Sharing our Stories: 20/10/2023
This week, most of our schools are on their half term break – except our newest school, XP Gateshead. They’ve had a week full of incredible stories…
Beautiful Work This Week @ XP Gateshead
Thomas Hepburn Memorial Service
On Saturday 14th October some of our staff, students and families from G30 attended the annual memorial service for Thomas Hepburn at St Mary’s Church, Heworth. The service commemorates the life of Thomas Hepburn who spent his life working to improve the lives of miners and their families as well as being the founder of the Colliers United of Durham and Northumberland in 1825.
It was a real honour to be invited to the ceremony where the acclaimed filmmaker, Ken Loach, spoke about Thomas Hepburn’s life and his fight for social justice as a leader of the first miners’ trade union. The service also featured readings from the local MP for Easington Grahame Morris, the Mayor of Gateshead, Cllr Eileen McMaster and the Reverend Lucy Moss. The Durham Miners Association Brass Band were wonderful and accompanied the service throughout. Following the service, wreaths were laid at Thomas Hepburn’s grave and the Felling Banner group gave our students the great honour of laying their wreath.
Coming Soon: ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go?’
Beautiful Curation in our new spaces…
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’re looking for Learning Coaches (Teaching Assistants) at Carcroft School
This is our community. These are our stories. Come and be a part of it.
We’re looking for Learning Coaches (Teaching Assistants) at Carcroft School
You can find out more about us and apply to #JoinOurCrew here!
Celebrating Harvest Festival.
On Thursday 12th October, Nursery celebrated their first Harvest Festival. We have been learning about religious celebrations in Autumn time, as part of our on going expedition “What do stories tell us about Autumn?” We recently made “Gruffalo Crumble” using autumnal ingredients which have been harvested and began our explorations from there. The Children watched a short programme explaining what Harvest Festival is, during their “Thoughtful Thursday” Crew. Nursery parents very kindly donated food to help us celebrate Harvest Festival and we looked at the different kinds of foods that grow in fields and are made from harvested ingredients.
Nursery then read a couple of pages from a non fiction text titled “Festivals through the year – Autumn” by Anita Ganari. This text told us that traditionally Christian’s donated food to decorate the church and feed people who didn’t have enough food. We also found out that there is an ancient farmers tradition, where people would make Corn Dollies with the last pieces of corn from the Harvest. These dollies would be hung in barns and farmers kitchens until the end of the winter and then replanted into the fields the following season as seeds to make more corn and bring good luck. Nursery had a go at making their own corn dollies.
Finally as our celebrations drew to a close, we talked about how we would donate all of the food we had collected to the local food bank in Askern, to help local families within our community. We are very proud of our efforts and grateful for the huge generosity of our families – Thank you for helping us to make this possible. Just look how much food we “harvested” to donate!
Pop Art in KS1
We have had a great week exploring Pop Art. We have looked at pieces of Pop Art by famous artists and said we we notice and praise about them. We then used pencils, paints and felt tip pens to start to create our own versions of Pop Art. We can’t wait to finish our posters, they will look amazing.
Sharing our Stories: 13/10/2023
Beautiful Work This Week
XP Trust’s first ever Tag Rugby Tournament!
Last week, we hosted our first ever Trust Sport Tournament for three of our primary schools. Hosted at Club Doncaster near XP, the three schools competed in a series of games of tag Rugby – here are some of the exciting highlights!
Yomiuri Shimbun journalists visit XP!
Iain Boothroyd and Kazu Makita from the Yomiuri Shimbun, the most read daily newspaper in Japan came to XP to find out more about what we do! Alicia and Freya were awesome ambassadors for the school and gave our guests a tour of all the beautiful work created by our students. Mr Makita is writing an editorial about XP, which will appear in the newspaper in Japan!
Welcoming our first delegation of the academic year
This week we had our first collection of visitors from all over the country at XP! They learned about how Crew, Expeditions and how we design our curriculum. Our student ambassadors were terrific and the delegates really enjoyed their time in Crew sessions!
Top of the Blogs
Beautiful Work from Lucy @ XP Gateshead
Crew Malala on Bronze DofE – Litterpicking @ XP East
Smashing Short Division @ Plover
Haunting Halloween @ Norton Juniors
A Roman’s Daily Life @ Carcroft School
Class 5 Awesome Maths @ Green Top
World Mental Health Day in Reception @ Norton Infants
Nursery Admissions for 2024!
Start your learning journey with XP! You can apply for any of our schools with nurseries using the link below!
https://doncaster.gov.uk/services/schools/nursery-admissions
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!
World Mental Health Day in Reception
Today is World Mental Health Day, so in our crew sessions we discussed why it is important to talk about how we are feeling and what we can do to help ourselves feel good.
We decided to take our crew session outside as the sunshine and fresh air can help to us to feel happy. We listened to one another share how we were feeling this morning and then took part in some fun activities together. The children enjoyed collecting leaves and creating their own leaf rubbings using paper and wax crayons or using hole punches to cut out different shapes. What a lovely start to the day!
World Mental Health Day Crews.
Nursery spent their “Tranquil Tuesday” Crew time outdoors today to mark World Mental Health Day. The children discussed why being outdoors makes us happier and how being happy is good for our brains to keep us healthy. We played “copy me” games, where an action was modelled first by the teacher and then repeated by each child together as a group. Next the children took turns to model and their crew mates copied their actions. We finished our Crew session by singing Nursery rhymes, loud and clear for all to hear!
KS1 Community Meeting
We were really lucky this week that National Poetry Day was on the same day as our community meeting! In crew we have been sharing, writing and performing poetry in preparation for today. Instead of our usual ‘news from the crews’ we had our very own poetry jam. It was brilliant to hear the children performing the poetry they have been enjoying this week to all of the other crews.
Thank you for an awesome community meeting 😀
Mrs Parsons xx
Flexible Friday Autumn Walk
Today we went for a walk around our beautiful grounds. We looked at the changes that are happening around us now it is Autumn. What a great way to start the day.
