Dear Families
We hope you have enjoyed the long and sunny weekend. Last week we enjoyed some great work from students in and outside of school:
G29 Fieldwork
Students in G29 met with expert volunteers from the Time to Help UK charity, who are supporting the Humanity Cartoon competition – a global competition using art to give voice to the stories of refugees. Students were able to talk to the experts about their own experiences of migration and analysed the many pieces of artwork to make inferences about the messages being conveyed. All of this in the wonderful surrounds of St Mary’s heritage centre.
Will, Arlo, Penny and Dakota then returned on Thursday to read the poem that is part of their final product, Home by Warsan Shire, as part of a day of performances connected to National Refugee Week.
G30 Art Workshop
We had the first of our workshops with the sculptor Bruce Tuckey for our Year 7 art leaders, who are creating sculptures in response to the riverside park of sculptures on the south bank of the Tyne. This week Bruce will be working with the remaining students in the leadership group from Year 7.
Art delivery to the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition
On Saturday, Miss Macphail travelled to London to deliver a very special piece of art to be exhibited in this year’s Summer Exhibition.
Freya’s “Mr Pigeon” was delivered safely and will be shown in one of the most prestigious art galleries in the world. The Royal Academy is famous for showcasing new and established artists, bringing their work to a whole new audience.
Saturday workshop ran by XPG students
Our student leaders from G29: Eliza, Nelly, Penny, Braydon, Reuben, and Harry met with migrant children at a Saturday school organised by our partners at the Comfrey Project and taught the children there how to make stop motion animation, using their learning from the creation of the final product for their current expedition.
Staff Days
On Friday and Monday, our staff have worked hard in school and with colleagues across the Trust planning next term’s expeditions.
‘At XP we build our community through activism, leadership and equity sharing our stories as we go.’
To fully realise these principles, at XP, we deliver our curriculum predominantly through cross disciplinary learning expeditions. These are standards based projects that are specifically designed to make connections between, and across, subjects to encourage deep, purposeful and memorable learning experiences for our young people. The careful planning of expeditions takes time and real craftsmanship and quality. Our staff have been considering each part of the expedition – immersions, guiding questions, case studies, work with experts, fieldwork and final products.
A special thanks goes out to Molly, Freya and Elina who gave up their time on Friday to update our toilet signs with an XP design by Ruby. Their work really does show that our students are crew not passengers.
At the start of the week we had a group of 15 teachers and leaders from XP Trust schools for a day of learning at XPG. They were immersed in learning at XPG via Ambassador Tours, lesson visits and teaching and learning sessions with Mr Mead.
Stand out moments revolved around ambassador tours which our students facilitated. The feedback about our students was simply stunning and worth sharing with you all
“The work you have done around culture is fabulous. The way the pupils articulated their educational offer was stunning”
“What an incredible day, your students blew us away. They are learning to be the most wonderful individuals who take pride in their learning and their school. The work you and your team have done at XPG is making a difference… they showed us… with their conduct and their integrity”
This week
Like was said on Friday, it’s a busy one!
G28 Fieldwork tomorrow
Year 9 students will be carrying out fieldwork to investigate the river Seaton Burn. Students will work together to collect data regarding the width, depth and velocity of the river. Students will also complete an activity connected to their poetry studies and will study species in the dunes at Seaton Sluice which are particular to that ecosystem. We will be travelling by coach to the venue for the day. The weather forecast is currently very warm, dry and sunny. The heat warning does not affect our region however students should be prepared for the hot and dry weather. All year 9 students will need:
- Their regular kit for the day
- Suncream and cap/hat
- A second pair of trainers, wellies or shoes that can get wet
- A large bottle of drinking water
- Ideally shorts rather than longer bottoms or leggings
- bottoms or leggings that can be rolled up are OK
- Bug spray if required
We expect to be back to school at the normal time, traffic dependent so will post on the website if there are any delays.
Climate Action Plan and G29 workshops
Also on Tuesday, our Climate Action Plan leadership group will be working with our expert Gemma Sarigu to finalise their proposals for how the school could be more sustainable.
On Tuesday Year 8 students will also carry out a workshop with Gemma on climate adaptability, which will both feed into the action plan, and also connects to students’ learning about migration – with changes in climate becoming an increasingly prevalent push factor which causes people to migrate.
G30 Fieldwork – Wednesday 26th June
All Year 7 students will be carrying out fieldwork including data collection techniques and observational skills, through practical activities and investigations in our local river environment.
This will involve travel by Metro and walking between Newcastle and Gateshead. The weather forecast is currently warm with potential showers. As such students will need:
- Comfortable walking shoes or trainers
- appropriately dress for our current changeable weather including
- hat and suncream
- waterproof coat
- A packed lunch. (This will be provided for students who are entitled to free school meals if they request one.)
A backpack with a pen, pencil, rubber, and iPad. Most bags are not waterproof, so we suggest putting kit inside a plastic bag inside the rucksack.
As usual, students need to be in school for 8.25am ready for their final briefing. We expect to return to school slightly later than the normal school at around 3:45 pm. We will update the school website in the event of any delays.
G30 Art Workshops – Thursday 27th June
The final workshop for art student leaders with Bruce Tuckey will be taking place on Thursday in school this week. This week it will be: Freya, Caleb, Lexi J, Lizzie, Olivia W, Amelia, Kayden, Josh, Lexi S, Evie, George, Danny, Holly, Lily-Mae S, Isaac and James. Students will be creating sculptures so should wear clothes which you do not mind getting dirty.
PE sessions this week
Some PE sessions will not run this week due to the staff day. PE time will be paid back in coming weeks with additional sessions and Crew Day
- G29 students (Y8) have PE on Wednesday this week
- G28 students (Y9)
- G28 Class 1 have PE on Thursday this week.
- G29 Class 2 have PE on Friday this week
- G30 students (Y7) do not have PE this week due to the staff day today.