Dear Families
Open Evening
On Tuesday we held our Open Evening and welcomed over 350 people to our school. As you know, on evenings like this our students take centre stage and as always, they shine.
Families attended 4 sessions – XPG Mythbusting, Beautiful work, Character and Academic Success. Every session, apart from the Mythbusting one, was a showcase ran by students who shared the work done at XPG and answered questions from their audience.
Exit ticket feedback was really positive and our students definitely communicated our culture well with very few questions left unanswered. The confidence shown by our young people and their ability to articulate what we do and why we do it is stunning and we are extremely proud and grateful to all students who were involved. A thank you to families too who supported this event.
Personal Development at XPG
We also received some feedback this week from an external review of personal development at XPG. Areas of personal development include: developing responsible, respectful and active citizens; promoting equality of opportunity; promoting an inclusive environment; developing pupils’ character; giving pupils the qualities they need to flourish in society.
The feedback was positive and included the following
“Crew and the Expedition curriculum, as well as routines such as Common Mission, Community Meetings, Field Work all serve to ensure that students know what they are learning in order to shape their character, and work towards being positive members of society.”
“The interlinked approach to personal development means students can talk about how and why they learn as they do, how it will help them in the future, and why it is important.”
“Students can articulate themselves very well, and confidently. This is the case within Crew, in lessons, at social times, and when interacting with adults – even when they do not know the adult.”
“The school ensures that statutory regulations around RSHE are implemented and thanks to the repeated and lived-out protocols, as well as the consistency of the approach to the different elements of the school day, the students are knowledgeable of the RSHE curriculum and are able to speak sensitively about certain matters.”
“Students show each other and adults respect at all times. This is evident in learning and Crew, as well as at social times.”
An area for continued development is our careers programme – how we support students in their next steps, from GCSE and further education choices, making them aware of the diverse future pathways available to them and what they need to do to achieve their goals. Our work continues this year, look out for our website updates.
G30 What do the communities of NE England owe to the miners?
The character of our G30 students continues to impress us. It is hard to believe that our year 7 students have only been with us for 6 weeks when you see them in and outside of classrooms, look at their high quality work and hear them speak about their progress. The experts who work alongside G30 have continued to praise their hard work, craftsmanship and quality and the respect they exhibit towards each other and staff who work with them.
As part of their expedition, our Year 7 students have interviewed songwriting expert Joe Solo, a folk musician, in preparation for their work in taking stories of the mining community and immortalising them in song.
They also carried out fieldwork at the location of the former Whitburn Colliery and Marsden Village near to Souter Lighthouse in South Tyneside working as geologists and archeologists.
G29 – What does it mean to be Human?
High quality work has continued in art this week with students capturing the most expressive object in the known universe – the human face. Students have been developing their skills in monoprinting.
In STEAM sessions, after carrying out heart dissections earlier in the week, students have been learning about the human reproductive system and normalising discussion of our reproductive organs. Students have been fantastic at showing kindness and understanding to each other and discussing such important learning maturely.
G28 – How can structures help us to explain the world around us?
This week students have been digging further into their anchor text Lord of the Flies, which examines what happens to a group of children when the adults are not their to provide structure. In addition they have also started to create isometric drawings and using CAD software to create digital designs of their Lego moulds in order to create plaster casts of brutalist-inspired structures.
Our week ahead
PE sessions this week
Our PE sessions this week are as follows. Please ensure that your child has their full PE kit.
All G30 students (Year 7) have PE on Monday this week.
All G29 students (Year 8) have PE on Tuesday this week.
All G28 students (Year 9) have PE on Friday this week.
Extended Study and taster sessions for clubs
As usual, we offer extended study sessions, from 3:15pm – 4:30pm each day this week Monday-Thursday. Please ask your son/daughter about extended study and support them in their organisation. Where students continue to struggle to get organised or need additional support we will direct them to attend Extended Study sessions after school on Mondays and Thursday with Mrs Mosley and Mr Said.
All Extended Study tasks are posted on Google Classroom. Year 7 parents should receive an invite to receive weekly Google Classroom updates this week.
The schedule for setting extended study with deadlines can be found here. More information on our rationale for Extended Study can be found here.
Extra -Curricular Clubs
Students have signed up for some taster sessions for clubs this week and next. We offer clubs at lunchtimes and after school and students will be able to try some sessions to help with decisions on weekly clubs they will attend after the holidays.
As usual if you have any questions about your son or daughter please get in touch with your child’s Crew Leader in the first instance or email general enquiries to [email protected].
Thank you as always for your ongoing support. There is more in us than we know #WeAreCrew.
Julie Mosley