We created Peter Thorpe inspired rockets.
Beautiful work
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Sharing our Stories: 23/05/2025
Beautiful Work This Week
Here’s a selection of beautiful work from across the XP Trust from this week. To read about other stories from across the XP Trust, visit xptrust.org.
Top of the Blogs
Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead
Friendship blocks @ Norton Infants
Share your stories with us!
Be Part of Something Bigger – Learning Coach at XP Gateshead
At XP Gateshead, we believe that every child can achieve extraordinary things — and every adult in the building plays a part in making that happen.
We’re looking for a Learning Coach who is passionate about helping young people thrive. Someone who brings positivity and the belief that relationships are the foundation of great learning.
If you want to make a real difference, work in a strong and supportive team, and be part of a school that values kindness, collaboration and creativity — this is the role for you.
Apply here: https://xptrust.org/learning-coach-teaching-assistant-xp-gateshead/
Friendship blocks
This mornings Crews in Nursery were spent thinking about the building blocks of friendship and being kind. Each crew member were given a block or brick and encouraged to think about what would a kind friend do to help make their friends happy? How can we play nicely together? How can we make sure everyone feels included? How we can manage our feelings if our friends don’t want to play at that moment?
Some of the thoughts that the children offered were; “Be kind”, “Share toys or food?”, “Ask someone to play with you too”, “Give them a cuddle or a kiss”, “Be nice”, “Sharing”, “Ask them to play” and “Play with someone else”. Good thinking Nursery, we’re all friends in Nursery.
Run, Run as Fast as you can….
This week Nursery have began case study two of our expedition “ Who is hiding in the pages of this book?” We have been immersed in our new text The Gingerbread Man. To hook the children into their learning they were detectives on a hunt for character body parts in our outdoor area. When they found all of the characters parts the children put them back together again revealing what our key text of the week would be. They were very excited for it to be The Gingerbread Man!
We modelled role play of the Baker and the Gingerbread Man to the children. The Gingerbread Man was apologising for running away and asked if he could help to make more Gingerbread to show how sorry he was. But how would he do this? The children hot seated the Baker and were encouraged to think about the ingredients that the Gingerbread Man may need. The Baker explained that they would need follow a recipe and a method, showing this to the children.
The children have had lots of fun role playing with the masks themselves in provision.
We then of course baked Gingerbread Men, following the Bakers recipe and instructions. The children were encouraged to think about first, next and then sequencing whilst they were baking. They also learned about different forces which they were using to make the gingerbread men as they mixed, rolled and pulled the rolling pin through the dough or pressed their Gingerbread Man shapes out with the cutter. These are pushes and pulls!
Luckily none of our gingerbread men tried to make a run for it! Great work Nursery.
Who’s that Trip, trapping over my bridge?
Last week Nursery continued to be geographers as they explored the final part of our first case study “Where in the world will this story take us?” The children explored rivers, comparing our local river in Norton; the River Went to the River Congo in Africa.
To hook the children into their learning and help them explore their local area they observed the “Adventures of our Everywhere Bear”, as he sent them a special dojo message with photos of his trek to the River Went, through the magical forest. They loved to see their special class mascot out on his own adventuring and exploring around our village. Many of the children recognising key landmarks on his journey.
The Everywhere Bears adventures led us to our key text of The Three Billy Goats Gruff as we immersed ourselves into the story, due to it being set over a river. The children enjoyed learning about the characters in the story and identified that the Big Billy Goat Gruff was a hero and the wicked troll a villain. They were delighted when the troll was tossed into the river! Here are a few of our representations of the Troll and the Billy Goats Gruff from our maths learning this week focusing on triangles and rectangles.
This got us thinking about how deep the river might be? We then compared the River Went to a much deeper and wider river – the River Congo. The children took a gallery walk of photos of the river, noting differences and similarities between the Congo and the River Went.
We then boarded our imaginary canoes in groups of three, dressed with our binoculars and went on a virtual tour of the River Congo. Thinking about and imagining what we would be able to see, hear, smell and feel. We were very surprised when we were chased by crocodiles and sea snakes! We had to paddle fast! It was very scary and exciting. Not something you’d usually see or encounter at the River Went, thankfully.
The children had so much fun and used the imaginary experience to talk about what they may sense by a river. Beautiful work Nursery and something which you may get to experience for real sooner than you know as part of our fieldwork – shhh!!
Getting Smart in Class 1
This week in maths the children have been working together to order towers of cubes from 1 – 10 on a number track. They worked collaboratively and accurately placed the towers into a staircase pattern. What a great job!
The children have worked as teamwork tigers in our construction area and continue to make models on a larger scale that are very impressive. All the little extra details always make me smile. This house has solar panels, a lift and a garden for the dinosaurs!
We have been getting creative and have been adding some extra details to our under the sea paintings. The children are really brining their pictures to life…
When the children lead their own learning in the classroom, our areas are always so purposeful. Children choose to read stories, write labels for their models and even practice their number formation. They really are showing me that they are ready for Year One! Well done superstars!
Run run as fast as you can…
This week, we have been immersed in our new text, ‘The Gingerbread Man’. We have followed a recipe to make our very own gingerbread men. The children enjoyed decorating them with icing, chocolate chips and smarties. I think you will all agree that they look delicious! We are pleased to report that we had no runaway gingerbread men! Instead the children took them home and enjoyed a tasty treat 🙂
A super week of learning in EYFS
Wow……Nursery and Reception had so many postcard winners in our community meeting this week. Lots of kindness being shown by the youngest children in our school and some great examples of working hard and getting smart. Keep up the super work everyone.
Sharing our Stories: 16/05/2025
Beautiful Work This Week
Here’s a selection of beautiful work from across the XP Trust from this week. To read about other stories from across the XP Trust, visit xptrust.org.
Top of the Blogs
Activism in action – the second annual public health conference @ XP Gateshead
Fully immersed in Wordsworth @ XP
Arts Festival 2025
