The children enjoyed their fish and chip lunch today. They showed great respect when the whole school came together to celebrate the peace and freedom that VE day represents.
Class five journey to space!
What a way to start our new case study! Exploring space in the WonderDome. We can’t wait to use what we have found out to help us answer our guiding question – where could your journey take you?
3… 2… 1… Blast Off
This week Class Six have been working as artists and creating rocket and space art inspired by Peter Thorpe. We worked with the tricky medium of chalk on black paper to create some stunning artwork!
We think the children have outdone themselves and the art is incredible!
Sunshine Reading
This week Y2 have been making the most of the good weather! We spent lots of our crew sessions outside, but our favourite was our Tranquil Tuesday crew sessions.
#BetterWorldWeek at XP
At XP Trust, we’re proud to be long-standing partners and friends of EL Education. We take part in Better World Week every year – not as a one-off event, but as an extension of the work we do every day in our schools. Like EL, we believe that learning should be purposeful, rooted in community, and driven by the desire to make a positive impact. It’s a shared mission that sits at the heart of our relationship and everything we do.
In every XP school, students take on meaningful work that matters to real people. From campaigning for local change to producing high-quality expedition products that leave a legacy, our young people learn not just how to succeed – but how to contribute. Better World Week gives us the opportunity to shine a light on that work, celebrate the voices of our students, and stand alongside a global network of educators who are committed to doing things differently…
Click ‘read more’ below to see our students’ beautiful work from this year…
(more…)Sharing our Stories: 02/05/2025
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.
Every year, our friends and partners at EL Education invite schools across the world to take part in #BetterWorldWeek – a celebration of student work that makes a meaningful difference in the world.
Just like at EL, at XP this isn’t a one-off event – it’s the work we do every day. But this week gives us a moment to pause, reflect, and share the incredible ways our students have stepped up.
In the last year, they have:
- Hosted tea parties to tackle loneliness
- Campaigned for safer streets around their schools
- Created environmental art with purpose
- Challenged inequality through powerful public products
- Brought communities together
…and that’s just the beginning.
You can read all about their beautiful, purposeful work here:
https://xptrust.org/betterworldweek-2025/
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Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead
If you go down in the woods… @ Norton Infants
Share your stories with us!
If you go down in the woods….
This week began with Nursery taking a trip into the woods (within school grounds) to explore and experience what it would be like to be inside a forest as part of our first case study; Where in the world will this story take you? Our first anchor text of this case study is the classic fairytale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children were so excited to go on an adventure and were also a little bit nervous about who or what they would find in the woods, as they explored using their senses.
Once inside the woods the children were relieved to find there weren’t any wolves, bears or Gruffalo’s! We used our senses to think about what we could see, hear, smell and feel with both our hands and feet. The children were read the story inside the woods to set the scene and bring the story to life. They really enjoyed it and listened attentively whilst holding their sticks, leaves, flowers and ferns.
Once back in the classroom the children shared thoughts of their experience and completed a class sense map, noting down ideas of what they could see, hear, smell and feel. There were some beautiful thoughts and sentences that were communicated from the adventure which really helped the children to understand what a forest is. We have used this knowledge and experience to inspire large scale pieces of artwork, which will be part of our final product in terms of creating a story setting. The children also watched a short video of a virtual tour through Sherwood Forest, in Nottingham, where they tried to spot Robin Hood! They then compared that to the experience of our school woods in Norton and talked about what was the same and what was different? They soon realised that forests were much bigger with larger trees, thicker bushes and more undergrowth. They also learnt that not only animals but people could also possibly live in a forest like in olden times. You have been great geographers Nursery! Here’s a sneak peak of our artwork…
Where in the world does this book take us?
This week we have delved straight into case study one, the children considered the question, Where in the world does this book take us? We have focused our attention on a book titled ‘The Way Back Home’ written by Oliver Jeffers. The book has truly captivated the children and has encouraged them to imagine what it would be like if they were stuck on the moon. We have created some beautiful writing about things we might see, feel, hear and smell on the moon.
The children have practised their counting skills and have been counting the moon rocks in our maths area…
In our creative zone the children have been busy creating their very own space scene with flying rockets…
The children have also been inspired by Oliver Jeffers and have chosen to draw the characters from the story themselves. We most definitely have some artists in the making…
In our construction area, we have been busy making our very own rockets and spaceships. Take a look at our impressive models…
I wonder where our book will take us next week…
A week where Fairytale wishes do come true..
To immerse and hook our Nursery children into our latest learning expedition “Once upon a time- who is hiding in the pages of this book?” We hosted a Fairytale Tea Party, with real china tea cups and where everyone came in their finest party clothes! The sun shone for us and the children really enjoyed spending special time together experiencing new things. To help the children understand what happens and how people behave at these splendid events, we first learnt a tea party song to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it”. Why don’t you ask them to sing it to you?
In every good fairytale plot there is a mystery object that helps the hero or villain to succeed or cause mayhem! The children took part in a mystery object hunt, finding and naming the objects as they found them.
To embed the children’s understanding of these objects further and bring them to life we played a game of Pass the Parcel with the real objects hidden inside. This time the children discussed what the object was, how it feels and what it could be used for? The children had lots of fun and were really respectful and kind to each other by passing the parcel quickly and carefully to their friends.
As the week drew to a close the children work independently or in pairs as they wished, to decorate mystery objects using a variety of mediums such as felt tips, collage and special watercolour pencils. The importance of staying within the lines of the pictures was modelled to the children to help keep the shape of the mystery object, meaning that we would really need to be “Concentrating Crocodiles”. It was lovely to see the children who wanted to work in pairs, working out what they would like to create and choosing different children to work with, who wanted to create the same thing – being “Teamwork Tigers”. This beautiful artwork will be used to help create our final product. Well done Nursery, you were very pleased and proud of your beautiful work, as was I!
