I hope you are well and your son/daughter is continuing to enjoy their time at XP Gateshead. From all of our staff crew we just wanted to let you know that the conduct of our students has been absolutely exemplary and we couldn’t be more happy with how they have settled into their new school. Together, we are already building such a strong culture based on our character traits of courage, respect, craftsmanship & quality, integrity and above all compassion.
This week we introduced students to our HoWLs (habits of work and learning) which are: work hard, get smart and be kind, and again we are so pleased at how students have taken ownership of these HoWLs, supporting and challenging each other to be the best versions of themselves.
Just a few updates and reminders for the week ahead.
Professional development days
We will be closed for students on Friday 17th September and Monday 20th September. These staff days are crucial for us to be able to work together across the whole of the XP School Trust on our incredible curriculum and our wider work to ensure success for all students.
We will not be setting work for students during this time however we would encourage students to read their crew reader, Seedfolks. If you have not already done so, it may be useful to look at our calendar to make a not of future staff days too:
School lunches
Good news – we are hoping to be able to deliver hot meals from Tuesday 21st September. We think these will represent good value for money. Details on how to order and pay for meals will be posted next week. In the meantime the 2 week menu below shows the choice of food available each day. Week one will commence Mon 20th (teacher day) so children will start with the Tuesday menu on the 21st September. Week two menu will commence on Monday 27th September.
COVID precautions
We are continuing to be as careful as we can be regarding COVID and staying as safe as possible while in school. We are taking the following precautions:
- Keeping our building as ventilated as possible by opening windows and doors wherever we can.
- Surfaces are cleaned with disinfectant everyday by our cleaners and additionally we ask students to wipe surfaces down when they have been in a classroom.
- Practising good hygiene by encouraging students to wash their hands on a regular basis and providing hand sanitiser in every classroom
In addition we would ask parents to support in keeping our school as Covid free as possible by doing the following:
- Please inform us if your child develops symptoms or if there is a member of your family who tests positive for Covid. In these situations we will ask if we can carry out daily lateral flow tests with your child.
- Please test your child twice every week using the lateral flow tests we have provided today. Tests should be carried out on Sunday evening and Wednesday evening and we ask that you enter the result on a Google Form. This form takes no more than a minute to complete. We will test students in school on the following Monday or Thursday morning if we have not received a test result.
- If your child tests positive then please keep them isolated and obtain a confirmatory PCR test as is the normal arrangement.
We really appreciate the support of all of our parents in helping to keep our school community as safe as possible.
If you have any questions concerning your child please ask crew leaders and for more general enquiries please contact [email protected]
Thanks for your ongoing support, we are delighted with how your children have started their time with us at XP Gateshead.
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