XP Gateshead

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 £2.50 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

We are delighted to be able to confirm that students will be able to eat hot lunches from our kitchen starting from tomorrow Thursday 23rd September.

Tomorrow is a week 1 Thursday on the weekly schedule:

 

Lunch will be priced at £2.50 per day. We are setting up parent-pay and should have the facility for you to make payment early next week – and the charge would include any meals taken this week too.

It is important to note that there will be no charge for families eligible for free school meals. We have an updated list of families from the Local Authority, however if you think you may now be eligible and would like to apply, here is the link to the Local Authority page where you check your eligibility.

Each morning as part of our crew protocol, we will ask students whether they need a hot meal from us, and encourage as many families as possible to take up this offer.

Dietary requirements

Gateshead Local Authority kitchens do not use Halal meat, however there is always a vegetarian option.

Please complete this Google Form if you need to let us know of any special dietary requirements that your son or daughter has, so that the kitchen staff can make sure that we can meet their needs each day.

Information about Gateshead’s offer around dietary needs can be found here. A guide for parents can be found here.

 

Dear Parents/Guardians

Just a reminder that students will return to school on Tuesday 21st September this week following our teacher day on Monday.

Students continue to settle in well and have been exploring themes from diverse communities and how they support each other, to coal and the geology of the North East. They have also been analysing local maps and discovering how line, tone, form, and shape, can be used in Art. All these ideas are connected and are part of what we call “immersion” before we reveal our first expedition and our guiding question towards the end of this week. 

School lunches

There will be a slight delay to the launch of our new school kitchen so please plan to bring packed lunches for at least the first two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) of this coming week. Our kitchen is ready (and looks great) and we are just waiting for electricians to check and test equipment and to put in a second ring circuit to ensure we have enough supply. This should be completed in the early part of this week and I will update you as soon as possible.

COVID

Please continue to  let us know if your son/daughter shows any symptoms for Covid and please also continue to test your son/daughter with the lateral flow tests provided every Sunday and Wednesday evening. Thank you for continuing to enter negative test results in the google sheet as normal – this is really appreciated and helps us to keep our school open and safe.

iPads

There has been a delay to the shipping of iPads for two reasons. Firstly due to the nationwide issues with haulage, the Logitech cases were not in stock and we did not want to give the students their iPads without the protection and additional functionality that the cases provide. Secondly, we have been presented with the option to to wait a further week when newer 10.2 versions of the iPads would be in stock, which would give you as parents better value for money.

Given that there was already a delay and it would mean just one week more, we have agreed to wait until Monday 28th September, which is the estimated delivery date for the new improved models of the iPads.

As always thanks for your support

#wearecrew

#wearexpgateshead