XP Festival of Arts and Culture 2025 – Tickets available now!

10th June 2025Geoff Hewitt

On Friday 11th July, the XP Festival of Arts and Culture returns to XP Doncaster, bringing together students, families, staff and artists for a joyful celebration of creativity and community.

Book now

Throughout the day, you’ll experience live music, powerful performances, vibrant art installations, and the beautiful work that defines XP. Students from every XP Trust school will be contributing, sharing their talents and passions through exhibitions, dance, storytelling, and more – all designed to connect, inspire and make a difference.

The festival is a key moment in our XP Live programme – a growing Trust-wide initiative that gives young people authentic opportunities to produce, perform and create. It builds on our commitment to purposeful learning and supports our belief that every child can do meaningful, creative work that impacts the wider world.

More details on the line-up will be shared soon – we can’t wait to welcome you.

Book now

Sharing our Stories: 06/06/2025

6th June 2025Geoff Hewitt

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

Y5 Mining Expert visit was amazing! @ Green Top

Pompeii and Pebbles @ Plover

Consolidating Maths Learning @ Carcroft School

Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead

Once upon a time… @ Norton Infants

Phoenix Dance Theatre Project 2025 @ XP

When NJS met a Gladiator @ Norton Juniors

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!

Feely bags and the match box challenge

4th June 2025Claire Goodyer

Crew Goodyer enjoyed taking part in some fun crew sessions outdoors this week led by Mrs Jackson. We began by using our senses to explore and describe objects found out in our school grounds.

We then took part in the matchbox challenge to see which team could fit the most objects into a matchbox. Frankie and Eliza were excited to be named champions!

Once upon a time there was a girl called Little Red Riding Hood…

4th June 2025Elouise Chadwick

This week Class 1 have enjoyed listening to the ‘The Little Red Riding Hood’. We kick started our week by acting out the story in our story circle. The children put on some impressive character voices!

In crew, we played a listening game called. ‘In the basket I would put…’ The children had to think of something they would put in the basket to take to Grandma’s house. We then faced the challenge of having to remember what everyone had said. The children then drew all the things they could remember and some children even used their segmenting fingers to spell out words. They did a great job!

We have also created an anchor chart of words that described the Big Bad Wolf. The children wrote some super sentences…

Sharing our Stories: 23/05/2025

23rd May 2025Geoff Hewitt

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

Amazing Experience in Class 6 @ Green Top

LKS2 Young Readers @ Plover

Astronaut Experience Day @ Carcroft School

Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead

Friendship blocks @ Norton Infants

This week in PE @ XP

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!

Be Part of Something Bigger – Learning Coach at XP Gateshead

22nd May 2025Geoff Hewitt

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

22nd May 2025Sarah Winkley

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….

21st May 2025Sarah Winkley

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.