Sharing our Stories: 29/09/2023

Beautiful Work This Week (…and last week!)

XP Outdoors: Campfire Training!

A Visit from Ron Berger!

We’ve been very lucky since XP first opened and as the Trust has grown over the last ten years, to be able to welcome Ron Berger to our schools. Ron, the CAO of Expeditionary Learning (EL) in the US, has visited us several times, sharing with us his knowledge, energy and wisdom. 

Always supportive and inspiring, Ron has now, after a two week stay, just returned home. His time here has included visits to all of our schools, a well received and inspirational talk with our staff and chatting with our students and hearing their stories. 

He also travelled to Scotland to visit our brilliant partners at The Wood Foundation and the educators they support in the Aberdeen area. Their school teams have been regular visitors to XP Doncaster on our delegate days for the last four years. 

Last but not least, Ron joined colleagues on their induction in Derbyshire, sharing moment by moment with them the experience of developing Crew and fellowship. 

Renowned as an educator and catalyst for innovation and compassion in education all over the world, we hope it won’t be long before we can welcome Ron back again. 

Beautiful Curation at Plover

Top of the Blogs

Let’s get critical… critical! @ Comms

Year 2 Music – playing tunes on the Glockenspiel @ Carcroft School

More beautiful work in the community from Elyse and Brody @ XP Gateshead

Our Ambassadors run their first Macmillan Event @ Plover

Rainforest Research @ Norton Juniors

Drama Hut Visit in Class 6 @ Green Top

Let the children march @ Norton Infants

Awesome artwork in Crew @ XP

Food Bank Fundraising @ XP East

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!

Lavish Landforms ⛰️

This afternoon, 6CC explored the formation of human settlements. The children organised their settlements depending on the physical features of the environment, such as mountains, forests and rivers to name a few. The children then justified their decisions on where they placed key features to the group. Great class discussion and reasoning!

JUMP! JUMP! SHOOT!

In P.E. this week, the children incorporated the fundamental skill of jumping into the skill of shooting in handball. Aiming to gain an advantage when shooting the ball, the children tried exceptionally hard to practice the jump shot before taking the new skill into the game. Extra points were on offer for those who jumped, shot and landed in the semi-circle, as well as for making an effort to recover the ball when possession was lost. Awesome effort and a special mention to Evelyn for performance in the mini-game!

Doncaster Rovers players visit NJS!

Today, Year 6 welcomed two Doncaster Rovers players to NJS for a Q&A session. One player was none other than Bobby Faulkner – former pupil of NIS and NJS! It was great for the pupils to hear Bobby’s journey into a career in football and the children asked some fantastic questions.

Rainforest research! 🔬🌳

6CC have been busy this week delving deep into the mysteries of the Amazon rainforest. After some paired research, the children have produced their own rainforest flap books, illustrating and explaining the differences between the four layers of this diverse environment. Year 6 have been keen to extend their writing using causal conjunctions to explain facts further. Some of our class crew also demonstrated their artistic skills creating their own pictures for each layer. Top work, crew! 👍🏼😁

Bookmarks for our Bookworms!

In our continued quest to commit acts of kindness, 4GC are ready to distribute over 240 bookmarks made from repurposed materials to each and every pupil of NJS. A nod to Mrs Flint and Miss Wilkinson in this regard as they have laid the final touches to said items, largely, and unsurprisingly, in their own time. Alas!!

Layers of the rainforest

Year 6 have been learning all the about the layers of the rainforest and the features of each layer including the conditions and the animals that live there. We then brought our learning together in the form of a flap book!

It’s all beginning to add up! ➕

This morning, 6CC’s pencils were ablaze as they scorched their books with their hard work and resilience. Looking at column addition, the children have begun effectively and efficiently find the total larger numbers and demonstrate their reasoning through identifying misconceptions of people in the problem-solving and showing their thinking through pictorial representations. Top effort, guys! 😊👍

Sharing our Stories: 15/09/2023

Beautiful Work This Week!

Family Learning at Carcroft!

Staff Crew at Plover: We are Artists with Joyce Dickinson

Beautiful Curation at XP Gateshead

Top of the Blogs

Star Reader Breakfast @ Carcroft School

Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead

Handwriting Superstars @ Plover

Garden Restoration Complete! @ Norton Juniors

Impressive home learning @ Green Top

What is Crew? @ Norton Infants

What a week in Crew MCO/CMO@ XP

Crew Malala getting creative with pledges! @ XP East

Garden Restoration Complete

During the first few weeks of term, Y4 have been working feverishly to restore the Nursery garden to its former glory and this week we sowed some wild seed that will hopefully bloom in the coming months.  The activity required the children to work together in stages to go from a weed ridden area to something that we can be proud of.

Didn’t they do well!