Sharing our Stories: 20/09/2024

Beautiful Work This Week

Yorkshire Sport Foundation – Opening School Facilities at Plover

Check out this actively awesome video courtesy of Yorkshire Sport Foundation. The children and staff at Plover were superstars in explaining their positive experiences regarding the OSF funding they secured last year, to provide after school and community clubs! Plover have been lucky enough to secure some OSF funding this year too, so watch this space for Community Clubs starting in October! #LovePlover

Beautiful Curation!

We don’t just ensure our work is made public – it needs to live inside our school communities, too! More beautiful work has been curated at Plover School, celebrating their ‘Pride of Plover’ award winners and recent Expedition products!

‘If we get staff Crew right, we get everything right…’

One of our great friends and mentors, Ron Berger, once said to us that ‘staff culture can never outpace student culture.’ With this firmly at the forefront of our minds we set out last week on our bi-annual outdoor staff induction process with a group of educators from across our Trust. 

We headed out into the wilderness to answer the guiding question, ‘What does it mean to be Crew?’ through a number of shared experiences and activities our Crew formed very quickly. We explored the purpose of Crew deeply and considered how we could make Crew even stronger on our return to our respective schools so that we continue to create the culture in which our students grow their character and make our community and the world a better place for everyone.

Below is an immediate reflection from one of our XP educators:

‘This experience has helped me to understand the building of community. The support that other members of our Crew showed this week has been immense. There have been some activities that have been challenging but everybody has been supportive whilst giving positive challenge so that everybody has been able to push themselves in a safe environment where everybody trusts each other and it’s lifted me and made me feel that I can achieve anything I put my mind to with the support of other people.’  – Louise

It was an honour and privilege to support and challenge our adults to reflect on the imperative we all have at XP to become and create great learners and even better human beings!

We are Crew!

Andy Sprakes and Kate ap Harri

Student Showcase for Year 6 at XP Doncaster

We’re got vacancies across XP Trust!

Find out more and apply here to #JoinOurCrew

LKS2 Teacher at Plover School

Year 5 Teacher/Leader at Carcroft School

F2 Teacher/Leader at Carcroft School

Top of the Blogs

EYFS Community Meeting @ Norton Infants

Class 7 eBook day! @ Green Top

Fun Family Learning @ Plover

Hooking in to Expedition @ Carcroft School

Crew Pasteur Check In! @ XP School

Fieldwork @ Norton Juniors

Weekly Update for Families @ 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!

Fieldwork!

This week 3EG visited Wilderspin Museum, to learn all about life on the home front and the importance of being one of Churchills Cogs! The children were engaged in some exciting activities and handled artefacts from the Second World War. Our pupils once again did us proud with the exemplary behaviour – well done!

Pass and make a move!

On Tuesday, 5CC practised their passing and evasion skills in PE. Looking at football this half term, there was a focus on both attacking and defending in the session. Attackers developed their passing and receiving skills with an emphasis on movement and communication. This later evolved into attackers needing more agility when faced with the presence of a defender. Attacking and defending was indeed a significant focus of the lesson, the children discussed how to succeed in both roles: the attackers require loud, clear communication, control of the ball and accurate passing whilst the defender needs to be agile and quick to react. Awesome effort, class!

Expeditionary Maths: What it takes to visit outer space!

At the end of the first Maths case study, Year 5 put their place value skills to the test. With the place value case study coming to a close, the children got the chance to handle NASA data. Whether it was comparing the millions of litres of rocket fuel or ordering the circumferences of planets in the Milky Way galaxy, 5CC enjoyed the variety of challenges and the opportunity to look study different data sources.

Wondrous

What an absolutely fab day we have had at Wilderspin Museum today!  The children participated in two workshops: ‘Life on the Homefront’ and “Operation Pied Piper’.  I must say, the children have been fully engaged and focused throughout the day and once again, I am left in awe of their fantastic behaviours and above all, wonderful manners. It is also of note, that the staff on site echoed my thoughts too. Amazing!

Expeditionary Maths

Today Yr 5 took part in an Expedition maths lessons looking at a whole range of data. Children visited numerous stations to compare astronaut statistics, order and round planets based on the distance from their moons and look at amounts spent by NASA and USSR over a period of 40 years. It was super to see the children grappling with such large numbers. Great job everyone!

National Space Centre

Our field work this week took in search of all things space. 5HJ spent a fantastic day exploring the museum to build background knowledge and engaging with a whole host of hands on, interactive activities. It was a struggle, but we managed to climb the 42 meter high Rocket Tower! What a wonderful day!

To Infinity and Beyond!

5HJ had an extremely fun filled hook week creating their own papier mache models of the solar system using tissue paper to colour them. The class also designed, created and launched their own rockets with prizes being given to the longest journey and the most eye catching design! Great effort from all with some almost crossing the playground!

Sharing our Stories: 13/09/2024

Beautiful Work This Week

Race for Bears at Plover!

This week at Plover, students in EYFS completed a sponsored Bear walk as part of their new Expedition! They raised £1148 to support their local community – and dressed up as bears to perform bear related exercises and have fun during the process! Beautiful work!

Beautiful Curation at XP Gateshead

Last week, Comms installed some new wonderful displays of student work at XP Gateshead. These wall displays are culminations of recent Expeditions and Activism from the last year.

Steplab Coaching @ XP Trust

Last Monday, our staff worked closely with Steplab to start implementing their ICT platform for coaching across XP Trust. Staff spent the day looking at effective coaching and learning and how Steplab can help create a positive culture around it.

Crew JPO/JNO’s Ullswater Story

Over the coming week’s we’ll be sharing more stories of Crew from our recent Outward Bound Expedition – here’s another from Crew JPO/JNO!

Student Showcase for Year 6 at XP Doncaster

We’re got vacancies across XP Trust!

Find out more here to apply now and #JoinOurCrew

Top of the Blogs

Magic Maths @ Norton Infants

Crew Knowles – Expedition @ Green Top

Plover Praise Postcards @ Plover

Book Talk in Crew Elmer @ Carcroft School

Crew Brunel: first week back @ XP School

Manveer gets to the top of her mountain! @ XP East

A rainy day in space! @ Norton Juniors

Beautiful Work from Will @ 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!