XP Gateshead

Dear Parents/Carers

It has been another great week at XP Gateshead. Our students continue to impress us with the quality of their work and the commitment they have to being the best versions of themselves. In crew this week all of our students have been working hard writing pledges to improve their HoWL grades or academic progress and it has been great to hear their discussions and see how they are already supporting each other with pledges.

We had a Governor visit this week which focused on how we continue to ensure a strong culture as we grow by developing Crew. We’re really pleased with the feedback we received in our Local Governor Committee meeting on Thursday which included:

Students across both year groups talked about how valuable they felt Crew was and described the almost instant bonds that they felt with their crew members from their very first experience of Crew at Ullswater. They have complete ownership of what crew means for them and there were common themes that arose from these discussions; around support, nurture, friendship and resilience.   

“I would like to praise the G28 students for doing such a fantastic job of modelling and mentoring the new cohort of students and helping them to embrace the culture of XPG. They talked about taking on a parental role with the new cohort and helping them to learn what it means to be a student at XPG.”

We enjoyed a great Maths Week last week and our students stepped up to every challenge set; from scavenger hunts to paper aeroplane construction. All students got behind the Times Tables Rockstars’ ‘England Rocks’ competition and we are delighted with our positions in the final tables – on average scores, we achieved 2nd place in the 194 Secondary schools across England who took part in the competition and overall 7th out of all 3492 schools  (Primary and Secondary schools) who entered the competition. We are delighted with the combined efforts of all students, well done XPG!

Our G28 students enjoyed fantastic fieldwork this week with medical staff at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead as they continue to explore their guiding question ‘What does it mean to be Human?’. They experienced first-hand the challenges of working in a ward and were challenged with responding to simulated pulmonary issues in patients. Students worked in the clinical skills lab here at the hospital and felt the pressure of needing to think on the spot to some high level emergencies. We only lost one virtual patient!

Thirteen of our Y8 students spent the day with architects on Friday exploring how architects consider the needs of communities and end users in the design of buildings and spaces. Students developed some really interesting ideas to make use of a plot in the Helix development in Newcastle having surveyed the area and did an analysis of the surrounding community.

Our huge appreciation goes out to Dr Ruth Sharrock from the Division of Medicine at the QE Gateshead, and to Jess Goodwin at Ryder Architecture for organising these days for our students.

This week: 

Accelerated Reader

This week we will be launching our  Accelerated Reader (AR) programme with G29 students. As part of our reading strategy we expect all students to read between 20 and 30 minutes each day. The AR programme monitors reading practice and progress. Students are guided to read at the individual level and take short quizzes after each book to check their understanding. 

Thank you to G28 parents who provided feedback on AR. We have used this along with feedback from staff and students to make AR even better this year.

Staff Days

Remember that we have two staff development days this half term; Friday 25th and Monday 28th November. Our staff will be working on final products for current expeditions and planning next term’s expeditions. As usual, students are not expected to be in school on these days.

Looking forward, dates for your diary: 

Monday 28th November – Staff Day

Tuesday 29th November – Provisional day for G29 Year 7 fieldwork to Ashington to interview members of the Northumberland mining community. We are awaiting final confirmation of that and should have more information early this week.

As usual, thanks for your ongoing support. Please contact your child’s Crew Leader with any questions or issues. 

Have a great week

Julie Mosley

Co-principal