Dear Families
Welcome back, we hope you have enjoyed your half term break. We are looking forward to welcoming our students back tomorrow for the start of our final half term at XP Gateshead.
Our usual reminders for a good start back…
Attendance
Can I remind all families about the importance of students attending school every day. School attendance is vital to the life chances of young people and being in school improves health, wellbeing and socialisation throughout life. Put simply if pupils are not at school then they are not learning and quickly fall behind in all areas of their development. Term time holidays are not authorised at XP Gateshead. Let’s all work hard together to ensure school attendance is high – students, parents/carers, Crew Leaders and XPG inclusion team.
Punctuality
School opens at 8:00am every morning. Students should arrive between 8:00am and 8:25 am and there are spaces available for socialising, reading or completing extended study. Students must be on site for 8.25am for the call to Crew. A calm start to the day is really important for students to settle into learning so we ask that parents support their child with this.
Dress code
Please refer to our website post for full details on our dress code. Can I remind parents of the following expectations around daily dress within school and ask for your full support around this as we move into our final Summer half term and warmer weather.
For a normal day within school, we do not think it appropriate that students wear:
- Hats, hoods & coats inside school
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- Revealing clothing, i.e. revealing the midriff, chest or upper thigh
- Noticeable make-up, including false eyelashes
- Valuable, sentimental or impractical accessories / jewellery
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- For example heavy chains, thick sovereign rings, or false nails
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- Impractical footwear:
- For example sliders, flip-flops or high heels.
Daily kit list
As always, all students need to be fully equipped for school and bring a school bag with:
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- A filled water bottle
- Pencil case including: pens, pencils, ruler, eraser and pencil sharpener
- A fully charged iPad
- Their AR reading book (please remember that as part of our reading strategy, we expect all students to read between 20-30 mins. each day)
- Headphones
- A healthy snack for break (no confectionery (sweets), fizzy drinks or energy drinks, nut products)
- A notebook
Staffing Update
As you may be aware, we have recently advertised a Learning Coach/Crew leader role at XP Gateshead (see website post).
We are unfortunately losing Sophie Pegg from our team at the end of this week. Sophie is resigning from her position as Learning Coach/ Assistant SENDCo at XP Gateshead and going to work for a charity that supports those with HIV and delivers training to organisations. She will be helping to deliver the charity’s RSHE (relationships, sex and health education) project. This is a great opportunity for her, a dream job and one too great to turn down.
Sophie has been a key founding member of our team at XP Gateshead and has been with us since the start of our school. Her work has always been of the highest quality and she is a great role model to others, staff and students alike. I’m sure that you will join me in thanking Sophie for all of her high quality work at XP Gateshead, she leaves behind a real legacy in SEND, RSHE and mental health work but above all, she embodies XP character values, above all compassion!
New staff induction
Our new staff head off to start their induction this week and like our students, induction starts with an Outdoor Expedition to find out what it means to be Crew. Hannah Simpson (HUMAN teacher), Mohammed Azam (STEAM teacher) and Stephanie Jamison (STEAM teacher) are off to Yorkshire Tuesday to Friday this week.
This week
Fieldwork for G29 – Tuesday 4 June
G29 students will undertake a day of Fieldwork at the Gateshead Energy Centre to look at their methods of energy and heat production and Gateshead Councils Carbon Zero approach.
- Students need to bring their regular kit for the day in a bag as there are exhibits in the site where students can take photographs and make notes using iPads for example.
- Class 1 are visiting in the morning and will finish school at their normal time. We are leaving school at 8.30 so class 1 students need to be in school for 8.25am to register.
- Class 2 are expected to to return to school at 3.30pm (please check the website for updates)
- The visit will be outdoors, so students need layers to keep warm. Depending upon the weather we may need a waterproof outdoor coat. Sun cream and sun hats will be needed too.
- Students will be walking so comfortable shoes will be needed.
G31 Transition
Our G31 transition work is well underway and to date, we have had individual 30 minute meetings with 49 families and collected lots of information from parents, carers and primary staff. Primary school visits continue this week and next and we aim to visit every child in their Primary School this term. This is done by members of our transition team and means that as well as seeing your child in an educational setting, they get to know another friendly face before they come to us on our Transition days – Tuesday 2nd July and Wednesday 3rd July.
Please see our Y6 Transition Timeline post for more details.
G28 Pathways
As we posted before the break, G28 students will be supported to make appropriate decisions on their pathways through Key Stage 4 over this half-term.
Information on the pathways and courses in our offer can be found here.
If you require any further information about courses, please do get in touch with your child’s Crew Leader who will be able to organise contact with the appropriate teacher for the course.
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 be running Monday to Thursday as usual this week.
Looking Ahead
Assessment fortnight for all students – from 12th June
All students will be sitting end of year assessments next week from Wednesday 12th June and into the following week too.
Year 9 and Year 8 students will sit most of these in our sports hall so that they become accustomed to working in the same exam conditions that they will experience in Year 11 for their GCSEs. Year 7 will carry out their assessments in the classroom.
We will soon publish a timetable for the end of year assessments, extended study for the next couple of weeks will focus on revision – although it is worth noting that the regular retrieval based extended study that we set on a weekly basis supports students to know more and remember more.
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