G28 Weekly update – w/c 11th October 2021

10th October 2021Mark Lovatt

Dear Parent/Guardian

I hope you are well. Welcome to our weekly update for the week commencing 11th October.

Last week was a very busy week for us with our first Local Governance committee meeting, roll out of iPads for students, our virtual open evening for new and prospective parents and students and topped off by hosting a Trust executive and Heads meeting on Friday ! Our students have stepped up to the mark on all of these occasions and I thought they were particularly brilliant in our live virtual open evening transmission.

This week is our last week of term before the half term holiday where we will all have a much deserved two week break – hard to believe how quickly the time seems to have gone! Students will be continuing with their expedition work – from the ground up, and also their maths expedition looking at mathematics and numbers involved in food waste. We will also be continuing to use our iPads in lessons and will begin to set extended study tasks for students. We hope to have the issues around the appstore resolved at the start of this week. Apologies for the delay around this.

HoWLs

Students will continue to discuss their Habits of Work and Learning in academic crew this week and will make pledges as we focus on how we can be the best versions of ourselves. We are really proud of how honest and reflective our students have been during this process.

Covid testing

Please continue to give your child a lateral flow test on Sunday and Wednesday evenings and please ensure you enter the result into our online form. This is really important and not only helps to keep our community safe and our school open it also avoids wasting important time on Monday and Thursday mornings in crew when we have to chase up testing. We really appreciate your support in this.

Parentpay

We will begin adding charges to lunches taken to parent pay this week including back dating ones from previous weeks. It is worth noting that you can add credit to parent pay in advance, you do not need to wait until charges are added. If you are having any issues setting up your account please contact your daughter or son’s crew leader.

Early close this Friday

Don’t forget that we will be closing early this Friday at 1.30pm to allow us time to “degunge” 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.

After school clubs

We now have Monday – Mixed Fitness, Tuesday – French, Wednesday – Extended Study, Thursday – Minecraft & Football/Multi-sport. This week we will be starting a book club with Miss Tatters on Wednesday lunchtimes. Ms Tatters was on her way this weekend to collect the first reading club books from Waterstones in town. 

Random acts of Kindness

Finally we would like to appreciate a few students in particular: Isla, who has left appreciation cards for staff with delicious cupcakes she baked herself; Ethan who baked cookies for other students on his own birthday and Daniel also who made delicious chocolate brownies for the first lunchtime book club. We are all appreciative but have also gained weight!

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 beginning to add work to our “beautiful” work portfolios. We are also hoping to organise a mini student-led conference before Christmas 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.

Best wishes

Mark Lovatt

Principal

G28 SPANISH EXTENDED STUDY – Due Mon 11th October

6th October 2021Martin Said

Now that students have their devices, we will begin to increase the amount of extended study that students are asked to do. We set extended study through Google Classroom. Your son or daughter can now access this through Safari on their iPad. In time we will add parent emails to Google Classroom so that you get updates on a weekly basis of work that has been set.

 

Students can either do extended study after school, or at home. This week, students have extended study for Spanish.

The instructions below have been shared with students through Google Classroom. They have links to the resources needed in Google Classroom too.

 

SPANISH EXTENDED STUDY

Task 1) On a blank piece of paper write down all of the vocabulary you can remember from this term so far.

You can: Say your name; say how you are; say your age; say where you live and where you want to live.

Task 2) Look at the pictures you took on your phone for 5 minutes and memorise more vocabulary. When the 5 minutes is up add to the list you made in task 1 in a different coloured pen. Do not copy it over.

Task 3) Google Forms quizzes linked in Classroom. Take your time and read the questions carefully. “Mi Cumpleaños” = my birthday. This is a quiz in preparation for next week so you will need to refer to the Sentence Builder in Google Classroom.

Task 4)  Spend 20 minutes improving your letter to a Spanish friend. I am attaching feedback from your previous homework to each of you individually and I would like you all to act upon it to redraft your work.

MARKINGS:
“sp” =  check spelling
underlined =  a vocab. error or something which is from a translator which should not be there,
^  =   a word or punctuation missing

I may have put a couple of observations or comments underneath on how to improve your writing.

Improve your writing: 

– Challenge yourself and see if you can write it from memory.
– Add something new. e.g.” Tengo una hermana que tiene quince años / Soy hijo Ășnico.” 
– If you look up vocabulary from your lesson resources, that’s fine. Please write it in a different colour pen.

This work is due Monday evening so spread it out through the week. I will be checking it has been done by everyone on Monday night.“

CHANGE OF DATE: XP Trust – SEND Virtual Q&A for Year 6 parents

5th October 2021Julie Mosley

IMPORTANT, CHANGE OF DATE: Due to an Ofsted Inspection in XP East this event will now take place on Thursday 14th October at 4:30pm – 5:15pm.

We apologise for the short notice of this change, but in the new school inspection framework we are in turn given short notice before inspection begins.

This will be an opportunity for parents of potential Y7 students in our secondary schools to ask any questions related to their child’s special educational needs and how we deliver our curriculum. To prepare for the session, we would appreciate it if you could add your questions to this form.

To join the session click on this link. As we are an educational establishment, you will need to sign in to a google account to join the session.

iPads have now been issued to G28 students

By Martin Said4th October 2021

Students have now been given their iPads and cases. The iPads must be set up at home this evening.

Students need to being them back to school tomorrow, and every day fully charged. A fully charged device is part of students’ daily kit check.

This afternoon we returned to the acceptable use of ICT agreement and all students resigned this as a pledge to keep themselves safe online, and to use ICT appropriately.

The ‘Acceptable Use of ICT Agreement’ can be found here.

Instructions for how to set up the iPads are as follows. Students have been given a printout of these instructions too.

Logging in

  1. Take your iPad out of the box and put it in the case you have chosen
  2. Use the power button at the top right corner of the iPad to power on the iPad
  3. Choose your language
  4. Choose your region (United Kingdom)
  5. Connect to your Wi-Fi Network
  6. You will now be prompted that XP Trust will manage your iPad – tap next
  7. You will then be asked to log in with a username and password. The user name is your first name, a dot, last name. e.g JOHN.DOE  . Your password is: xptrustipad

Setting up

  1. Wait for the iPad to set itself up. During this process you’ll see a number of Apps begin to download to the iPad. You can find some further applications provided by the school in the app ‘Self Service’
  2. That’s it! Enjoy!

We’d recommend setting a passcode for your iPads by going to Settings > Touch ID and Passcode. Once you’ve set up a passcode you can add your fingerprints to unlock your iPad.

You may already have an Apple ID so if you’d like to log into the App Store, you can do this by going to Settings > iTunes & App Store.

Further Help and Support

You can always get help and support with your iPad from Apple with the ‘Apple Support App’ or by contacting the school. 

Insurance Claims

For insurance claims, please contact [email protected] (see the parents section of the school website)

COVID Testing reminder

By Martin Said3rd October 2021

Good evening

Please remember to update your home testing results on our website as early as you can, as this avoids us needing to plan to make more staff available for the following morning during crew. Where we do not have a test result for your son or daughter, this means that we put in place a plan to test them in school. Updating your results on our website in good time means that the impact of in school testing on our students is minimised.

Thanks again for your continued support.

G28 Weekly update – w/c 4th October 2021

By Mark Lovatt1st October 2021

Dear parents/guardians

Welcome to our parental update for the week commencing 4th October – we have another busy but exciting week ahead of us.

Open evening – Thursday 7th October at 6pm

This week, students have been continuing with their expeditions and also preparing for our information evening on Thursday 7th October. This will be an opportunity for students to tell prospective students and parents about their school. The event will be streamed on Youtube, you are very welcome to attend by clicking on the link that will be shared on our website next week. Every student has been involved in the production of the open evening. This has been students’ first ‘project’ and we are delighted with how they have been drafting, seeking feedback and redrafting their ideas in pursuit of beautiful work in order to make the evening as successful as possible.

Covid Testing

Thank you to all parents for continuing to test your children for Covid and for completing our online document to let us know the result. This has helped us to keep our community safe and our school open. We have issued extra Covid test kits so please continue to do this every Sunday and Wednesday evening.

Vaccinations

Vaccinations for both flu and Covid (where eligible) will take place on Tuesday 5th October for all students that have returned consent forms. We have NHS nurses on site who will administer the vaccinations.

ParentPay

You have been given details of how to set up your parentpay account in a letter which was sent home with your son or daughter this last week.

iPads in school

iPads have now been delivered. We will be distributing to students next we and will share instructions on how to set the iPads up at home. A reminder that once they have been issued, students will need to bring them to school charged every day.

HoWLs Assessment

Teachers have made an initial assessment of student Habits of Work and Learning (HOWLs) in their subject areas and we will begin to discuss with students over the next couple of weeks as part of our academic crew sessions on Thursday morning. This an initial assessment and we are interested to see how these align with students own perceptions of how they are learning and the habits that they are forming. These will form the basis of a discussion between crew leader and student about strengths and area for improvement.

External work to school site

Many of you will have noticed our beautiful new XP Gateshead signs which have appeared at our school gates. There is also currently scaffolding at the main entrance and this is to allow painting of the external wall in our school colours. There is extensive work planned for over the half-term break in October which includes levelling and reseeding the grassed area next to the Tennis court. This will mean we can use this area for sports etc in the Summer term.

Early finish on Friday 15th October

This is an early notice that on Friday 15th October we will be finishing at 1.30pm for the October half term to allow staff to “de-gunge” and set up ready for students returning after the holiday. There will not be any provision for students to stay after this time so all students need to be collected or to have left the school at 1.30pm.

Degunge is an important protocol at XP Gateshead, and is linked to the principle at Outward Bound of ‘leave no trace’. This stewardship protocol helps to ensure the efficient and effective use of resources/running of the school.

Local Governance committee

The first meeting of our local governance committee will take place on Tuesday 5th October. This will be our first meeting since the school opened and I look forward to sharing our progress with governors. Governors will be supporting us in meeting our Key Performance indicators and will carry our a number of visits each term. We have already been visited by Claira Salter (Head teacher at Green top school in Doncaster and one of our governors) and by Andrea mead, the chair of our LGC. Both were incredibly impressed and will feed back on Praises, notices, and wonders in regard to their visit at the meeting.

XP Trust Heads visit our school

This week we will host head teachers from all seven XP Trust schools who will visit us on Friday 8th October. We cannot wait to show them around.

Our students as always remain a credit to you and to XP Gateshead. A visitor last week remarked that she had never come across Year 7 students who could talk so confidently and proudly about their new school.

Thank you for your ongoing support and trust and as always please get in touch with crew leaders in the first instance with any questions or concerns.

Mark Lovatt
Principal

COVID testing and parent pay.

By Martin Said29th September 2021

Please remember to do a lateral flow test on your son or daughter and update the results on our website.

Students have been given additional testing kits today,  along with a letter explaining how to set yourself up on parent pay.

Please note that no lunch charges will be added to your account if you qualify for free school meals.

G28 Weekly update – w/c 27th September 2021

By Mark Lovatt24th September 2021

Dear Parent/Guardian

From the Ground Up

This week revealed the guiding question to our learning expedition: ‘From the Ground Up”. Students have started to explore their guiding question – ‘What do the communities of North-East England owe to the miners?’

We have established clear Learning Targets in English, Science, History, Geography, and the Arts, which students will need to achieve before they are ready to complete their final product for this expedition which will be a published book of stories, interviews and illustrations associated with local mines and the importance of coal to our region.

Food Glorious Food

Students have also started studies on a learning expedition in Maths called ‘Food Glorious Food’ with the guiding question, ‘How can food bring our community together?’ This week students have been using their mathematical skills to interpret data around food waste in the UK.

Likewise students are enjoying their Spanish and PE sessions and have a set of long-term learning targets that they are now working towards. In Spanish students have started to learn common classroom language, so that Spanish can be the language that is used most in class. In PE students are studying football skills and embarking on a series of health related fitness sessions that will help them to understand the many benefits of exercise for their bodies.

Open evening – 7th October

In other news students are helping to prepare for our Open Evening which will be a virtual event broadcast live on Thursday 7th October at 6pm. This is where prospective students (and Parents) applying for schools from September 2022 will find out more about XP Gateshead. Our first cohort of students are proud of their school and will share their experiences of joining our school and tell others about what it means to join our community at XP Gateshead.

We expect that 2 students from each crew will be nominated to be part of the live stream on the evening, to take questions from prospective parents. More details next week.

School Lunches

We are now able to provide hot meals. These are great value at ÂŁ2.50 for a main and a desert and the week two menu is included below.

Students clearly enjoyed their first taste of the new school food.

We will publish details of how you sign up to parent pay on our website this week. However, in the meantime if your child would like a meal then they simply need to ask their crew leader each  morning and we will collect payment when our parent pay system is set up.

HoWLs (Habits Of Work and Learning)

Students have begun to reflect on their HOWLs (Work Hard, Get Smart, Be Kind)  – these are our “learning” behaviours and will help students to be successful in their studies. In due course students will self-assess how well they think they are doing in each of these areas and teachers will also be reporting their assessment for each student in these areas.

Covid Testing

Please continue lateral flow tests with your child every Sunday and Wednesday evening and also complete our google spreadsheet to let us know the result of the test. This couldn’t be more important at the moment and is helping to keep our community safe and our school open so I really appreciate your support in this regard. In addition it means that we avoid disruption to our crew sessions on Monday and Thursday mornings, so again we really do need your support in this regard please.

Thank you for your ongoing support in everything we are doing at XP Gateshead.

Mark Lovatt

Principal