Dear Families
Hard work has continued as always in school this week. In crew, students have been working on their pledges around improving their HoWLs and academic performance. You will receive your child’s snapshot next week and your child will share their pledges with you so that you can see which areas they are targeting for improvement over the coming months.
Craftsmanship and quality is high on our agenda with Presentations of Learning for G28, G29 and G30 in the final two weeks of term. Our students will be working hard on their final products and preparing their responses to the guiding questions that they have been exploring all term. We cannot wait for them to share their beautiful work with you and know that, as always, they will impress with their compassion in supporting each other in the coming weeks, and the courage they will show when presenting their learning to the community.
On Tuesday G30 students enjoyed working with our expert singer songwriter Joe Solo on their folksongs which they will perform as part of their final product.
As you know, Mr Devitt graduated on Friday. Crew Parks gave him a great send off as he left site on Friday to attend his graduation ceremony with an impromptu guard of honour.
Our week ahead
Extended Study and Clubs
Our full after school offer is available this week with extended study and clubs running.
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 2 students have PE on Tuesday and Friday this week. This is to account for the session that was missed due to a staff day.
- Due to the Crew Day this week on Thursday, G28 Class 1 students will have an extra session of PE in a future week to accommodate this.
Crew Day – Thursday 7th December
Every term, we look to run a Crew Day which is an opportunity to ‘tend’ to crew and culture. Crew is our support network at XPG and key to the continued success of everyone at our school, we will revisit what it means to be crew and our responsibilities in getting everyone to the top of the mountain.
On Thursday, students will work with their crew and Crew Leader for the day developing their teamwork, crew identity and wellbeing.
In this week’s Crew Day:
G30 students will start their work on researching suitable people after whom to name their crews – people who have achieved great things and who display our character traits of courage, integrity, respect, craftsmanship and quality, and above all compassion.
G29 will start their work on looking at which charity they want to support. Students will be putting together their proposals and pitching to the rest of their crew their choice of charity.
G28 will continue their activism work, the awareness raising and charity work they are planning to carry out this academic year.
Presentations of Learning – a reminder of dates for your diary
G28 – How are structures important in helping us to explain our world?
G28 will be presenting their learning on the evening of Thursday 14th December in Newcastle. The venue for this is Newcastle University, with part of the evening being held in the Herschel Building Lecture Theatre – where we held our Do Your Bit PoL in Year 7. The other half of the evening will be in the Farrell Centre which is nearby on Claremont Road. We anticipate that the evening will start at 6pm and finish at around 7.30pm. More details to follow on which building to go to first.
G30 – What do the communities of NE England owe to the miners?
G30 will be presenting their learning on the evening of Monday 18th December at St Mary’s Church in Heworth at 6pm-7.30pm.
G29 – What does it mean to be human?
G29 will be presenting their learning on the evening of Tuesday 19th December at XP Gateshead at 6pm-7.30pm.
A reminder that on these evenings, students remain in school to rehearse and polish their presentations. For the events that take place outside of school, we will transport students to the venues. Families are then asked to take students home directly from the venue.
Public speaking and sharing of learning through PoLs are an important element of our school model, and so it is vital that every student has someone from their family that is able to attend and support them in developing their character and demonstrating their academic learning.
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
