XP East

Beautiful Work This Week

XP Festival of Learning

On Friday, staff across our Trust gathered to launch the first phase of our exciting new Teaching and Learning model, with a focus on our culture of Crew, underpinning principles, deliberate & intentional teaching/learning behaviours at its heart…

Staff from our secondaries and primaries grappled with this exciting new model and took part in a wide range of workshops to develop teaching and learning at XP.

More on this next week…

Carcroft School: How Could We Help Our Planet Survive?

In Autumn 2023, Years 5 and 6 completed an expedition looking at the impact we are having on the planet and what we could do to make a difference now and for future generations. They held their presentation of learning last week!

Their final product for this expedition was a picture frame made from sustainably-sourced materials. Students then chose their favourite piece of writing from across the expedition to publish in the frame alongside (or behind) a simple piece of artwork reflecting elements of our learning. Beautiful work!

Top of the Blogs

Delicious Recycling @ Norton Infants

Crew Oldridge’s Experiments @ Green Top

Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead

XP Outdoors – Mindfulness Walk @ XP

Future Architects? @ Plover

Life Skills in LOOL @ XP East

Crew Challenge @ Carcroft School

Problem Solving – Square Numbers @ Norton Juniors

Share your stories with us!

We now have a new dedicated news email so that you can send your stories, updates or ideas about potential news articles directly to us in Comms.

It might be something you or your students have achieved, a charity you’re supporting or anything at all that deserves a wider audience.

Write to us at [email protected] –  we want to hear about it, write about it and celebrate it!

Dear Parents and Families of students in Year 11,

Next Thursday 25th of January, we invite parents to join us for our first run through of our Teacher-Student Led conferences. These conferences will provide parents with an opportunity to meet with subject-specific teachers, allow students to discuss and reflect on their progress in different subjects and look at areas for development in the weeks leading up to the GCSE exams in the spring.

Students have been given a booking form to share with you which will allow you to book a time between 16.30 and 19.30. Slots last for 5 minutes and will be booked on a first come first served basis so please ask your child to see their booking form and suggest a time to meet teaching staff.

We look forward to seeing you next week!

We had a lovely Community Meeting this morning with Y11, celebrating the awesome work that’s going on across all sessions. We also spoke about the importance of balancing our mental health and wellbeing alongside our studies during this final run up to mocks and exams.

Great to hear so many positive appreciations for Y11 – keep it up!

Mrs Parker and Miss Cocliff

Last week, Jayden and Robert had a session of cooking – arguably, the most important life skill!

We thoroughly enjoyed the calm session – although Robert whizzed ahead, and by the time Jayden and I had even thought about our sausage rolls…. Robert’s were out of the oven!

Smashing work, lads – I’m super proud of how independently you completed this task!

Miss Cocliff x

As part of component 2 for their history exam (History Around Us) students have been studying The Doncaster Plant Works. Yesterday, students in E26 got to visit the site, now known as ‘Wabtec’.
We got to see the workshop where the famous ‘Flying Scotsman’ was built as well as the ‘Mallard’, which still holds the world record for the fastest steam locomotive.
We discussed how the site has changed over time and why; the sites turning points in history; it’s significance both locally; nationally and internationally; as well as looking for historical evidence.

Beautiful Work This Week

Another brick in the wall: Beautiful Work from XP Gateshead

In Autumn 2023, students in Year 9 studied a joint HUMAN and STEAM expedition called ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ where students had to answer the guiding question: ‘How are structures important in helping us to explain our world?’ 

For the final product, students used plaster to create sculptures in the brutalist aesthetic. The Presentation of Learning (PoL) was an unveiling of an installation to the community and dedicated to the people of Gateshead, who have suffered due to the Covid pandemic and the cost of living crisis; both examples of failings of societal structures. Experts, including architects from SOS-UK and Ryder Architecture, whom the students had worked alongside throughout the learning expedition, came along to speak at the PoL at the Farrell Centre, Newcastle University.

The work will be on display there for the foreseeable future!

We Are Artists at Plover

Mel from the XP Trust Comms Crew visited Plover as an Expert Artist – showing Year 5 how to draw trains and teach them about perspective and the vanishing point. The children enjoyed seeing her amazing drawings and made a great start on having a go at their own drawings.

Carcroft’s Fabulous Foyer!

Whilst making an impromptu visit to Carcroft Primary in December, we noticed this! We simply had to get the phone out and take some photos of the wonderful displays on show in the Carcroft foyer area. The array of work exhibited was interesting, engaging and of high quality; and was curated impeccably by the staff – beautiful work!

Top of the Blogs

Who’s hiding in the pages of this book? @ Norton Infants

Crew Jackson – Science Investigations @ Green Top

Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead

Crew Pasteur @ XP

Working Hard @ Plover

C30 – HSBC Money Management @ XP East

Amazing Fieldwork at YWP! @ Carcroft School

Share your stories with us!

We now have a new dedicated news email so that you can send your stories, updates or ideas about potential news articles directly to us in Comms.

It might be something you or your students have achieved, a charity you’re supporting or anything at all that deserves a wider audience.

Write to us at [email protected] –  we want to hear about it, write about it and celebrate it!

Y11 have had an amazing start to the new term! So good to see them back on it as they carry on with their GCSE prep.

The weekly planner includes updates about this term’s Learning Labs, upcoming key dates and D6 launch.

XP Outdoors transforms to Learning Outside the Classroom – This term we have been given a fantastic opportunity to have HSBC Money Management team come and run 3 sessions on managing money. Here we are in session designed to help young people understand regular household expenses
such as rent, council tax, utility bills and food.

Students really engaged in the session provoking awesome discussions and ideas. What a way to add value and support to the amazing futures XP Students have in store.

Next we will move onto:

Savvy Shopping – Considers advertising and making smart purchases. A chance to explore what is
good value, how to spot a great offer and how loyalty, reward and store cards work.

Managing Your Outgoings – Looks at how to manage your spending and make sure you don’t get caught out by unexpected bills as well as making sure that you are getting value for money when
you do spend.