Crew Building

Following on from our staff crew building activity, we thought the children in Crew Marsh would enjoy it too. They have now added their own masterpieces to make a beautiful collaborative piece of art work. A lovely activity outside painting, drawing and colouring real life flowers under the lovely sunshine! What a gorgeous way to celebrate Spring and Crew!

Sharing our Stories: 17/04/2025

Beautiful Work This Week

Here’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.

Top of the Blogs

Year 3 Family Learning @ Green Top

We’re going on an egg hunt @ Plover

Tectonic Plates @ Carcroft School

Crew Brunel @ XP School

G31 Year 7 POL – Tonight! @ XP Gateshead

Eggsellent Effort Class 6 @ Norton Infants

Digging into our New Expedition @ 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!

Tectonic plates!

Today, we dived deeper into the layers of the earth and focused on the crust. We discovered that the crust is broken up into smaller pieces called tectonic plates. These tectonic plates are constantly moving but they move very slowly. We discussed how these plates used to be one and this was called Pangea but over around 350 million years it has moved and become what we know today. The 7 major tectonic plates are Pacific Plate, North American Plate, Eurasian Plate, African Plate, Antarctic Plate, Indo-Australian Plate, and South American Plate. 

Layers of the Earth

Today, we used soft clay to show the different layers of the earth. We used the different colours to represent the different layers. The yellow represented the inner core, the orange represented the outer core, the red represented the mantle and the blue and green represented the crust. We were amazed when we cut them in half to see the sections.

Fieldwork to Magna in LKS2

Such an incredible day at Magna Science Adventure Centre! We loved exploring the 4 different pavilions- Air, Earth, Fire and Water! It was hard getting children to leave each area! We also loved the interactive workshop where we explored and identified some common rocks. We also used modelling clay to track the classic vinegar and baking soda ‘eruption’. We even took a core sample through our models. Children we so engaged and interested in everything we did and this trip has really kickstarted our summer expedition.

KS1 COL

Thank you for joining us after school to celebrate our CarcroftGO! video and purchasing pizzas. Scan the QR code on your recipe card to see our video at home and I hope you all enjoy creating pitta pizzas too.

Let’s STRIKE!

To hook us into our learning, we are going on STRIKE! Today, we have learnt all about the coal mine strikes and the reasonings as to why these took place. We were shocked to find out that 142,000 people actually went on strike when Margaret Thatcher tried to close 20 mines in 1984. Did you know that people who didn’t go on strike were called scabs?! Inspired by what we have learnt, we are planning our own strike! We have decided that the school week should always be a 4 day week and that we shouldn’t have to come to school on Fridays. This afternoon, we have designed and created placards which we are going to use when we go on strike later in the week. Keep your eyes peeled – we may just march past your house!