Last week when Ros Jones came in to visit she told us about the Peace Window, a beautiful stained glass window in Doncaster Mansion House. She told us that each symbol used in the design represented something from Doncaster’s history. In crew this week we worked together to research what each picture in the Peace Window represented and also found out that the window was made for everyone in the past and everyone today who seeks peace.
Better World Day is EL Education’s annual event showcasing student learning that contributes to a better world. Students work in partnership with each other and their local communities on this day to engage in and celebrate meaningful student work that positively impacts the world around them.
As a partner and friend of the EL Schools Network, XP Trust contributes to this every year. Like students at EL, all of our students are active citizens who engage in acts of service to their community – so naturally we have lots of Activism to share with the EL Crew.
This year, we’re celebrating all of our schools and their collective work. They’ve planted trees, created artwork for hospitals and raised money for worthy causes. Here’s just a few examples from this year of XP Schools making the world a better place.
Last week we welcomed a delegation from Catalyst Schools, an organisation in Northern Ireland that supports school leaders and teachers by exposing them to innovative educational experiences. Over the visit, they learned all about Crew and Expeditions from our awesome students at XP and XP East – including going to see world from across the Trust in Doncaster City Centre. As always we are delighted to welcome visitors into our Crew and share the beautiful work our students do every single day with the world.
Class 6 have been enjoying our brand new fluency books in reading groups this week. We’ve been wowed by new facts we’ve learned, shared our opinions in group discussions and explored new vocabulary that will make our writing more interesting in the future. ‘Talk to the Tail’ has been a real page turner!
What an absolute pleasure it was to be a part of our KS1 Community Crew this afternoon. All of the children articulated their learning and activities from Crew sessions this week so well. We heard about some fabulous critique of artwork, some wonderful stories that have been shared and examples of children enjoying playing Crew games together. There were also several appreciations and it was wonderful to hear from children who acknowledge the kind actions of their peers. Keep up the amazing work KS1.
Over the past couple of weeks the children have been acquiring the knowledge to answer our case study one question ‘How can we save our oceans?’ With our lack of access to coastal wildlife, we decided to bring marine life to Norton Infant School! The children thoroughly enjoyed this unique experience and got up close and personal with ocean life. You only have to look at their faces to see how captivated they were…
The children enjoyed learning interesting and funny facts about the sea creatures. They also impressed our expert visitors with their knowledge of plastic pollution and they showed real care and concern for marine life.
Following our visit, the children have been writing with real enthusiasm and stamina. They have created some beautiful work and have blown me away with their skills!
Yesterday the whole of EYFS had the most amazing expert visitors come into school to share and show us what a rock pool is and what species of creatures can be found inside them. The children were thrilled to get up close and personal with Shore Crabs, Spider Crabs, Hermit Crabs, Purple Sunshine Starfish, Regular Starfish, Sea anemones, Sea Urchin’s, Mussels and Barnacles. They learnt many interest facts about the creatures from Mike and James from Aqua Explorers provided by Aqualease.
The children were very receptive to the creatures and many pushed themselves out of their comfort zone to explore and experience the creatures either by touching them or holding them. Nursery asked some interesting questions to the visitors and also shared their existing knowledge that they have learnt so far with the expert visitors.
It was an amazing learning experience to really engage and enthral our children, as most will have never experienced these creatures in real life before and it has helped the children to have a better knowledge, understanding and compassion for the creatures we are learning about in our current expedition “What happens where the sea meets the shore?” Such beautiful work!
Today Nursery took part in a sea habitat gallery walk as they explore all of the different environments that sea creatures can be found in, live in and thrive amongst.
The children learned about the most familiar places such as the sea and an aquarium, whilst also discovering what a sea sanctuary hospital and a rock pool are. We watched and exciting video about what a rock pool might house, in preparation for an awesome, surprise experience later this week! Finally Nursery listened to the story “Billy’s Bucket” by Kes Gray, which tells of a little boy who would like a bucket for his birthday. However inside the bucket is another world – a rock pool world! We spoke about what we would like to see inside our buckets, if we had one like Billy’s. Some of the suggestions were; “shark”, “whale”, “a mermaid”, “Two little dogs”, “a unicorn”, “a stingray”, “a starfish”, “an octopus”, “a crab” and much more! What great imaginations, just like Billy’s!
Last week Nursery began the week by being literally immersed in plastic pollution. They came into Nursery to litter scattered all over their beautiful environment, (inspired by our primary text “Harry Saves the Ocean” by NGK) which they had helped to decorate during the hook week of our latest expedition “ What happens where the sea meets the shore?”
The children sat for register and Crew amongst the rubbish, as planned for them to understand how the sea creatures must feel in our oceans. A few of the children commented during their crew session (whilst being asked about their feelings) about; “Feeling sad because of all of the trash”, “It’s like a bomb’s hit!”, “All of this plastic makes me feel sad” and “I feel angry, because of all of this rubbish- Who’s made this mess?”
We talked about how we could help to make this better and the children suggested “Put it in the bin” and “Recycle it”. So we did… the children helped to recycle the pretend rubbish into various recycling boxes.
Later in the week the children explored freeing see creatures that had been caught in plastic and trapped in ice. The elation the children felt after they had freed the creatures was a joy to see, as they were so empowered to help. They enjoyed the activity immensely.
Nursery ended the week on a high by pretending to be sea creatures during a physical activity session with Coach Ellie who kindly came to visit us. The children had to move in a variety of ways like sea creatures and work collaboratively in teams to win games and collect “food” for their group. They all had lots of fun and there was lots of laughter.
Beautiful work! Well Done Nursery – We certainly understand what the problem is in our oceans.
We began our art case study this afternoon by looking at Doncaster landmarks and beginning to create pieces to represent them. We began with the Yorkshire Y. We though about tints and tones and practised our colour mixing skills to help us with our final pieces whilst some of us got drafting!
I was blown away with the perseverance and resilience shown to create the perfect shape. We thought about critique and redrafting and we were really proud of our creations.
Keep it up Class 5 – you’re creating beautiful work!
Mrs Parsons xx
The children have enjoyed getting messy this afternoon and have created some beautiful art work…
