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?
Lunch Time Supervisor – Vacancies
Would you like to work at Norton Infant or Norton Junior Schools?We are recruiting for dinner time supervisors across both schools. If you are interested and would like to be considered, please follow the link below and register your interest by completing the Register your Interest form on the XP Trust vacancies website. Please specify which school you are interested in.
https://xptrust.org/vacancies/
Handa’s Surprise 🐘🍍
Over the last two weeks children in EYFS have been exploring the story Handa’s Surprise by Eileen Brown. This links to our current expedition, exploring all the different ways we can travel, as Handa is a little girl who walks a long journey to her friend’s village with a basket of fruit on her head. Little does she know there are some cheeky animals who pinch her fruit along the way!
An exciting activity was using all of our senses to explore a pineapple, mango, avocado, orange and passionfruit that feature in the story. Afterwards we created beautiful work by writing sentences about what we found out.
Then we had great fun taking part in an African drumming workshop. Steve from Unbeatable Energy used percussion instruments to retell an African folktale about an Anansi spider.
He then taught us how to play African drums by tapping along to catching rhymes such as ‘juicy juicy mango!’. The children loved making their own music and dance moves and then performing this to their parents at the end of the day.
A big thank you to the parents who came to watch our performance. We loved that you had an opportunity play the instruments too! It was an experience the children will definitely remember. 🪘🎶
This week in Class 4
We have had a great week working incredibly hard on our writing, maths and phonics. We worked in our teams sharing facts about King Charles. We had a special treat from Year 6 children who visited us and read us a story. They gave us some biscuits for our beautiful spelling.
Sharing our Stories: 12/05/2023
Beautiful Work This Week
A Christmas Carol: Year 11 Study Guide for GCSE – created by Year 11 at XP!
Students at XP in Year 11 have been preparing for their GCSE English Literature Exam studying a range of different texts. One of these was A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
As we learn predominantly through Learning Expeditions at XP Trust, students embarked on a Humanities based expedition entitled Is Charity Enough? Students studied A Christmas Carol whilst considering the work they had completed, and were continuing to study, as part of their GCSE History in the thematic module Health and Medicine through the Ages. Students focussed on A Christmas Carol considering what life was like particularly social conditions at the time the novella was written.
Students then began a detailed study of the Dickens classic by reading and writing about characters, themes and the intent of the novella. This was the foundation for the study guide that includes this content as well as beautiful artwork, interviews with Lucinda Hawksley (the Great Great Great Granddaughter of Dickens himself) as well as curators from the Dickens museum in London.
The result of this work is a fantastic guide for the students to use to help them in their GCSE revision as well as a beautiful product that reflects the students authentic voice and deep engagement with the text. However, this guide isn’t just for our students and their studies – it’s available to everyone studying A Christmas Carol at GCSE, as well as anyone else with a keen interest in Dickens!
You can buy your copy of the guide here!
All students in X25 were given a copy of the guide and further copies can be purchased through our website.
Beautiful Curation at Norton Campus!
Doncaster Minster – E27 Ethics
Top of the Blogs
LKS2 Recount Writing @ Carcroft School
Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead
Investigating tectonic plates @ Norton Juniors
Year 8 Spanish fashion topic @ XP
Our Coronation crown winners @ Plover
Celebration Crew @ Norton Infants
Celebration Crew
What a lovely celebration crew this morning. I was so impressed with the children who achieved awards this week for lots of different things – following HoWLs, showing incredible effort and one for being kind to all of his peers!
We loved hearing what each class had been learning this week – thank you Travis M, Lillie-May G, Reid H, Teddi S, Emily W and Rudy W for sharing your learning so confidently.
I wonder who we will be celebrating next week?
Mrs Parsons xx
We are historians!
Today we’ve been using online sources to research the life of King Charles III. We were able to find out so much more information to add to the anchor charts we started yesterday and enjoyed the challenge of finding the most interesting new fact to share with the class.
We bounce to the beat of our own drums!
Today Nursery had an awesome day, expressing themselves in an African drumming workshop provided by Steve from Unbeatable Energy. The workshop was provided by our expert visitor as the whole of EYFS have been looking at African culture through the story of Handa’s Suprise in comparison to Little Red Riding Hood a more traditional tale. The children learnt to listen, repeat and keep a beat and experiment with different sounds as well as stopping in time.
We all had great fun and there were lots of smiles all round, especially when our parents came to watch and join in! What an experience, Nursery enjoyed showing off their new skills. Well Done Everyone!
Reading to research
This week we are writing a non-chronological report all about King Charles III. We have been working in pairs to read some existing information to create anchor charts of key facts.
I was really proud of the way you all supported each other to make sure that everyone was able to read and understand the text.
Keep it up,
Mrs Parsons xx
Awesome authors
In class five we have written our own version of the story The Queen’s Hat. Ours is called The King’s Crown. These children were so proud of their work that they read their story out loud to the whole class.
Great work everyone,
Mrs Parsons xx
