Sharing and critiquing our wonderful writing!

In Crew Gray this week, we have been sharing our fantastic writing from our recounts of our Tudor banquet with one another. We shared two stars and a wonder for each others work, allowing us to edit and revise them, before we share them with Miss Ramsey our audience for this piece of writing.

Role-Play Sparked creativity

Crew McLoughlin has had a fun and creative learning experience today in order to redraft a plot point of their diary.We took part in an imaginative role-play activity, where we pretended to be a Tudor getting ready to attended a special banquet. We imagined waking up, getting dress and walking into the hall. This is to help us write a diary about our day- what we saw, felt and did.

Sharing our Stories: 30/01/2026

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

Key Stage 1 Community Crew @ Green Top

Fruit Tasting and Painting @ Plover

Sticky knowledge – Maths reasoning @ Carcroft School

In the spirit of Crew @ XP

Weekly Update for Families @ XP Gateshead

Maths, Mysteries and Masterminds @ Norton Infants

High Energy and Big Wins @ XP East

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!

Sticky Knowledge – Maths Reasoning

Each week, in Crew White, we have a different reasoning focus then the following week we find out how much of that learning has stuck. Last week, the focus was all about matching questions: fractions, decimals and percentages. Today, we tackled two short reasoning questions to see how well the learning stuck and thankfully it’s still in our brain ready for when we need it. This is something called retrieval practice.

Gymnastics in Crew White

In Crew White, we have been working hard to perfect our back bridges. It has been challenging for some people, but in Crew White we believe that with determination, resilience, and encouragement we can do it. Some people have displayed incredible skills, determination and a lot of resilience: Tommy Thompson and Debbie-Mae Bell.

There were so many people we could have picked. Be determined, be resilient and trust in yourself and you can do anything!

Written by Praise Shoyemi

Read Write Inc Practice Sheets

This week, the children have began using Read Write Inc. practice sheets. These help them to develop their letter formation skills and create clear, recognizable letters. This will be an ongoing activity throughout their school year.

The children practice saying the picture of the sound, the letter sound , then they practice using the picture cards. They then say the phrase as they write, and finally say the sound again while forming the letter. This supports their phonics and early writing development.

We look forward to sending these sheets home as part of home learning and seeing the amazing work that Crew Frost continue to produce.

Final product practice.

During our We Are On The Move expedition, the children took part in adult-led demonstrations to explore how to create different types of transport, including bikes, planes and boats. This activity supported the children in developing their creative skills and preparing for their final pieces, which will contribute towards a collaborative flap book.

The children demonstrated strong fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination as they carefully used tools and materials to construct their designs. They confidently used shapes and lines to represent their ideas, showing growing independence and perseverance.

Through this activity, the children developed key skills within the EYFS framework, including Communication and language, Physical Development and Expressive Arts and Design. They engaged in meaningful discussion about their creations, shared ideas with their peers and made thoughtful choices when selecting materials.

We are extremely proud of the children’s courage, creativity and resiliences throughout this learning experiences. Well done Crew Frost we look forward to see the results from the final product.