters at our school?

As always, it will be their voice and work that is centre stage. Unfortunately we are not able to have all students with us for the night (all would happily volunteer) due to space but we have a great group of ambassadors who have stepped up to work with us for the evening. Thank you to their families who have supported too with late collection from school.

PE sessions this week

Our PE sessions this week are as follows. Please ensure that your child has their  full PE kit.

• G30 students (Year 7) have PE on Monday this week.
• G29 students (Year 8) have PE on Wednesday this week.
• G28 (Year 9) Class 1 students have PE on Thursday this week.
• G28 (Year 9) Class 2 students have PE on Friday this week.

Extended Study

We will offer extended study sessions, from 3:15pm – 4:30pm each day this week Monday-Thursday. 

We will be sharing our after school club offer with students later this week and taster sessions for clubs will start in the final two weeks of this half term.

 

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 as always for your ongoing support.  There is more in us than we know #WeAreCrew.

Julie Mosley

Dear Families

This last week has been a very busy and productive one again, even with four days due to the staff day on Friday.

On Thursday we welcomed the North East Creativity Collaboratives Network into school. Part of the conference agenda included an ambassador tour from our students, who were able to articulate how creativity is central to our rigorous 3-dimensional curriculum focussing on Beautiful Work, Character Growth and Academic Success.

In preparing for this visit it has reminded us of just what a special place our school is, and the breadth and depth of experiences that our students get in service to their mission of ensuring that they and their Crew are successful.

G30 – What do the communities of NE England owe to the miners?

Just this week we have had G30 preparing to interview Joe Solo, a folk musician and our songwriting expert in preparation for our students taking stories of members of the mining community and immortalising them in song.

Year 7 have also visited Beamish to carry out fieldwork which focussed on the working conditions of mines in the 19th and early 20th century. This fieldwork included demonstrations of what caused the tragedy at Felling pit (literally underneath our school) in 1812, as well as carrying out an investigation into the death of a young miner and going down the drift mine for a visceral understanding of what it feels like to spend your day under the ground.

Students will share their music and wider learning from this expedition with you in a presentation of learning at St Mary’s Church in Heworth at the Year 7 Presentation of Learning on the evening of Monday 18th December.

G29 – What does it mean to be Human?

G29 have this week been grappling with challenging text, including their anchor text ‘The Body’ by Bill Bryson to help them to make connections between the structure and function of the lungs and the evolutionary path of humans, the smart ape. In Human students welcomed Reverend Lucy into school to ask her about her views on the sanctity of human life. Reverend Lucy was very impressed with the level of questions from Year 8, commenting that they were “University-level questions”. In arts students have been continuing to learn to capture the most expressive object in the known universe – the human face. The connections students make between these disciplines will come together in a speech, excerpts from which you will be able to hear at the Year 8 Presentation of Learning on Tuesday 19th December.

G28 – How can structures help us to explain the world around us?

This week G28 visited the Byker Wall to learn from experts in the Byker Community Trust and Ryder Architecture about the influence that physical structures and our social environment can have on the way that we live our lives. Students toured the community, sketched the building in preparation for their own sculpture design and paid particular attention to a building that had been suffering from decline and anti-social behaviour, but after renovation and reconfiguration is now an award winning part of the Byker community.

In the coming weeks students will start to make more connections between structures of habitations, structures of government and structures of the physical world – down to the atom, to help them to answer their guiding question.

Year 9 will share their learning in a Presentation of Learning on the evening of Thursday 14th December.

Our week ahead 

Ron Berger – EL Education

This week we are honoured to welcome Ron Berger from EL Education to our school. Ron Berger is the Senior Advisor for Teaching & Learning at EL Education in America. Ron is a well-known educator nationally and internationally and will talk to our students about a commitment to quality, character and citizenship.

More than this though Ron is a friend of XP; in fact without Ron there would be no XP. Ron has been with EL Education in the US since the very beginning and was gracious enough to guide us in setting up XP in Doncaster. When we talk about Outward Bound and Kurt Hahn being the start of our story at XP, Ron is the person who helped us to fill in the gaps when the idea of XP was first developed by Andy Sprakes and Gwyn ap Harri – for that we will be forever grateful.

Some of our staff have been lucky enough to listen to Ron talk before. Our students are in for a treat, as Ron brings with him more than the stories of his experience as an educator over the last 25 years, but also a portfolio of beautiful work from students across the EL community – work of quality, work of character and work of active citizenship. We can’t wait!

External School Review on Thursday

Building on the really positive external review that we had in the Summer Term, we have asked for another review to look specifically at Personal Development of our students and also to look in more depth at more subjects. We will update you with feedback from this review but we know that our students and staff will do us proud. Here is a reminder of some of the wonderful comments from the previous review.

‘Staff are committed and relentless in their pursuit for culture to be right’

‘Crew is an effective system for ensuring that primarily students are known very well to adults, and that students exist in a safe place to talk with confidence about many issues’ 

‘The curriculum model, is being implemented successfully, thanks to experienced leaders, as well as collaboration with other experienced leaders across the trust, which is positive’

‘Interpersonal skills are being well developed – students are skilled at listening to others, being respectful and sensitive, as well as in offering advice, critiquing others, and in offering their own opinions and thinking’

PE sessions this week

Due to our staff day tomorrow, there is no PE for G30 students (Year 7) this week

G29 students (Year 8) have PE on Wednesday this week.

G28 Class 1 students have PE on Thursday this week.

G28 Class 2 students have PE on Friday this week.

Extended Study

We will offer extended study sessions, from 3:15pm – 4:30pm each day this week Monday-Thursday. 

On staff days like tomorrow, 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.

Students are expected back to school on Tuesday 26th September by 8:25am at the latest.

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 as always for your ongoing support.  There is more in us than we know #WeAreCrew.

Julie Mosley

Dear Families

We have continued to be impressed with our students this week and the HOWLs (habits of work and learning) they exhibit in sessions – and specific praise for G30 who have made such a fantastic start in the way that they are forming and strengthening great habits of work and learning in class.

Guiding Questions

This week immersion came to the end for all  year groups and after lots of wondering and suggestions, students in G28, G29 and G30 enjoyed the big reveal to find out their expedition guiding questions.

GQs (guiding questions) are a crucial part of the anatomy of an expedition.

GQs influence, shape and act as a reference point for student learning. GQs provoke thinking and deepen learning throughout the 12 week expedition and allow students to be engaged in authentic and purposeful work which makes connections between different subject areas and disciplines. During the course of a learning expedition, our children experience a range of case studies, with challenging texts which deepen their understanding and help them to develop an answer to the rich GQ for the expedition.

G30

Our G30 students’ first 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?’. Case studies will involve the Industrial Revolution, Pit Disasters including Felling 1812, the growth and decline of local collieries and the 1984 Miners; Strike. Their final product will be a collection of folk songs which honour the stories of members of the mining community in the North East – students will interview these experts and put their stories to music, as well as a permanent display in St Mary’s Church in Heworth to honour those that lost their lives beneath our school in an explosion at Felling Colliery in 1812. The presentation of learning for this expedition will take place at St Mary’s Church on the evening of Monday 18th December.

G29

Our G29 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?’.

There are three case studies for this expedition each with their own question: What is a human?; What can we learn from how we see differences between humans?; How do humans and humanity grow and develop?

The final product for this expedition will be an artwork installation in the QE hospital which promotes organ donation, as well as speeches in answer to the guiding question. These will be shared with you in a presentation of learning for this which will take place in school on the evening of Tuesday 19th December – more details on this soon.

G28

G28 students’ expedition is called ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ and has the guiding question ‘How are structures important in helping us to shape our world?’. 

Case studies for this expedition will examine the structure of government, the structure of habitations and the structures of the physical world down to the level of the atom.

The final product for this expedition will be a sculpture inspired by brutalist architecture which will be curated in the community, with a dedication to all citizens of our local community in recognition of the challenges they faced, and the support given to one another during the COVID pandemic.

Northern Stage – Cultural fieldwork

On Thursday our G28 students  visited the Northern Stage Theatre to see the critically acclaimed theatre performance of ‘ I, Daniel Blake’. This was a very powerful and moving experience for staff and students alike as the play explored the realities of life for people living in our area and how systems that are supposed to support people can in fact let them down. 

I was delighted to receive an email from a member of the audience on Friday morning which read:

Yesterday I attended a performance of I, Daniel Blake at the Northern Stage in Newcastle.  Sitting in front of me were two rows of pupils from your school aged 13-15!

I just wanted to compliment all of the young people – they were beautifully behaved and thoroughly engaged in the performance.  A number of them were moved to tears and their friends and teaching staff were just so supportive and caring in their attitude towards each other – it really was lovely to see.

Young people so often get a bad press these days, so I just wanted to take the opportunity to Buck the trend and share with you what a delight I thought your young people were and total respect to your school for choosing this performance for them the themes of which I’m sure may have resonated for some, given the current cost of living crisis.

A beautiful and important email, as we say to our students at XPG – we are judged by the quality of our work and the quality of our characters. 

The provisional date for G28’s presentation of learning is the evening of Thursday 14th December – more details to follow.

Our week ahead 

G28 students (Year 9) – Byker Wall Fieldwork, Monday 18th September

As part of their  G28 expedition “Another Brick in the Wall’, our students will be taking part in a  Human and Art fieldwork to Byker Wall on Monday 18th September. 

See our website post for full details.

G29 students (Year 8) 

On Wednesday, our students will work with their first expert for their ‘Being Human’ expedition. Reverend Lucy will give her view on what the Bible tells us about the sanctity of human life – students will discuss their GQ with a range of experts during the expedition to help them to develop their own answer which will be part of their speech. Engagement with experts is  an important part of our model. Teachers bring experts from the community into the classroom to collaborate with students, teach them skills from their field, and critique their work to professional standards.

G28 students (Year 7) – Beamish Museum, Thursday 21st September

As part of G30’s first expedition ‘From the Ground Up’, students will be taking part in important fieldwork at Beamish Museum in County Durham on Thursday this week. This is their first fieldwork and we will stress the importance of being ambassadors for our school. For more details please see Mrs Ross’ post here.

PE sessions this week

Please can parents make sure that their child has a PE kit (see website post). We expect students to change into their appropriate PE kit, and not wear the same clothes they wear in school. Similarly, students must change out of PE kit afterwards, into their normal school clothes.

• G30 students (Year 7) have PE on Monday this week.
• G29 students (Year 8) have PE on Wednesday this week.
• G28 students (Year 9) have PE on Tuesday this week.

There is a change to PE for our G28 students (Year 9) this week due to Fieldwork and Staff Day on Friday. G28 will have one hour of PE this week for each class.

Extended Study

We will offer extended study sessions, from 3:15pm – 4:30pm each day this week Monday-Thursday.  These are study sessions where students can get support with their extended study. Students do not need to book into these sessions, but must stay until the end of the session at 4.30pm.

Working with our local Crime Prevention Team

On Thursday, Northumbria Crime Prevention Unit are running a workshop for our Year 9 students around keeping safe online. 

As part of our PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education) and RSE (relationships education, relationship and sex education) programme we will work closely with local experts to ensure our students get the best advice on how to keep themselves safe.

Staff Development Days

We have 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. These are shown in blue on our calendar 

This week and next sees the first of our staff days where students are not expected to be in school.

• Friday 22nd September – Staff Development Day 
• Monday 25th September – Staff Development Day 

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.

Students are expected back to school on Tuesday 26th September by 8:25am at the latest.

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 as always for your ongoing support.  Together we are stronger #WeAreCrew.

Julie Mosley

Dear Families

We welcomed all of our students into school last week and we are delighted by how they have all settled into school. A Kurt Hahn quote that has continued to resonate with us over these last weeks is

“We are crew not passengers, strengthened by acts of consequential service to others”

We build our culture of crew at XPGateshead so that all members of our school community are impelled to work together as a team, to pitch in, to help others.

We are still getting used to our new bigger site and enjoying new spaces – our new classroom and crew spaces, theatre and larger social spaces. We are really pleased with how well our students are using these spaces and the maturity they show whilst moving around the site.

Last week saw the start of  immersion for all new learning expeditions. Immersion is an opportunity for students to dip their toe into the content of the learning expeditions, to build background knowledge and generate curiosity about the guiding question for the expedition. Guiding questions will be revealed to students this week.

G30’s first week back in school

G30 started their week in Crews unpacking what they learned at Ullswater about ‘What it means to be Crew’ and considering how that is applied back at school. All Crews took time to curate their Outward Bound fieldwork and the individual journeys they had all taken along with the character traits they had demonstrated. They then spent time agreeing their crew norms and what they would look like, sound like and feel like in classrooms. 

All G30 students have resigned our ICT acceptable use agreement, which helps to ensure that students use technology appropriately and most importantly safely. All student iPads have now been delivered and we will be able to ensure that all students are online this week.

Our week ahead 

G30 students (Year 7) 

Students will continue with their immersion this week, thinking about what their guiding question can be having already held coal and considered its importance to the industrial revolution, as well as studying maps to consider how our landscape has changed since the 18th century.

PE sessions take place on Mondays for our Year 7 students so students need a full PE kit on this day.

G29 students (Year 8) 

Our year 8 students have had much deliberation on what their new expedition guiding question could be. This last week they have been learning about Peter Scott-Morgan, a man who defied biology by making more of his body digital after a diagnosis of motor neuron disease. They have been making connections between this, their anchor text – ‘The Curious incident..’ and a gallery walk which focussed on the transatlantic trade in enslaved people.

All will be revealed on Monday morning when there is a G29 expedition launch session. 

There has been a change to the timetable for this week for PE:

• Class 1 have their PE session on Wednesday so will need their PE kit.
• Class 2 have their PE session on Thursday so will need their PE kit

G28 students (Year 9) 

After last week’s immersion, which included building structures; 3D modelling; and atomic weapons our year 9 students will discover their new guiding question on Monday.

There is more fieldwork for G28 on Thursday as part of their new learning expedition. We have organised a cultural visit to Northern Stage to see the critically acclaimed ‘I, Daniel Blake’. We are delighted to be able to offer this to our students as tickets are difficult to get hold of. Students will have a slightly early lunch and leave site at 12:30pm to travel by metro to the theatre for the afternoon performance. Students should be back to school by 5pm. Please see the recent post for more details. 

G28 PE sessions take place on Thursday and Friday

• Class 1 have their PE session on Thursday so will need their PE kit.
• Class 2 have their PE session on Friday so will need their PE kit.

Making the right start

Punctuality

Can I remind all families that students need to be in school for an 8.30am start to sessions. They must arrive by 8.25am at the latest. There will be staff in school supervising so students can arrive from 8.00 am. The vast majority of our students had perfect punctuality last week but not all of them. Please support us with our high expectation around punctuality to school.

Extended Study 

For the next two weeks we will offer extended study sessions, from 3:15pm – 4:30pm each day apart from Friday when we finish at 3:15pm. These are study sessions where students can get support with their extended study.

Students do not need to book into these sessions, but must stay until the end of the session at 4.30pm.

We will be launching our new lunchtime and after school clubs programme at the end of September.

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 as always for your ongoing support.  Together we are stronger #WeAreCrew.

Julie Mosley