Running for the Arts Festival!

6th March 2026Andy Sprakes

Once again, I’m donning my running shoes, together with my brother Michael, and attempting the challenging Sheffield Half Marathon on Sunday the 29 March to raise funds for our upcoming Music and Arts Festival in the summer term.


This year will be the third time we have brought together students from across the Trust to showcase their artistic and musical skills alongside community partners and professional artists. Take a look at the highlights from last year.

To make this happen again we need your support! If you could make a donation, however big or small, we can place music and the arts right at the heart of our mission to make ourselves, our community and our world a better place!  And make the third Community Arts and Music Festival the best yet.

Just click the link here to make a donation. 

Thank you for your continuing support. 

Andy Sprakes

Co-founder and Chief Academic Officer, XP Trust

Sharing our Stories: 06/03/2026

6th March 2026Geoff 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

Year 5 Dodgeball @ Green Top

World Book Day in 5L @ Plover

World Book Day Crew Frost @ Carcroft School

Crew Peake – stewards of our community @ XP

Weekly update @ XP Gateshead

Crew, Collaboration, Critique and Teamwork Tigers! @ Norton Infants

Multiplying our Maths Skills @ Norton Juniors

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!

Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover! Crew White Celebrates World Book Day

5th March 2026Charlotte Newman

Today, Crew White celebrated World Book Day with a fun book discovery activity designed to spark curiosity about reading. Students began by silently exploring eight different books placed around the room, judging their first impressions based on the covers. After discussing what caught their attention, students read a selection of blurbs, noted interesting details and questions on post-its, and reconsidered their choices. To finish, we held a lively Book Tournament, where the eight books competed in a class vote until one Crew White Champion Book was crowned — which we’ll now begin reading together in class.

World Book Day Crew Frost

5th March 2026Elizabeth Frost

World Book Day was such a fun experience for the children. We loved seeing everyone in their wonderful costumes, and a big thank you to all the parents for spending the time and effort preparing the children’s fantastic outfits.

During our session today, the children enjoyed developing their cutting skills as they made their own Wizard of Oz puppets. They carefully used scissors and materials to create their characters, showing great focus and creativity.

The children also used their fine motor skills to draw pictures of Elphaba and Glinda, taking time to add their own details and colours. It was lovely to see their imagination come to life through their drawings and puppet creations.

What a wonderful day celebrating books and stories together.

Well done, Crew Frost!