Sharing our Stories: 22/03/2024

22nd March 2024Geoff Hewitt

Beautiful Work This Week

Beautiful Activism at Plover

As part of their Expedition ‘Once Upon a Time’, students in EYFS at Plover have raised money to provide boxes of books to local community organisations, including Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospital Trust. They posted this update on their social media this week from their Children’s Ward, thanking students for their generous donation.

Genius of Steam and Speed

Across the Trust we have always researched and celebrated Doncaster’s railway story through expeditions. Lots of our students’ work is already out there in the community – including railway stations and parks. Our latest book, Rail City, is also on sale in Waterstones and the Danum Gallery, Library and Museum.

On the 23rd April a remarkable new exhibition – Gresley: Genius of Steam and Speed – will open at DGLaM, featuring artifacts, letters and stories about the man who engineered the Flying Scotsman and the Mallard in Doncaster.

Students from the Trust will be co-creating an audio guide which will be accessible through an app for the exhibition. We will also be helping to create rail related resources for the summer holiday programme of children’s events at DGLaM.

More on the story in the Doncaster Free Press here

Top of the Blogs

Crew Parks Tree Planting @ XP Gateshead

Easter Maths Hunt @ Norton Infants

Class 6 read anywhere, any table, any chair… @ Green Top

Crew Tubman Year 10 Beautiful Work @ XP

Festival of Football @ Plover

The beat goes on @ Carcroft School

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!

NIS – Poetry Jam 📚😊

22nd March 2024Elouise Chadwick

Over the past few weeks the children have been learning poems in our ‘Tranquil Tuesday’ crew sessions. This afternoon we all performed our poems to one another. The children were amazing! It was so lovely to hear lots of poems and to see so many happy faces 😊 . Well done everyone!

The Easter Story

20th March 2024Sarah Winkley

At the beginning of the week Nursery read “We’re going on an Egg Hunt” by Laura Hughes. The story explores fun themes of bunnies finding Easter eggs and encountering various springtime animals along the way. Nursery then began to explore the real meaning of celebrating Easter, learning about the crucifixion of Jesus and that Easter Sunday is not just the day that we all enjoy chocolate eggs, but is traditionally known as the day that Jesus rose from death and appeared to his friends and mother. The children grappled with the child friendly version of the story and explored themes of Jesus having “magic spiritual powers”. We played pass the parcel to consolidate the children’s understanding of the story and to see what they could remember using biblical props such as coins, fish, bread and a cross as the prizes inside the bag.

Both Nursery groups did very well at remembering and responding to the story, showing great empathy and compassion towards Jesus. Well Done, beautiful work!

Easter Maths Hunt 🥚🪺🐑🐝🐣🦆

20th March 2024Sarah Winkley

This week Nursery have been reading “We’re Going On an Egg Hunt” by Laura Hughes. In the story the bunnies find 10 eggs and some problematic characters along their hunt. Nursery role played the story as part of their maths work this week, as they have been exploring how to describe a familiar route.

The children used the repeated story language from the text to describe how they moved around their route and through the springtime characters. When we arrived back at Nursery, closing out the “Big, Bad Wolf”, the children attempted to simply explain their route around the outdoor area, using familiar landmarks as markers of their journey. We drew large scale maps to help consolidate their understanding. The children used words such as “behind”, “inside”, “past”, “next to” and “through”.

We are mathematicians!

20th March 2024Rebecca Kendrew-Jones

Here is a gallery of photographs demonstrating some recent mathematical thinking by the children in Reception. We have been completing tasks such as sorting objects by different criteria, ordering numbers correctly and exploring numbers 6 to 10 discovering how they are composed of five and so many more. The children demonstrated this knowledge using multilink cubes of different colours. Well done Class Two, you are working so hard!

WOW! What fine heads of hair we’ve grown…

18th March 2024Sarah Winkley

Nursery have been mini scientists recently growing cress heads to help them learn about nurturing and tending to plants to understand what they need to grow. The children have been watering them and observing the shoots over the past week. They will be thrilled to see the huge growth over the weekend! Beautiful Work!!

Nursery’s Celebration of Learning!

15th March 2024Sarah Winkley

What a beautiful day Nursery have had sharing all of their learning about our current expedition titled, “Once Upon a Time”. They have been exploring various texts to answer our guiding question “Who is hiding in the pages of this book?”

The children performed both of the songs that they have learned during this expedition; “Trip, Trip Trap” and “The Gingerbread Man Song”. One of which will be embedded within a QR code that will live inside storybooks gifted to the children and the local Askern Medical Practices as a legacy to our expedition. These books will be available for children to use and read for pleasure with their parents whilst waiting for their appointment at either surgery.

The children then shared their Learning Journeys with their parents and carers, who were encouraged to have a stay and play. We enjoyed buns and biscuits to celebrate all of our hard work and our parents and the children were very proud of their achievements. Well Done Nursery! Next stop…. Summer Expedition! Exciting times.

Sharing our Stories: 15/03/2024

15th March 2024Geoff Hewitt

Beautiful Work This Week

For the love of reading: curation at Green Top!

As part of their Expedition ‘Once Upon a Time’ Green Top have had some beautiful displays created for their reading areas in Nursery and Reception!

Staff Days across the XP Trust

All our staff were getting their heads together and planning for next term’s Expeditions last Friday and Monday – lots of exciting learning and products are on the horizon for students in term 3!

As with all of our Expeditions, students will work within one of our three curriculum seams and staff will do the project first! If it’s good enough for our kids, it’s good enough for us!

Passage Presentations at XP Gateshead

This week, G28 were the first year at XPG to complete their ‘Passage’ – these are presentations to a panel where they reflect on their learning journey, discuss examples of their work, and talk about how they are prepared for next steps in learning and GCSEs.

Top of the Blogs

Beautiful Work from Winnie and Evan @ XP Gateshead

We are sprouting scientists @ Norton Infants

Year 6 Learning Club @ Green Top

Crew Ardern DofE Volunteer Work @ XP

We are Activists! @ Plover

Raising money for the British Heart Foundation @ XP East

Creating confidence in Crew @ Carcroft School

Scientific Discoveries @ 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!

We are “Sprouting Scientists!”

14th March 2024Sarah Winkley

This week Nursery have been learning about growing and caring for plants through our story “Christopher Nibble in the Dandelion Derring Doo!” By Charlotte Middleton. In the text Christopher and the other Guinea Pigs eat all of the dandelions in Dandeville and are forced to eat cabbage as a result. The guinea pigs don’t really like cabbage, so we thought we would offer help by growing them some Cress Heads!

The children enjoyed scooping the compost and sprinkling the seeds into their pots, before using the watering can to water their seeds.

Some of the earliest planters cress from during the week have already began to sprout! The children will continue to care and nurture their plants in Nursery until the end of the term, watering them and changing their position for the most sunlight. Hopefully they will grow into big cress heads, fit enough for the Guinea Pigs to eat (or humans 😉), be lovely on a Dandelion Salad!