XP Gateshead

Dear Parents/Carers

Welcome to the final week of this half term! 

It is hard to believe that we have only been together for 6 weeks having achieved so much!

The work of our Comms Team brought this to light last week after installing some new displays. Seeing more beautiful expedition work showcased and more student images has been great and enjoyed by all.

Our weekly community meetings continue to be a highlight of every week. These are a time when each year group comes together to share key messages and make appreciations, apologies, stands and pledges. 

In the G29 community meetings we have continued to ‘tend to’ our new community and students are now confidently using their voice in these sessions. G28 community meeting this week was a special one, students who have been completing a personalised research project during their Common Mission time took the opportunity to present their work to the rest of the year group. Our students showed real courage in doing this and their work was high quality – we learned about subjects such as :

• The ‘life cycle’ of stars and what evidence there is to support this
• Forensics and the importance of treating crime scenes very carefully
• The world of macro photography of the very small
• The threats faced by curlew and how conservation efforts are helping

Congratulations to all who presented on Friday and a huge appreciation from all staff and students for the new learning you shared.

This week:

G29 fieldwork

As part of their ongoing expedition, ‘From the Ground Up’, G29 students will be carrying out fieldwork at the location of the former Whitburn Colliery and Marsden Village near to Souter Lighthouse in South Tyneside. More details on kit etc. were shared in this post last week. They will be working alongside geological experts and carrying out a historical enquiry at the site of the former pit village, including a visit to Souter Lighthouse to see their exhibition with excerpts from former residents of the village.

Open Evenings

As you know, we are hosting open evening events for Year 6 families on Wednesday 12th and Thursday 13th October. Many of our students are working with us to prepare for these evenings and getting ready to present their school to the wider world. Keep an eye on our website for short films about XP and the work we do here. 

HoWLs

Students will continue to discuss their Habits of Work and Learning in academic crew this week. We are really proud of how honest and reflective our students have been during this process and look forward to sharing some teacher reflections on HOWLs with them after the half term break.

Early closure this Friday

Don’t forget that we will be closing early this Friday at 1.30pm to allow us time to “de-gunge” and set up for the next half term. Please make arrangements to pick up your children at the school gate for 1.30pm this Friday.

Extended Study and Clubs this week

Please note that there are no clubs taking place this week. We ran taster sessions last week so our students got a real flavour of what’s on offer. Clubs will start after the half term break.

Extended study this week will run on Monday and Tuesday only. This is due to our Open Evenings on Wednesday and Thursday. 

Thank you for your continued support through this half term and we hope everyone has a good holiday. We are looking forward to the next half term where we will be focussing on our academic work and adding work to our “beautiful” work portfolios. We will also be organising our student-led conferences which will be an opportunity for you to see some of the work your children have been doing – more on this later.

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

XP Gateshead

Dear Parents/Carers

It’s been another great week at XPG. We continue to be impressed by how hard our students are working both in and outside of classrooms exhibiting our character traits and demonstrating HoWLs. There’s a real ‘feeling of Crew’ as you walk around the school and talk with students and we celebrated this in our Community Meetings on Friday.

As you know, on Monday, all of our staff team travelled to Doncaster for an XP Trust wide inset day focused on teaching and learning. The day was attended by all staff employed by XPTrust (over 300 people) .We all enjoyed a day of hard work, challenge and the chance to spend time and collaborate with our colleagues from primary and secondary schools across the Trust. 

We were reminded of the schools we are in XP Trust: schools that have a relentless focus on character growth, creating beautiful work and achieving academic success. The following short film is well worth a watch, bringing this to life – Why is it important to share our stories? 

Another moment of real pride this week has been our first football team outing. We couldn’t have been prouder of our Year7 and 8 students who displayed real courage this week in playing against other, much larger secondary schools in Gateshead. Although the final scores were not great, our students shone in terms of their conduct and character. Staff at the event praised every one of our students for their courage, respect and above all compassion.

This week: 

Trials in clubs are starting this week

Students will have the opportunity to try out our offer of extra-curricular clubs this week, having expressed an interest in each club last week. We will still be running the support for students that want to work on Extended Study each evening from Monday-Thursday too.

Advance notice for next week

Open Evenings

We are hosting open evening events for Year 6 families on Wednesday 12th and Thursday 13th October, and will be asking for support from students on those evenings. More details will be given to those students that are helping out via a letter this week.

Extended Study next week

Due to our open evening, we will run Extended Study after school on Monday 10th and Tuesday 11th only next week.

Half Term and early finish on Friday 14th next week

Please be aware that it is half term for two weeks from w/c 17th October and so as normal students will finish at 1.30pm on Friday 14th October to allow staff to replenish resources and to de-gunge rooms and teaching spaces ready for after the half term holiday. Students will return to school at the normal time on Monday 31st October.

Thank you as always for your ongoing support.

Julie Mosley

Co-Principal