Dear Parents/Guardians
Welcome to the start of another phenomenal week at XP Gateshead – It’s a busy and exciting week ahead for our students. Please note below the parent voice survey that we are asking all families to complete as part of our safeguarding review.
Expeditions
Students this week will have the opportunity to work with Marek Blonski on Wednesday 9th. Marek is the development Chef for Gateshead Council. This is part of our science expedition – “Staying Alive” which looks at what we need to survive and also asks the question – Is Survival Sufficient ? Marek will be sharing his background in being a Chef and the work he does across Gateshead Council. Part of this expedition is to learn about food poverty and students will put together food boxes with ingredients based on recipes of Jack Monroe – the “Bootstrap cook”. Marek will be sharing with students how to make meals from nutritious and affordable ingredients.
Trust visits – Safeguarding review and Parent Voice Survey
On Wednesday we will be joined by the Trust safeguarding team who will carry out a full safeguarding review. Every school in the Trust has a safeguarding review to ensure we are carrying out our statutory requirements and our students are safe. We look forward to the review and to any feedback we receive.
As part of this review, we are asking for all families to complete a short survey. your feedback is incredibly important to us and helps us to ensure that we continue to run an excellent school for your children.
Please complete this short Google Form and hit submit.
Extended Study and after school clubs
Extended Study and after school clubs will be running as normal this week.
MONDAY: Sports / Extended Study
TUESDAY: Extended Study
WEDNESDAY: Extended Study
THURSDAY: Sports / Extended Study / Minecraft
Lateral Flow Testing
COVID infections are still very high in the community and, given our scale, an asymptomatic case in school could cause issues if it were to spread, for example in terms of being able to staff the school. Please continue to support us with lateral flow testing each Sunday and Wednesday evening and make sure you enter results into our website on each of these occasions.
Now that the government has decided to remove the wearing of face coverings as one of the mitigation measures in schools, we are happy for students (and staff) to continue wearing masks if they feel more comfortable doing so.
If you require any extra LFT kits please let us know.
We will continue to keep doors and windows open for ventilation so students are advised to bring multiple layers to school to keep warm. This is how we look after each other – #wearecrew
Staff Days
Please note that this Friday (11th March) and the following Monday (14th March) are staff days and students will NOT be in school on these days. Staff days are to support staff in receiving statutory training and in preparing and resourcing expeditions throughout the year. Students will return to school after next weekend on Tuesday 15th March
Calendar dates
Our calendar can be found here.
As usual if you have any questions please get in touch with your child’s crew leader in the first instance.
Best wishes
Mark Lovatt
Principal