Dear Parents/Carers
What a great first week back we have had! Our students have settled back into school quickly and, as always, have impressed us with their HoWLs, character values and their engagement in learning.
Immersion
This week has been immersion week for all of our students marking the start of our new Summer expeditions. Both G28 and G29 students have been puzzling over what their new guiding questions will be after 4 days of immersion this week.
As part of their new expedition G29 students have been learning about keystone species and carried out fieldwork in our local nature reserve at Windy Nook – there will be a separate post on that coming soon. They have also been learning about major rivers in the world and beginning to build background knowledge about drainage basins and key vocabulary. In Arts they have been studying the work of an artist Jason de Caires Taylor, who creates sculptures that are placed under the sea to become artificial reefs, where life can take hold. Students will find out their expedition title and guiding question this week.
Immersion for G28 has involved hearing stories from people that have been displaced in modern times, and also looked back to the great depression in the USA and the dust bowl, building background knowledge for their new anchor text ‘Of Mice and Men’. Students were particularly puzzled by the connections between this and light waves in science, and the creation of paper prints in Art. All will be revealed this week!
Crew Day
On Friday, our students and staff enjoyed a great Crew Day. Crews took time to ‘tend to’ Crew and culture as well as start their activism work with charities.
Our G29 (Year 7) Crews completed the ‘Walk for Water’ covering a huge distance around the Gateshead Stadium track. What was most impressive was the support and encouragement the Crews showed each other throughout the challenge. Here are just some snippets from Friday and there will be a longer post coming this next week with details of the amount raised. We have asked if sponsorship forms could come back into school by Wednesday of this week please.
In total students completed 702 laps around the track with water, that’s over 280km! What a great effort.
Our Year 8 our crews started the work with their chosen charities:
- Crew Frank (MRS) – Bobby Robson Foundation
- Crew Stanton (ETA) – Tiny Lives
- Crew Angelou (DME) – Young Minds
- Crew Parks (TDE) – Trees for Cities.
Each crew is posting an update on our website to share the work they did on Friday and their charity plans for the future. Again. Here’s a couple of photographs from a fantastic day of hard work:
This week
PE sessions
As usual G28 students (Y8) will need a PE kit for Tuesday, G29 students (Y7) will need a PE kit on Wednesday.
NEU Strike Action, Thursday 27th April – Y8 only in school.
When students are not in school they can work independently on extended study tasks. There will be extended study after school on Thursday, but no sports due to the strike action.
XPG Term Dates 2023/24 and 2024/25
We have had several parents approach us over time to share the challenges caused when our holidays do not align to other Gateshead Schools. We have discussed these challenges at our Spring Term LGC (Local Governing Committee) and we have investigated possibilities for term dates with the CEO of XP Trust. On Friday, I shared our proposals with all of the other XP Trust School Leaders at our Heads Network and on Monday I’d like to share these proposals with you and gather your feedback. Please look out for this post on Monday. I would like to get feedback from all of our families so everyone’s voice can be considered in our decisions around future term dates.
Looking Ahead:
Early May Bank Holiday – Monday 1st May.
School closed for all.
NEU Strike Action, Tuesday 2nd May – Y7 only in school.
When students are not in school they can work independently on extended study tasks.
As usual, if you have any questions please contact your child’s crew leader in the first instance.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
Julie Mosley
Co-Principal