Post inside this category will show up on the front page
As part of our expedition lessons we have been learning about the Kings Trust and the work they do to support children and young people. We learnt that they try and help build resilience so we took part in some activities to try and help us become more resilient. These included cross the river, mirror challenge and blindfold assault course.
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…
Continue readingHere’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:
…and that’s just the beginning.
You can read all about their beautiful, purposeful work here:
https://xptrust.org/betterworldweek-2025/
Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead
If you go down in the woods… @ Norton Infants
Today, we looked at the different ways in which we use rivers. We first started by exploring the rivers and canals that flow through Doncaster. This included the River Don, Stainforth and Keadby and New Junction Canals. We recognised a couple of the photos which were taken in Doncaster. Then we looked at the uses of rivers and canals. We found that we can use rivers for transportation, leisure, irrigation, hydroelectric power, drinking water, habitats and ecosystems, and fishing. We then matched the use to the impact that it can have on the environment. Some of them had both positive and negative impacts on the environment. For example, people who use rivers for leisure activities such as kayaking and canoeing are improving their physical and mental health but they could pollute the waters and destroy habitats.
Lovely afternoon making memory jars. The child wrote down 6 memories and then linked each memory to a colour. Next, they put 6 piles of salt on each memory and coloured the salt. They poured it into their jars so that they could keep their memories with them.
During today’s lesson, Crew Hamill had the opportunity to experience a mining tunnel for themselves. Using tables and dark material, we recreated what a tunnel might look like. We turned out the lights to make things darker and played a coal mine soundscape to mimic the sounds of the mine. One at a time, we made our way through the tunnel, experiencing the dark, cramped and noisy conditions. We then had a small debrief explaining how we felt – lots of us were claustrophobic! Following this, we played true or false and moved to the side of the room that we felt was appropriate when presented with different facts about mining. If we agreed and thought they were true we went to one side, if we disagreed and thought they were false then we went to the other. To further demonstrate our learning, we read some fact sheets about life in the mine and created chotting sheets in mini crews that detailed the early conditions.
This afternoon we have re-enacted the King’s coronation. Crew Marsh was great at remembering all of the different roles and the reason why we have coronations.
Today in writing, we have continued to build our knowledge about tectonic plates in preparation for when we write our next plot point. We watched some videos and chotted down loads of facts to support us in writing.
We then did a shared write which allowed Miss Shields to model how to put the facts into sentences.
Today the children in Crew Marsh took it in turns in their mini crews to present the weather to the rest of their crew. They made sure they each had a role to play and used their knowledge of the weather symbols to then present their predictions.
We are working hard on our information texts in Crew MT. We are really focusing on conjunctions and adverbials along with using our knowledge on volcanoes to compose our writing.
