XP Gateshead

Dear Parents/Carers

It has been another great week at XP Gateshead. Our students continue to impress us with the quality of their work and the commitment they have to being the best versions of themselves. In crew this week all of our students have been working hard writing pledges to improve their HoWL grades or academic progress and it has been great to hear their discussions and see how they are already supporting each other with pledges.

We had a Governor visit this week which focused on how we continue to ensure a strong culture as we grow by developing Crew. We’re really pleased with the feedback we received in our Local Governor Committee meeting on Thursday which included:

Students across both year groups talked about how valuable they felt Crew was and described the almost instant bonds that they felt with their crew members from their very first experience of Crew at Ullswater. They have complete ownership of what crew means for them and there were common themes that arose from these discussions; around support, nurture, friendship and resilience.   

“I would like to praise the G28 students for doing such a fantastic job of modelling and mentoring the new cohort of students and helping them to embrace the culture of XPG. They talked about taking on a parental role with the new cohort and helping them to learn what it means to be a student at XPG.”

We enjoyed a great Maths Week last week and our students stepped up to every challenge set; from scavenger hunts to paper aeroplane construction. All students got behind the Times Tables Rockstars’ ‘England Rocks’ competition and we are delighted with our positions in the final tables – on average scores, we achieved 2nd place in the 194 Secondary schools across England who took part in the competition and overall 7th out of all 3492 schools  (Primary and Secondary schools) who entered the competition. We are delighted with the combined efforts of all students, well done XPG!

Our G28 students enjoyed fantastic fieldwork this week with medical staff at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead as they continue to explore their guiding question ‘What does it mean to be Human?’. They experienced first-hand the challenges of working in a ward and were challenged with responding to simulated pulmonary issues in patients. Students worked in the clinical skills lab here at the hospital and felt the pressure of needing to think on the spot to some high level emergencies. We only lost one virtual patient!

Thirteen of our Y8 students spent the day with architects on Friday exploring how architects consider the needs of communities and end users in the design of buildings and spaces. Students developed some really interesting ideas to make use of a plot in the Helix development in Newcastle having surveyed the area and did an analysis of the surrounding community.

Our huge appreciation goes out to Dr Ruth Sharrock from the Division of Medicine at the QE Gateshead, and to Jess Goodwin at Ryder Architecture for organising these days for our students.

This week: 

Accelerated Reader

This week we will be launching our  Accelerated Reader (AR) programme with G29 students. As part of our reading strategy we expect all students to read between 20 and 30 minutes each day. The AR programme monitors reading practice and progress. Students are guided to read at the individual level and take short quizzes after each book to check their understanding. 

Thank you to G28 parents who provided feedback on AR. We have used this along with feedback from staff and students to make AR even better this year.

Staff Days

Remember that we have two staff development days this half term; Friday 25th and Monday 28th November. Our staff will be working on final products for current expeditions and planning next term’s expeditions. As usual, students are not expected to be in school on these days.

Looking forward, dates for your diary: 

Monday 28th November – Staff Day

Tuesday 29th November – Provisional day for G29 Year 7 fieldwork to Ashington to interview members of the Northumberland mining community. We are awaiting final confirmation of that and should have more information early this week.

As usual, thanks for your ongoing support. Please contact your child’s Crew Leader with any questions or issues. 

Have a great week

Julie Mosley

Co-principal

Dear Parents/Carers

Welcome to another exciting week at XP Gateshead. Our students and staff continue to work hard and, as always, produce high quality work. 

This week we took time to remember and commemorate military and civilian service, thinking of those who have defended and protected the nation’s democratic freedoms and our way of life. During our crew sessions this week we have considered what service means, looked at poetry from WW1 and created painted pebble memorials which will be added to our memorial sculpture above our doors in reception.

On Remembrance Day it was great to see Delaney and Lily standing proud in their cadet uniforms.

G28 continue to explore the guiding question ‘What does it mean to be Human?’. In HUMS sessions they have considered Humanism and interviewed two experts from North East Humanists finding out more about how their beliefs and views could link to the guiding question. As always, our students were very impressive with their questions and willingness to be open to debate.

In STEAM sessions, as part of our expedition – Being Human, Students in G28 have been learning about the human reproductive system and normalising discussion of our reproductive organs. Students were fantastic at showing kindness and understanding to each other and discussing such important learning maturely.

In ARTS student have been working on various media in preparation to complete a self-portrait. These last few lessons have focussed on digital pop art, with portraits in the style of Julian Opie.

As part of their learning expedition ‘From The Ground Up’, students in Year 7 continue to consider the guiding question: “What do the communities of North-East England owe to the miners?”. In HUMAN students have been redrafting their historical enquiry into the growth and decline of Whitburn Colliery and have been reading extracts of our anchor text Billy Elliot. In STEAM, students have been delving deeper into the particle model to learn about atoms, elements and compounds as a means to better understand important chemical changes such as combustion.

In ARTS students have been experimenting with different mark-making techniques to create mono-prints of mining artefacts. Here are some examples of their beautiful work.

Thoughtful Thursday – Pledges

During Thursday’s crew session, all of our students have been analysing their new assessment information and identifying areas they want to focus on to improve their learning. They have started to work on pledges around these areas; what they want to improve and how. When the pledges are complete, they will be shared with you along with the information snapshots.

Attendance information forms part of our snapshots and Crew Leaders will be talking with students about how important attendance is to academic achievement and success in school. This poster is on display in all of our Crew rooms in school and referred to often:

At XPG we celebrate attendance and will support those students and families who need to improve their attendance. Please share any worries you have around attendance with your childs’ Crew Leader.

This week: 

Maths Week

This week is England Maths Week AND Times Tables Rockstars’ ‘England Rocks’ competition. We’ll be making sure we celebrate and enjoy the challenge of Maths in as many ways as we can this week: taking on schools from across England in TTRS, looking for maths in nature, finding our way around a maths scavenger hunt, paper aeroplane competitions and much more! Look out for the Maths posts this week which will keep you updated on what our students get up to.

G28 Fieldwork- 2 pieces of fieldwork on Friday 18th November

13 students from our G28 student-leadership group are carrying out a one-day architecture project linked to their guiding question: “What does it mean to be human?”. This fieldwork project will look at the link between our built environment and how we live and act as members of society. Parents of these students have been contacted by Mr Said, as these students will need to bring a packed lunch for the day. Students will travel by metro to Central Station at Newcastle, and will walk to the station at Heworth from school. A huge thanks to our partners Ryder Architecture for organising the day – which will be a pilot for similar future projects for other students in Year 7 and Year 8.

The other 37 students in Year 8 will be carrying out fieldwork at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Sherriff Hill. This fieldwork Students will walk to the hospital from school but will be in school for lunch so no packed lunch is needed.  The fieldwork will connect to the work students have been doing on the respiratory system and associated anatomy/physiology.

Reading 

Miss Tatters’ post last week gave details around Reading at XPG, please read this by clicking here if you missed it. Accelerated Reader is part of our reading strategy and will be in place soon for all of our students and as part of this programme we expect all students to read between 20 and 30 minutes every day. 

In order to continually improve what we do at XPG, we gather feedback from our stakeholders and are currently doing this around Accelerated Reader (AR). Can I ask all G28 parents (who haven’t already done so) to complete the short parent voice questionnaire on AR by clicking on this link. Your feedback is important and will help us get AR even better this year.

Looking forward, dates for your diary: 

We have two staff development days this half term: Friday 25th and Monday 28th November

As usual, students are not expected to be in school on these days.

Thank you as always for your support and as usual, if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact your children’s crew leader in the first instance.

Julie Mosley

Co-Principal