If your child is interested in music tuition, please ask them to collect a copy of this letter from Mr Said in school next week.
IMPORTANT: Due to Mr Said’s absence the deadline for returns of the letter has been extended to Tuesday 22nd March.
Students should speak to Mr Said in school for more details.
Today you will receive assessment information about your child’s academic progress and their habits of work and learning.
In the interest of saving paper, these will be emailed to you as a pdf along with a second document which contains your child’s personal reflection about the start that they have made with us at XP Gateshead.
If you would like a paper copy too, please contact your child’s crew leader.
You will remember the video below was shared in advance of the student-led conferences and serves as a summary explanation of our assessment protocols. It may be useful to watch this again when looking at the information with your child.
What is most important about this information is that it starts conversations about progress. Please do talk as a family about the information we have shared and your children have thought so carefully about in their reflective narratives.
Some questions that you might want to ask are:
– Why did you make those pledges?
– How are you getting on with those pledges? How do you know?
– What are the strengths that you bring to XPG, with your HoWLs and your skills and knowledge that are reflected in the AP information.
– What are you most proud of?
We are so proud of the strong culture that our students, your children, have created in such a short time.
We’re looking for Teachers/Learning Coaches at our schools in XP Doncaster!
We’re looking for Learning Teachers at XP Doncaster! –
Find out more here:
English Teacher
Maths Teacher
Learning Coach
This weekend Isla emailed Mr Devitt and Mr Said asking what our crew could do for the people of Ukraine, with some suggestions of her own.
Isla read some articles and thought really carefully about what was needed and how we could help. She then put together a presentation for our Crew which she delivered this morning. The Crew were really impressed with Isla’s compassion and agreed that we wanted to help.
Students in Crew Devitt/Said have agreed to contribute if they can, although this is not something that is an expectation. We have said that we will try to get donations together over the next week, up to Wednesday 16th March.
Where possible, in line with what Isla has found out and as recommended by Gateshead Council donations of the following would be welcome:
- Clean and winter-proof sleeping bags for children and adults
- First Aid Kits
- Dressing
- Clean Bedding
- Toiletries (not opened)
- Small baby nappies
- Baby wipes
- Colouring books
- Children crayons
- Children Art Accessories
- Clothing
- Clean Blankets
Donations in school will be passed to a local drop off point, and will be transported to Poland and given to the CARITAS charity foundation, who are providing crucial assistance to those fleeing to Poland.
TEENTECH are hosting another live event, similar to the event held on cyber security back in January. This event will be about animation.
In this session, students will be talking to leading people currently working in the animation industry both locally and nationally. They will talk about their work, how they got into their industry and what your students can do right now to hone their skills and experience.
Students will be looking at the entire process from concepts and ideas, storyboarding and pre-production, the production of animation (stop-frame and computer-based) right the way through to editing and post-production.
As it is a staff day, to join the event from home, students have a link shared with them by Mr Said in their STEAM Google Classroom.
The event will take place on Friday 11th March between 10.00am – 11.00am.
Students must follow the young persons agreement whilst attending and representing the school at the event.
The Young Musicians Programme
The YMP (Young Musicians Programme) is currently open for applications from children and young people aged 4 to 19 to start in September 2022. The closing date for the first round of applications is Friday 15 April 2022.
YMP is open to all children and young people who are interested in music and want to learn, including those who want to become professional musicians.
The programme supports access to music study and is hosting an online open day on Saturday 26 March. Students can register their interest at this link: YMP Open Day 2022 | Sage Gateshead. The open day is a brilliant way for parents and carers to learn more about our Young Musicians Programme.
There will be a presentation about the programme, introductions to our staff and tutors, a Q&A, and a tour around Sage Gateshead and the Music Education Centre.
If you have any questions please contact youngmusicians@sagegateshead.
Youth Music Advisory Board
For our students that are already 12 years old, there is an opportunity to apply to be part of steering group that will give young people in Gateshead a voice on music education in schools and as part of the wider music hub.
Instrumental Tuition at XPG
More information will be posted very soon on instrumental tuition for students at XPG.
On Friday students carried out fieldwork at St Mary’s Cemetery in Heworth. Whilst there, students noticed the plaque for the victims of the Felling Pit Disaster and the tribute to them inside the cemetery gates.
You may remember that we dedicated our music from our presentation of learning to the 92 that lost their lives as a result of the events on that day.
Here are the authors of the Felling Colliery section of the book in front of the plaque: Delaney, Katie and Lucy
Below is an extract from their writing for the book, which addresses the disaster with compassion and sensitivity. Beautiful work!
“The history of Felling Colliery is heartbreaking. The mining conditions were similar to other mines; terrible. The conditions in all mines including Felling were really hot or cold depending on how far away from the door you were.
Sadly a lot of men were getting injured while going down the mine. They would describe conditions as cramped, torrid and exhausting. For example, William Holle was a miner at age 15 for 4 years. He broke his thigh and was unable to work for 2 years because a waggon rode over his leg. He still suffered from dust inhalation throughout his life and said it made him feel dry inside; “it gives me heartburn.”
The colliery suffered four disasters in the 19th century. The disasters were in 1813, 1821 and 1847 as well as 1812 which was the most major of all the tragic events. It was on 25th May 1812 when firedamp (methane) caused an explosion. A miner had come into contact with firedamp underground. The flame of his candle caused the mine to go up in flames in a huge explosion. Of the 128 working in the pit at that time 92 miners had died and the rest luckily made it out alive. Since the disaster had affected a lot of miners and their families, from that point on, the government required miners to use safety lamps when going down the mines. This makes the Felling Pit Disaster a really important moment, not just because of the awful loss of life, but also for the improvements to mining conditions that came as a result of the uproar from the public and from miners.”
Dear Parents/Guardians
Welcome to the start of another phenomenal week at XP Gateshead – It’s a busy and exciting week ahead for our students. Please note below the parent voice survey that we are asking all families to complete as part of our safeguarding review.
Expeditions
Students this week will have the opportunity to work with Marek Blonski on Wednesday 9th. Marek is the development Chef for Gateshead Council. This is part of our science expedition – “Staying Alive” which looks at what we need to survive and also asks the question – Is Survival Sufficient ? Marek will be sharing his background in being a Chef and the work he does across Gateshead Council. Part of this expedition is to learn about food poverty and students will put together food boxes with ingredients based on recipes of Jack Monroe – the “Bootstrap cook”. Marek will be sharing with students how to make meals from nutritious and affordable ingredients.
Trust visits – Safeguarding review and Parent Voice Survey
On Wednesday we will be joined by the Trust safeguarding team who will carry out a full safeguarding review. Every school in the Trust has a safeguarding review to ensure we are carrying out our statutory requirements and our students are safe. We look forward to the review and to any feedback we receive.
As part of this review, we are asking for all families to complete a short survey. your feedback is incredibly important to us and helps us to ensure that we continue to run an excellent school for your children.
Please complete this short Google Form and hit submit.
Extended Study and after school clubs
Extended Study and after school clubs will be running as normal this week.
MONDAY: Sports / Extended Study
TUESDAY: Extended Study
WEDNESDAY: Extended Study
THURSDAY: Sports / Extended Study / Minecraft
Lateral Flow Testing
COVID infections are still very high in the community and, given our scale, an asymptomatic case in school could cause issues if it were to spread, for example in terms of being able to staff the school. Please continue to support us with lateral flow testing each Sunday and Wednesday evening and make sure you enter results into our website on each of these occasions.
Now that the government has decided to remove the wearing of face coverings as one of the mitigation measures in schools, we are happy for students (and staff) to continue wearing masks if they feel more comfortable doing so.
If you require any extra LFT kits please let us know.
We will continue to keep doors and windows open for ventilation so students are advised to bring multiple layers to school to keep warm. This is how we look after each other – #wearecrew
Staff Days
Please note that this Friday (11th March) and the following Monday (14th March) are staff days and students will NOT be in school on these days. Staff days are to support staff in receiving statutory training and in preparing and resourcing expeditions throughout the year. Students will return to school after next weekend on Tuesday 15th March
Calendar dates
Our calendar can be found here.
As usual if you have any questions please get in touch with your child’s crew leader in the first instance.
Best wishes
Mark Lovatt
Principal
As part of an expert session with Commonwealth War Graves Commission tomorrow, students are carrying out some fieldwork in the morning at St Mary’s Church at Heworth.
We will be walking down to the church, and will return to school for lunch.
The forecast for the morning has a high chance of light rain, so it is important that students are dressed for potentially wet weather.