Parking Peace: A Quick Guide to Driveways, Yellow Lines, and School Zones

Please be mindful of our neighbour’s drives.

Parking in a busy neighborhood can sometimes feel like a competitive sport, but a little mindfulness keeps the peace and keeps everyone safe. Whether you’re navigating the morning school run or just having friends over for the weekend, how you park impacts the entire street. Here is a quick refresher on being a considerate neighbor behind the wheel.

Mind the Driveways It is easily done—squeezing into a tight spot and leaving your bumper just slightly over a dropped kerb. But for the homeowner, that slight overhang can make turning out of their driveway a daily hazard, or worse, trap their car entirely. Always leave plenty of clearance. If you have to hold your breath to make your car fit between two driveways, it is probably not a valid space.

When it comes to school zones, safety takes absolute priority. Yellow zig-zag lines outside schools mean strictly no stopping or parking during the times shown on the signs—not even for a ten-second drop-off. These markings exist for one critical reason: to give children and parents a clear, unobstructed view of the road when crossing. Blocking them, even momentarily, creates dangerous blind spots.

Good parking isn’t just about avoiding a penalty charge notice; it is about being a considerate part of the community. Taking an extra five seconds to check your positioning makes a world of difference to the people living and walking on your street.

Thank you for your support

We are writing to share some positive news regarding Free School Meals (FSM) and to ask for your support with a simple step that directly impacts the funding and resources available to your children.

What Has Changed?

As of September 2026, the rules around Free School Meals have expanded. If your household receives Universal Credit, your children are now eligible to receive a free, hot, nutritious meal at school every day—regardless of your total household earnings.

Even if your child is in Reception, Year 1, or Year 2 (and already receives a meal under the Universal Infant Free School Meal scheme), or if you aren’t sure whether you meet the previous earning thresholds, we strongly encourage you to sign up.

Why Registering Matters (Even for Infant Families)

Free School Meal applications do not happen automatically – each family must register.

When you apply, it does more than secure a daily free meal for your child:

• Direct Funding for Our School: For every family who registers and meets the eligibility criteria, our school receives crucial additional funding called the Pupil Premium (up to £1,550 for primary pupils and £1,100 for secondary pupils every year, for up to six years).
• Support for Learning: This funding goes directly into the classroom to support extra tutoring, classroom support, learning resources, and extracurricular activities.
• Extra Benefits for Families: Registering can also unlock additional support for your family, including access to free holiday activity programs (HAF), school travel support, and free school milk.

Key Deadline: Please Apply Before 2 December 2026

To ensure our school receives the correct funding to support our students for the upcoming academic year, all eligibility checks must be completed and registered on or before 2 December.

How to Apply

Applying is quick, completely confidential, and takes only a few minutes through this link.

There can be a delay in the school being notified of this due to the new process so we’d ask you to complete this form if you have had confirmation that you will receive FSM. Please only fill this in if you have confirmation and not before it is confirmed. 

Even if you aren’t certain whether you qualify, submitting an application ensures we don’t miss out on vital funding that directly benefits your child’s education.

Thank you for your continued support and partnership.

Warm regards,

Mr S Longley

XP School Trust

Beautiful work this week

Here’s a selection of beautiful work from across the XP Trust!

To read about other stories from across the XP Trust, visit xptrust.org.

Top of the Blogs

Year 3 War Hero walk @ Green Top

4N Beautiful Work on VE Day! @ Plover

Stranded! Our survival Experience Day @ Carcroft School

Passage Presentations @ XP

Expert Visitors who care @ Norton Infants

5SO Carpenters @ Norton Juniors

Calling all geographers and climate activists @ XP Gateshead

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!

What if teaching Maths could be about more than covering the curriculum? What if every young person could leave school believing that they really are a mathematician? At XP Gateshead, that’s the ambition.

Joining XP Trust means becoming part of a community that does things differently. We believe education is about more than passing exams.

If you want to teach in a school where your creativity is valued and your work makes a difference, XP Trust is the place for you.

Find out more about the role here: https://xptrust.org/xp-gateshead-maths-teacher/

Find out more here and apply to #JoinOurCrew