Dear Parents/Carers
Welcome back after a long weekend. As a staff crew we have been working hard on our curriculum plans to ensure we continue to provide high quality for our students across all expeditions and subject areas. As always, there are lots of exciting things happening over the next few weeks.
Our students are working on their pledges around improving their HoWLs and academic performance. You will receive your child’s snapshot this week with a video which explains how the information is presented. Next week your child will share their pledges with you so that you can see which areas they are targeting for improvement over the coming months.
Presentations of Learning will take place at the end of term and our students continue to work hard on their guiding questions ready to share their learning with you. I’d like to take the opportunity to thank you in advance for your attendance at these events; it’s really important that students have an authentic audience when they present and is part of our design here at XP – academic success, beautiful work and character growth. We can’t wait to see them all shine (as they always do) and for you to be dazzled!
This week:
G29 Fieldwork
Our Y7 students will be taking part in fieldwork on Tuesday as part of their expedition From The Ground Up. They will be spending time interviewing members of the Northumberland mining community in Ashington as they continue to answer their guiding question “What do the communities of North-East England owe to the miners?”.
Robotics Club
This Wednesday’’s robotic club is cancelled due to commitments of the external provider.
XP Trust School Review
As part of our ongoing monitoring, we welcome the XP Trust Performance Team into school on Thursday. The team will be looking at the quality of our work in all areas of XP Gateshead. As part of the review, they will spend time in sessions alongside students, looking at the quality of student work and talking to staff and students throughout the day.
Advent
Like last year, we would like to run a reverse crew advent challenge. We will be preparing for Christmas by helping others and looking at how we can focus on giving rather than receiving at this time of year. We are set to work with North East charities who support vulnerable families. Crew Frank will coordinate G28’s reverse advent and will work with Sister Josepha in support of Oaklea Convent in their Christmas shoebox appeal. Crew KDO will coordinate G29’s reverse advent in connection with the Gateshead Food Bank. Your children will get more information on this in Crew this week.
Thank you as usual for your support. I would like to give a special thanks to our parents that have organised the Christmas trampoline party at Jump Giants. It’s great to see students from across both Year 7 and 8 socialising together in the break and we know that other parents are appreciative too!