Crew White show courage

3rd December 2025Thomas White

This week, Crew White have been learning about Carcroft School’s new character traits: courage, integrity, compassion, quality and craftmanship and respect. These form the foundations of what it is to be a positive member of our crew and our school. We were especially proud of Crew White’s courage this week as they embraced new challenges, shared their ideas openly, and supported one another with real determination.

We looked at what it means to be courageous and role played some examples of behaviours that you might see in our crew.

Super Letter Writing in Crew Colclough

3rd December 2025Kirsty Atherton

Today I had the pleasure of teaching in Year 4. We were writing the introduction for a formal letter and I was really impressed by the way in which the pupils carefully selected ideas from their support sheets to help them. We worked hard to ensure that our spelling was accurate using the support sheets to help us. I was also blown away by the pupil’s prosody when reading their work aloud at the end.

Art & DT Case Study

3rd December 2025Charlotte Newman

Yesterday, Crew Gray started their third and final case study for their rainforest expedition. We began with the exciting task of designing our own picture frames as a class. Then we shifted our focus to learning how to work safely with wood tools, exploring equipment such as vices, saws, and sanding blocks. We discussed responsible handling, protective gear, and how to support one another during practical activities. We can’t wait to see these designs come to life!

Character Traits

3rd December 2025Charlotte Newman

Yesterday, Crew Gray launched their character traits and learnt all about what makes a good person. The five character traits were courage, respect, integrity, compassion as well as craftsmanship and quality. Crew Gray explored what the different character traits look like and they pledged to how they are going to demonstrate courage this week.

Congratulations Year 5/6 Netball Team!

1st December 2025Gillian Gilliland

A huge congratulations to our Year 5/6 pupils who took part in the recent netball tournament. They played with great teamwork and determination, earning an impressive 3rd place.

We are very proud of you all !

Sharing our Stories: 28/11/2025

28th November 2025Geoff Hewitt

Beautiful work this week

Here’s a selection of beautiful work from across the XP Trust!

To read about other stories from across the XP Trust, visit xptrust.org.

Top of the Blogs

Class 8 fantastic writing @ Green Top

Our Disneyland Video @ Plover

David Hockney style artwork @ Carcroft School

Crew Nightingale – kindness @ XP

Stitching up a colourful rainforest @ Norton Juniors

E29 Expert – mental health @ XP East

Weekly update @ XP Gateshead

A Marvellous POL @ Norton Infants

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!

Case Study 3 Begins!

27th November 2025Charlotte Newman

Crew McLoughlin have officially begun their third case study of DT and Art! Yesterday, pupils worked in groups to design their frames, sharing ideas and planning how their final pieces might look.

Today, they moved on to researching their artist, Frank Bowling, exploring his vibrant style to inspire their own work. They also spent time practising key oil pastel skills, including sgraffito and blending from light to dark, building a strong foundation for the artwork they’ll create later in the case study.