Sharing our Stories: 04/10/2024

Beautiful Work This Week

Celebrating XP Doncaster’s Duke of Edinburgh 2024 Expedition

Check out these beautiful highlights from C28s DofE Expedition last academic year! They had an awesome POL to celebrate their success this week.

Working with the National Gallery

On Monday, our dedicated Art Staff at XP Doncaster had the incredible opportunity to attend an enriching workshop organised in collaboration with The National Gallery, made possible through the support of Right Up Our Street. This was part of a larger initiative, as The National Gallery prepares for their upcoming visit to Doncaster on 19th October, which is an exciting stop on their nationwide Art Road Trip. In the lead-up to this highly anticipated visit, the Gallery has been offering a series of free CPD sessions aimed specifically at art teachers. These sessions are designed to enhance teaching practices, and we were fortunate enough that our staff could participate in one of these invaluable opportunities.

“It was really amazing to work with the National Gallery on the Staff Day at XP. They will be coming in to launch the Articulation prize for XP C28 students. Staff had the opportunity to take part in the workshop as a sneak peek before the kids get a chance!”

Kat Taylor – Art @ XP Doncaster

The focus of the workshop was particularly inspiring, centring on the importance of art commentary and how educators can empower students to express their own unique interpretations of artworks. It delved deeply into the ways students can be encouraged to find and use their own voices, providing them with the tools to articulate personal responses to visual art. The session explored various strategies for prompting thoughtful engagement with art, ensuring that students feel confident in offering their perspectives, regardless of the artwork’s complexity or the student’s prior experience. By fostering a more inclusive and supportive environment, the workshop aimed to inspire both teachers and students to approach art not just as observers but as active commentators, enriching their understanding and appreciation of visual culture. This experience was invaluable for our staff, equipping them with fresh insights and methods that will undoubtedly benefit our students in the classroom.

Building Crew at Green Top

On our most recent Staff Day, Green Top School staff completed an awesome scavenger hunt around Snaith! Crews had to complete various challenges throughout the day and they built Crew and formed stronger relationships as a result! Go #CrewGreenTop!

Wood Foundation Visitors!

We love welcoming visitors from all over the world to our Trust and this week it was a delight to work with our friends from the Wood Foundation with teachers from more than a dozen schools in Aberdeenshire. Our work with the Wood Foundation and the many schools they support, began in 2019 and has enabled us to share our story and how we work. We also travelled to Aberdeen this year to deliver CPD – including how we crew!

This week the focus was on creating and delivering expeditions and our visitors created some amazing food from our Plover Pantry recipe leaflets; originally created by the students. Part of this expedition was designed to bring the leaflets to life with a step by step video and photography guide. 

Really purposeful and beautiful work.

Top of the Blogs

Creating Beautiful Work @ Norton Infants

KS1 Community Crew @ Green Top

We are kind in Crew Lewis @ Plover

Road Safety in Crew MI @ Carcroft School

Crew Peak continue to fly! @ XP School

Making music @ Norton Juniors

Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead

Crew HWA/KBU @ 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!

Building on evacuation in MI

Yesterday we continued our expeditionary learning on evacuation where we built on the knowledge we already had. We imagined we were a parent of two small children living in London’s docklands. We had to decide whether or not to evacuate our children. We considered the factor cards in front of us, reading them aloud with our partner. If we thought the factor card was a reason for evacuation we moved our counter forward on our board. If we thought it was against evacuation we moved it backwards. After doing this, we reviewed the cards again, this time ranking the cards by how important they are to us. We then explained our decision using the sentence starter, “If I were a parent, I would/would not not evacuate my children because… We worked really well in mini-crews, discussing our thoughts and ideas together.

Arithmetic Superstars!

In academic crew this morning, Crew Mcloughlin have reflected on their performance in their latest arithmetic test and wow did we deserve a massive celebration! A high percentage of children have improved their score and some by a whopping 15 marks! We could not be prouder of each and every child in our Crew. The hard work is definitely paying off!

Road safety in Crew MI

We completed a road safety course today. We practiced crossing the road safely. This meant we had to think, stop, look and listen before we crossed the road. We also had to have safe feet, walk in a straight line across the road and continue to check for traffic. We had lots of fun and can’t wait to keep practicing crossing the road safely.

Mindful colouring

In crew, we completed some mindful colouring to work on our fine motor skills and pencil grip as well as our focus and concentration. We made sure we were using the correct pencil grip and writing posture as well as staying in the lines.

Case Study 1 Reflection

Yesterday, Crew Hamill completed a Padlet in which each child added their own statements to each section, detailing the information they could remember from everything we have learned during our first science case study. Miss Hamill was impressed with just how much we’d remembered!

We’re going on a bear hunt…

Last week in Crew F2, we went on a hunt for the bear that had been in our classroom! We walked through the swishy grass, through the cold river, we stumbled through the forest, and we swirled and whirled in the snowstorm! Eventually, we got to a narrow, gloomy cave! We crawled through and spotted a bear! We were very glad that we had our teddies with us to help us to feel safe.