💜 Wise Wednesday – What Makes Our Crew Great?

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This Wise Wednesday, Crew Attenborough spent some time thinking about what makes our Crew so special and what it means to be a great team.

We then split into groups to take on a team challenge game! There was plenty of excitement and some very healthy competitiveness, but there were also some gorgeous examples of teamwork, encouragement and supporting one another.

One of the loveliest things to see was how the children responded when things didn’t go their way. Nobody let losing take them into the red zone; instead, we saw resilience, smiles, happiness for the person who won and a willingness to have another go!

We’re learning that being a great Crew isn’t just about winning – it’s about how we treat one another, how we respond when things are tricky and how we celebrate each other’s successes. We were so proud of the way the children put this into practice today! 💜

📚✨ Tranquil Tuesday with Crew Attenborough! ✨📚

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Now that we have finished our Reading Spine books, we spent this morning’s check-in sharing our favourite book characters. From Matilda and the Gruffalo to mermaids, unicorns and footballers, we had a wonderful mix of favourites!

Feeling inspired, we decided to create some book characters of our own! 🎲 We used a roll-the-dice activity to choose different features for our characters, and our imaginations certainly got to work! We created a fairy with a super dog, a pirate with a shield and even a diver with a cloak. What an amazing collection of characters!

We finished our Crew session by sharing the adventures our new characters might get up to. From magical quests to underwater adventures, the possibilities were endless!

What incredible imaginations, Crew Attenborough! 💜 We wonder what stories our brilliant characters might inspire next! 📖✨

RE- Harvest Festival

We were very delighted to welcome Mr West to our school, who led a wonderful assembly all about the Harvest Festival. We had a fantastic time learning about the importance of Harvest and why we celebrate this special time of year. The children joined in enthusiastically with lovely Harvest songs and shared some thoughtful comments and ideas. It was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the importance of kindness and helping those in need.

Sharing our Stories: 09/10/2026

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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

Class 6 Family Learning @ Green Top

Comparing numbers in maths @ Plover

Our beautiful work @ Carcroft School

C29 and C30’s fieldwork to Cambridge University @ XP

Sensory Play Crew @ Norton Infants

Year 5/6 boys football champions @ Norton Juniors

G31 Farrell Centre Fieldwork @ XP Gateshead

Netball Update: Brilliant effort and a first win! @ 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!

Sensory Play Crew

Year One have had an amazing morning taking part in lots of exciting sensory play activities. We had so much fun squashing, squeezing, touching and exploring a variety of different textures. The children were curious and enthusiastic as they used their senses to discover how different materials felt. Sensory play also helped us to feel calm, relaxed and happy!

Building Big Ideas Together

Class 1 have been busy building, creating and constructing together both indoors and outdoors!

From magnificent castles to speedy trains and cars, our children have been full of their own creative ideas. We have loved watching their imaginations come to life as they choose their resources, make plans and work out how to turn their ideas into reality. We have seen some fantastic examples of children leading their own learning, with one idea often inspiring another.

Our First Counting Collections!

We have had lots of fun during our first Counting Collections sessions!

Working with a partner, we each chose a collection to investigate. We then thought carefully about how we could count our collection accurately. We talked to our partners, shared ideas and made a plan before getting started.

We then counted our collections, using different strategies to help us keep track and make sure we didn’t count anything twice. Once we were happy with our total, we recorded what we had found.

It has been fantastic to see the children working together, explaining their thinking and developing their mathematical problem-solving skills. We are already looking forward to seeing how our counting strategies develop as we become more confident mathematicians!

🦸‍♀️ Wise Wednesday: Our Helpful Heroes 🦸‍♂️

This week, our Wise Wednesday theme in Crew and our KS1 Community Meeting was all about people who help us.

We started thinking about the people who help us in our everyday lives, and we were surprised to discover just how many helpful heroes are all around us! From the people we see at school to those who help us in our communities, there are so many people who make a difference to our lives every single day.

During our Community Meeting, we put our spotting skills to the test with a special Helpful Heroes spotting game. 👀 We had to look carefully and see just how many people we could spot who help others.

It got us thinking about an important question: Who are the helpful heroes in your life?

Why not have a look around when you’re out and about and see how many you can spot too! 💙

🌈 A New Favourite Kind of Play?

We think Class 5 may have discovered a new favourite kind of play!

This afternoon, we became Sensory Explorers as part of our Play Passport. Our classroom transformed into a calm, curious and wonderfully collaborative space as we explored a range of different sensory experiences.

We investigated kinetic sand, squished and created with Play-Doh, explored water beads and experimented with a collection of fidget toys. We talked about how each one felt, moved and behaved and, of course, had plenty of time to simply enjoy the experience of playing.

We also took some time to slow down and relax with breathing exercises, noticing how our bodies felt before and after. It was lovely to see children recognising when they needed a quieter moment and making choices about what helped them feel calm and ready to play.

The calm and collaborative buzz in the classroom was amazing. Children shared resources, helped one another, waited patiently, encouraged their friends and celebrated each other’s ideas. Our character traits were on full display this afternoon — particularly Compassion, Respect, Courage and Craftsmanship & Quality.

It was one of those afternoons where you could really see that play is so much more than just having fun. We were communicating, problem-solving, regulating our emotions, developing our relationships and learning about ourselves and each other — all while getting thoroughly messy and having a brilliant time!

We definitely think we might need more sensory play in Class 5! 💜🌈

🐷 Tranquil Tuesday in Crew

We had a lovely Tranquil Tuesday in Crew this week!

We began by checking in and remembering what we had been working on together last time, before settling down to share the story of The Three Little Pigs. We then had a challenge to complete together: could we build a strong and creative house (or even a castle!) for the little pigs?

We split into four groups and each group was given a different set of materials to work with. The real challenge wasn’t just about what we could build, but how we could work together. We had to listen to one another, share ideas, take turns and find ways to make decisions as a team.

We finished with a Crew check-out, sharing advice we could give the little pigs about collaboration. We had some brilliant ideas about listening to others, sharing the jobs, helping each other and remembering that everyone’s ideas matter.

A lovely reminder that sometimes the strongest structures aren’t just built with materials – they’re built through teamwork, kindness and collaboration too! 🐷🏠