Dear Families
Last week there was a lot of hard work from staff and students alike at XP Gateshead. Character growth alongside academic progress and beautiful work is at the core of our ‘Three Dimensional’ approach for students, staff and leadership, including governance. Our Crew Days last week and the DofE work undertaken by G28 students is key in terms of character development and Crew.
The Importance of Crew at XP Trust
Our design principles at XP Trust are summarised in one sentence:
We build our community through activism, leadership and equity, sharing our stories as we go.
Crew is integral to our school’s approach and has been designed with the above in mind as is articulated in our core practices document:
“The cultural heart of XP is expressed through the concept of Crew. This concept is pervasive and runs through everything we do from dedicated Crew sessions, through our curriculum, to the way we enable student and staff voice. Crew is our culture and promotes and sustains the building of community. Crew empowers our students and staff to be activists; to develop their leadership skills; and to be champions of equity. The measure of success in our Trust is weighed through service and kindness as well as the academic success of our children. Crew allows everyone associated with our Trust to become part of something bigger than themselves and fosters a sense of community and belonging, reflected in the stories we share with each other every day.”
G30 Crew Day – Walk for Water
G30 Crews carried out a day of fundraising at Gateshead International Stadium linked to their studies from the last learning expedition “Staying Alive”. This was part of the final case study in the expedition – ‘Water, water everywhere’. Working together in Crews, our students were challenged to carry 5 litre bottles of water around as many laps of the 400m track as they could. Money raised will be put towards twinning our school toilets with a set that have been installed in an area of need, transforming a community.
The challenge gave students an insight into the challenges that people in the world face just to get clean water for washing, drinking and cooking every day and raised awareness of how much we have in our country that we take for granted as a basic human right.
We are really proud of our students who walked a total distance of 252.8km carrying 5 litres of water. We will post an update later this week with the total amount raised. All students worked really hard, and we had a great community meeting at the end of the day where students made appreciations for the encouragement shown to each other. Jacob in Crew Earhart was a particular standout, both in terms of his own physical effort, but also in the support that he showed to students from all crews. Great work G30!
Of course the fundraising is in itself important, and we hope that with the funds raised we will be able to twin more of our school toilets with more facilities installed in Sub-Saharan Africa. Events like this in Crew day are also integral to the development of character and teaching your children that they are important, that they can do important work and make their community and the wider world a better place.
G29 Crew Day
As our Year 8 students develop and mature, we challenge them to develop their leadership skills in Crews and individually. Students were challenged with several tasks across the day.
Firstly, a Lego SPIKE robotics innovation unit challenged students to design and code a robot that could mobilise without wheels, using their iPads to code the robot and making adjustments to the design based upon testing. The kits will stay in school as part of a wider partnership with LEGO funded through SAGE. Special thanks to our robotics club members and Dr Bunce who runs the club as they contributed additional kit, training and carried out a trial run of the challenge. We will make further use of the kits to support STEAM learning in the terms and years to come.
Our award winners for the challenge – for fastest (and most aesthetically pleasing) robots.
Crews also spent time planning how they could make an artefact in final half-term which will raise awareness of their chosen Crew charities. This is an important part of their work ahead of Crew fundraising which will take place in Year 9 and forms part of their first-week back in August.
Special thanks go to G29 for their stewardship work in our outdoor areas. As you know, it has been agreed in principle that our current site is to be our permanent site and work is underway to look at building requirements. We are a long way off getting our final school building and site but that does not mean we can not improve our environment. So G29, along with Mr Walters and our gardening club, have done a huge amount of work already. Please keep an eye out for Mr Walters and his shout outs for donations of gardening equipment on our Parents of XPG Facebook group.
G28 Duke of Edinburgh Practice Expedition
All of our students complete a bronze DofE award in Year 9 and this, like our first week at Ullswater, is a compulsory part of our curriculum at XPG. The DofE programme aims to “develop the skills and attitudes young people need to become more rounded, confident adults. Qualities that colleges, universities and employers are attracted to” – aims that align with ours, developing in students “confidence, resilience, focus and motivation to achieve things they never thought they would”.
Across this year G28 students have been learning new skills, volunteering and getting physical. The final part of the award is a two day, one night expedition which our students have been planning and training for last week. Students completed a day of campcraft training on Monday and carried out their practice expeditions in Crews on Friday. Students made excellent time during the day and it was a joy to hear of the levels of maturity, support and skill shown in navigating, hiking, setting up camp and cooking – all of which stands them in good stead for their assessed expedition in July in Northumberland. All students completed a 6.5km route across unfamiliar terrain with backpacks laden with their clothes, tents and cooking equipment.
As always, our students stepped up to the challenge. Their maturity and independence was commented on throughout the day – how they supported each other, managed the physical challenge, cooked and set up camp for each other and the thorough de-gunge carried out at the end of the day. We also managed to travel more sustainably on the Metro to get to Callerton Parkway and Airport for our circular route across country.
Thank you to those who have made voluntary contributions so far, this has helped support our purchase of a DofE loan kit for families struggling to be able to purchase the required kit. Every student was fully equipped on Friday, which is thanks to the commitment of all families in G28 as well as the kind donations we have received.
This week
G29 and G30 Student Led Conferences (SLCs)
SLCs continue this week for our Year7 and Year 8 students.
SLCs, like PoLs, are key moments in the development of our students and it is vital that parents, carers and families fully support SLCs. It has been wonderful to hear of the pride our families, staff and students have felt following SLCs last week and we look forward to hearing more this week.
G28 New Learning Expedition
G28 start a new learning expedition this week with a very quick immersion and then into learning targets proper from Tuesday. We will post more details of the expedition including the guiding question next week once it has been revealed to students.
PE sessions this week
Our PE sessions this week are as follows. Please ensure that your child has their full PE kit.
- G30 students (Y7) have PE on Monday this week
- G29 students (Y8) have PE on Wednesday this week.
- For G28 students (Y9)
- G28 Class 1 have PE on Thursday this week
- G28 Class 2 have PE on Friday this week.
Extended Study and Clubs
Extended study and after school clubs will not be running this week due to G29 and G30 Student led Conferences.
G31 In-Person Information Evening, Thursday 23rd May at 6pm.
As part of our transition work, we are nearly there in meeting all of our new students and their families online. This is a huge undertaking, as you can imagine but having 30 minute family meetings allows us to start getting to know our students well.
On Thursday at 6pm, we will hold an Information Evening for all of our new families in Year 6. It is vital that all families attend as we will give important information about the Outward Bound course that takes place for all students at the start of Year 7 as well as our iPad scheme. In addition, we will address some of the misconceptions about our school so that families are completely clear on what we are: ‘A mainstream school with a relentless focus on beautiful work, character growth and academic success’, and also what we are not. There will be an opportunity for you to ask us questions too of course.
Half term break starts Friday 24th May
We come to the end of a six week half term on Friday 24th May and as always, we will finish at 1:30pm for our usual de-gunge.
We return to school on Monday 3rd June 2024.
As usual if you have any questions please contact your child’s crew leader in the first instance. Thank you as always for your ongoing support.
Julie Mosley