It’s been a busy week in Crew Thurman – we have been busy preparing for our Student Led Conferences next week – we are looking forward to sharing them with our grown ups.
We spent Flexible Friday playing games – we thought it was a great end to the week!
The children have enjoyed becoming immersed in our new expedition titled ‘Once upon a time’.
We have been fairytale detectives in our crew sessions, finding clues to work out which fairytale we are exploring that day.
The children have been enjoying our new castle role play area and recreating their own fairytale stories.😊
We have been creating our very own fairytale characters. The children had to decide whether they created a hero or a villain. They all have wonderful imaginations! I’ve got a feeling this will be a magical expedition 🏰👸🤴📖
To begin our spring term expedition Nursery have become Nursery Rhyme Detectives! Our task this week has been to find new clues each day to work out which Nursery Rhyme we are exploring that day. The children have searched high and low for clues and used their existing and new knowledge of Nursery Rhymes to work out which props fit with which Nursery Rhyme. Here are some of the props Nursery have found so far….
Also to immerse ourselves in our new expedition, Nursery have been working collaboratively to create artwork of large scale images of Nursery Rhyme characters and iconic objects. There have also been a couple of rather large mice around the Nursery Building!
Lungs of the World: Beautiful Work from Norton Juniors
In Autumn 2023, Year 5 and 6 across the trust embarked on an expedition with the guiding question: Why should we help our planet survive?
As part of the Expedition, students created their own soft toys based on a chosen animal from the Amazon rainforest – learning about why it is endangered and what we can do to protect the species. The students used ‘The Great Kapok Tree’ as a model text. The pupils wrote their own version of the story through rainforest animals’ eyes for younger children in the form of a book and shared them with Year 2 pupils (along with the soft toys) with the purpose of teaching them about deforestation and its impact.
G30’s first POL at St Mary’s Church, Heworth
In the Autumn term of 2023 students at XP Gateshead studied an expedition called ‘From the ground up’ with the guiding question “What do the communities of the North-East of England owe to the miners?”. They presented their learning from this Expedition on Monday at St Mary’s church – sharing their story and performing the songs they have written to tell the stories of the mining community.
These songs will be recorded in New Year and a CD will be produced!
As part of the presentation, students unveiled a board full of their beautiful work – including narrative accounts, diary entries and artwork relating to the Felling Pit disaster.
The chosen venue for the presentation was also historically significant. Not only is St Mary’s the site of a memorial to the disaster and those who lost their lives, but it is also the final resting place of Thomas Hepburn – the famous miner, Trade Union leader and advocate of better working conditions for miners. The building that XP Gateshead is now based in was once named after him.
Sir Tim Brighouse
We were deeply saddened across the XP Trust to hear about the death of Sir Tim Brighouse on 15th December.
Sir Tim was considered to be one of the most important voices and thinkers in education, and a great champion of state schools.
We were very fortunate to be able to welcome him to XP on a couple of occasions and to hear him speak about our school with warmth and encouragement.
He has left a legacy of equity and advocacy for education for all and we are very proud that he is part of our story.
What an amazing couple of weeks we’ve had in school. Firstly, I would like to say a huge well done to our Reception children for putting on the most amazing Nativity titled, ‘A Little Bird Told Me’. They all looked the part and did an incredible job performing to their grown ups.
We’ve had a very special visitor in school who put a smile on everyone’s face and brought everyone a gift 🎅🏼
We all looked very festive when we had our Christmas lunch in school…
PARTY TIME!
We’ve all enjoyed our party day and would like to thank you all for your very kind party food donations. It’s safe to say we will be eating more party food tomorrow 😊 We danced, played games and ate some delicious food. Smiles all around 🙂
Today we all enjoyed a delicious traditional Christmas lunch while wearing our festive clothes. The children loved talking about their jumpers and dresses in Crew today too. We all did a twirl in front of our friends!
This morning we had a wonderful surprise! Santa came to see us and very kindly brought a gift for every child. Look at their happy faces! Only 6 more sleeps to go! 🎅🏼