Here’s all our beautiful work we’re celebrating from the last academic year.
From The Ground Up
In the Autumn term of 2022 students at XP Gateshead studied an expedition called ‘From the ground up’ exploring all three curriculum strands of diversity and belonging, social justice and the climate emergency. The guiding question for the expedition was:
What do the communities of the North-East of England owe to the miners?
The learning targets for the expedition were:
- LT1: I can explain the processes that led to Britain’s mineral wealth and summarise how this impacted on the growth and decline of industries in the United Kingdom.
- LT2: I can carry out an historical enquiry about the growth and decline of a coal mine in the North-East of England.
- LT3: I can explain how humans have developed models which have helped us to learn about and exploit the properties of matter, such as coal during the industrial revolution.
- LT4: I can explain the importance of sharing stories to preserve our North East heritage with reference to our anchor text and the 1984 miner’s strikes.
- LT5: I can reflect upon features of successful communities – such as diversity and belonging – to think about our character values and how we build our own community at XP Gateshead.
The writing of all of Year 7 was then gathered together to make a book also called From the Ground Up. This book has our biographies and factual writing interspersed with our beautiful charcoal sketches of mining artefacts.
The Expedition culminated when we carried out a celebration of learning to an audience of our parents and members of the mining community. During this celebration of learning we read extracts from the book, performed music which we had written and had been inspired by Gresford: The miners’ hymn. This music was performed against a backdrop of archive footage from the mines, inspired by the film The Miners’ Hymns, underscored by Johann Johannsson. This gave us an opportunity to not only promote the book in advance of its publication, but also to show our respect and appreciation for the contribution that miners made to our community.
Our Presentation of Learning
Do Your Bit
In Spring 2023, students in Year 7 studied a HUMAN expedition called Do your bit! Over the following months, we explored the guiding question:
Why do we need to honour all those who made sacrifices during WWI?
The learning targets were:
LT1: I can analyse the effects of war propaganda and recruitment techniques.
LT2: I can read critically to show how language, vocabulary choice, organisational features and grammar impact meaning.
LT3: I can express an unheard voice in war.
LT4: I can use maps of the world to explore Britain’s Empire.
LT5: I can describe what followers of the Sikh religion believe and how they practise.
LT6: I can evaluate the causes of WWI.
Our product was a radio broadcast, modelled on wartime broadcasts. Students were directed towards one of their creative pieces and went through a rigorous critique process to perfect their writing as well as working with an expert to guide them on their tone of voice and oral delivery in preparation for recording. Students told the chronological story of the war, interspersed with their creative and descriptive writing from the unheard voices of those that sacrificed. This broadcast was recorded ‘as live’ and will be played out on radio stations in November, to coincide with Remembrance Day.
Our Presentation of Learning
Staying Alive
In January 2023 year 7, began their expedition “Staying Alive” in order to answer the guiding question:
Is survival sufficient?
The learning targets were:
Case study one: Feed me – What food do we need to survive?
- I can describe the structure and adaptations of the digestive system in providing the body with the nutrition it requires.
Case study two: Let’s keep it hot – How do we heat our homes?
- I can explain how heat energy can be transferred in our homes in a more efficient way
Case study three: “Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink” How can water be separated from mixtures
- I can describe a process to separate pure water from a mixture of dirty water using a range of scientific techniques.
Our final product was firstly for Class 2, a food box full of non-perishable items which was donated to Gateshead Food Bank. For Class 1, a “healthy” food box (from each class) designed to feed a family of four for a week, which was donated to Edberts House. The ingredients in the foodboxes were based on recipes from Jack Munroe’s books – “Cooking on a bootstrap’ and “Tin Can Cook”’. Students put together the food boxes which contained all the ingredients needed for the selected recipes and where possible they tested the recipes at home in advance. The recipes were selected based on advice from our nutritionist expert and designed to be both healthy (provide a balanced diet) and also tasty – because “survival is insufficient” for true happiness.
Toilet Twinning
Students in G29 carried out fundraising for Toilet Twinning. This was connected to their learning from their expedition “Staying Alive” which included study of access to clean water. This was the driver for our Crew day: helping students to get a visceral insight into the daily experience of some children, asking them to show resilience, to support each other as a Crew whilst raising funds to make a difference.
Our aim for the day was to raise enough money to support one toilet block being installed in a place of need.
We are delighted to announce that, with your support, we smashed that target!
Students raised a total of £1269 which has enabled us to twin our toilets with four sets of toilet blocks in schools in Malawi, Nigeria and Tanzania – one set for each Crew.
Hold Back The River
In April 2023, the year 7 expedition was called “Hold Back the River”, where we had to answer the guiding question:
How does water shape our world?
The expeditionary learning targets were:
- LT1: I can explain how life is dependent on water.
- LT2: I can explain how water shapes physical landscapes.
- LT3: I can explain how the distribution of life is determined by water.
- LT4: I can analyse how life can adapt to the absence and abundance of water.
- LT5: I can describe the impact of human activity on water-based environments.
- LT6: I can analyse a range of stimuli to represent the complex relationship humans have with water
The expedition culminated with a celebration of learning, raising the profile of the importance of conservation of habitats. At this celebration students launched their articles in their own ‘XP Crew Chronicle’ which highlighted their work on conservation and the challenges that human action poses to local water habitats and the species that live there.
