We became designers in our expedition lesson. We followed Miss Marsh’s instructions carefully to make our castles, then once they were finished we tested their strength using tennis balls.
We came to the conclusion that paper is not a suitable material for a castle and that stone is better because it is much stronger to withstand an attack from an enemy.
We’d like all parent/carers opinions on school dinners, including those who’s children have packed lunches. XP Trust would like as many children as we can having delicious healthy meals so your and your child’s opinions are important to us. Children will be asked about their dinners at school but it would be good to have parent/carer opinions too.
Yorkshire Sport Foundation – Opening School Facilities at Plover
Check out this actively awesome video courtesy of Yorkshire Sport Foundation. The children and staff at Plover were superstars in explaining their positive experiences regarding the OSF funding they secured last year, to provide after school and community clubs! Plover have been lucky enough to secure some OSF funding this year too, so watch this space for Community Clubs starting in October! #LovePlover
Beautiful Curation!
We don’t just ensure our work is made public – it needs to live inside our school communities, too! More beautiful work has been curated at Plover School, celebrating their ‘Pride of Plover’ award winners and recent Expedition products!
‘If we get staff Crew right, we get everything right…’
One of our great friends and mentors, Ron Berger, once said to us that ‘staff culture can never outpace student culture.’ With this firmly at the forefront of our minds we set out last week on our bi-annual outdoor staff induction process with a group of educators from across our Trust.
We headed out into the wilderness to answer the guiding question, ‘What does it mean to be Crew?’ through a number of shared experiences and activities our Crew formed very quickly. We explored the purpose of Crew deeply and considered how we could make Crew even stronger on our return to our respective schools so that we continue to create the culture in which our students grow their character and make our community and the world a better place for everyone.
Below is an immediate reflection from one of our XP educators:
‘This experience has helped me to understand the building of community. The support that other members of our Crew showed this week has been immense. There have been some activities that have been challenging but everybody has been supportive whilst giving positive challenge so that everybody has been able to push themselves in a safe environment where everybody trusts each other and it’s lifted me and made me feel that I can achieve anything I put my mind to with the support of other people.’ – Louise
It was an honour and privilege to support and challenge our adults to reflect on the imperative we all have at XP to become and create great learners and even better human beings!
This morning, something had left some footprints in our classroom when we came into school… We looked closely to investigate what it might have been. Lots of us thought that it might have been a bear, some of us thought a dog, and others thought a dinosaur!
After we had investigated the footprints in the room, Miss Welburn showed us different types of footprints. We practiced talking to our partner to say what we thought the footprints belonged to. We had lots of ideas like dogs, humans, and lions and tigers because of the sharp claws on the end! We’ve asked Miss Welburn to check the cameras to see what it was that was in our classroom and we can’t wait to investigate on Tuesday!
Crew Hamil got to go in the forest area today where we climb tree, played 1,2,3 where are you? , fishy fishy, pac man, sardines and abit of litter picking
Yesterday in our outdoor provision area, we were really excited to try and build a den! We found lots of pieces of material and used the wooden posts to try and create our very own den, but it kept falling down! After talking to each other, we decided that some rope through the holes in the wooden pegs would be a good idea to peg the pieces of fabric to! Once our den was built, we climbed inside and pretended that we were ‘sleeping under the stars’! Some of us even made a camp fire to keep ourselves warm and to cook our food on. We had lots of fun building our den.
Two members from Doncaster Council visited our school this week to talk to all of our Year 5 and 6 pupils about ‘Dark Nights’. As the nights are starting to draw in, the volunteers discussed Halloween and Bonfire with us all and how we can ensure that we stay safe during these exciting occasions! We have learnt a lot about firework safety including how to hold sparklers and how to dispose of these safely, we are fully aware that only adults should be in charge of fireworks. We also learnt a lot about fire and how dangerous this can be, especially bonfires. The two adults also discussed anti-social behaviour such as breaking people’s windows, ‘knock a door run’ and swearing in public, and the consequences of these if we get caught. They also talked about ‘peer pressure’ and how common this is as we get older and mix with older children in the local community. They also briefly touched on water (ice) and road safety. They concluded the visit by showing us a clip similar to this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfFenwyoZcg to reinforce how important it is to keep ourselves and others safe during the upcoming ‘Dark Nights’. We learnt a lot from our talk and now feel fully prepared on how to enjoy Bonfire night and Halloween safely!