Sharing our Stories: 26/04/2024

Beautiful Work This Week

Beautiful Activism @ Green Top

A few months ago, Jake in Year 6 approached the school and his Crew with wanting to raise awareness around Motor Neurone Disease. Being a big fan of Leeds Rhinos, he has been inspired by Rob Burrows’ bravery and the superb effort of his ex-team mate, Kevin Sinfield.

Last week, Jake and his Mum organised a coffee morning fundraiser – including a bake sale, raffle and more! With the help of the Green Top Community, they have raised over £2600.

You can donate here: xptrust.info/MND – please leave a note to say ‘care of Jake at Green Top School’!

We would also like to give a massive shout out to Elsie from Class 6 and her family, who raised an outstanding £275 to buy raffle tickets. This is a cause very close to their hearts as they sadly lost Elsie’s Grandad to the disease in 2011. You can read more about it here.

Once again the generosity of the Green Top community has blown us away. We are Crew!

Full Steam ahead at Gresley Exhibition launch

A remarkable new exhibition about Sir NIgel Gresley has opened at the Danum Gallery in Doncaster – and our XP Schools Trust is playing its part! Our Rail City book, which is on sale in the gift shop at the gallery, was one of the catalysts for the invitation to contribute to this important collection of work – and the inspiration for the brochure which has been delivered by our Comms Crew. Our students’ study of our city’s rail story has given them a real overview of how important the work of Sir Nigel Gresley, who created Flying Scotsman and Mallard at the Plant, is in the history of steam and speed.

Letters and personal objects such as his hat and portrait are part of the exhibition, which has been curated with the collaboration of the Gresley Society, the Doncaster Grammar School Railways Archive and Doncaster City Council. Students from XPD are creating an audio experience for exhibition visitors and our Primary School Pupils are being invited to create rail related illustrations for colouring books that will be part of the gallery’s summer holiday resources for children across Doncaster.

Seb, who joined us at the launch said: “Going to the private viewing of the exhibition was great. It is important that young people carry on the legacy of our ancestors!”

Mel Cocliff added: “It was a privilege to be invited to the launch of the Sir Nigel Gresley exhibition at the Danum Gallery. To watch students from XP interact with people involved, including our Civic Mayor, was truly heartwarming. It’s vital that young people in our communities continue to appreciate the rail heritage of Doncaster, and pass on that baton as they grow up, too!”

The exhibition runs until September.

EYFS @ Green Top build their sandpit!

Following the playhouse being removed from the Reception outdoor area, it was in need of a revamp so the children decided to create a sandpit in this space! What a perfect opportunity to work collaboratively to create a purposeful learning space for their Summer term expedition ‘What happens where the sea meets the shore?’ The children designed the space and made a list of resources and jobs – beautiful work!

Beautiful Curation @ Carcroft

Beautiful displays were installed this week at Carcroft School – a culmination of last term’s Expedition ‘There is no Planet B’.

Top of the Blogs

Crew RPU Highlights @ XP

Beautiful Work from Grace @ XP Gateshead

Sunshine and Fairies @ Norton Infants

Long Jump @ Green Top

Messy Maps @ Plover

Exploring in the tree @ Carcroft School

E29 Working Hard @ XP East

Investigating Foods @ Norton Juniors

Join our Crew!

We’re looking for Cleaners and a Cleaner in Charge to #JoinOurCrew at XP Doncaster – find out more and apply here!

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!

Introducing ‘take away’

Today in maths, Crew MW have looked at what happens when we take away from a number. We did lots of practising with our tens frames and counters, and we worked out that when we take away, the number gets smaller! We started by making a number that Miss Welburn had given us on our tens frames, then taking away the amount that Miss Welburn said. We were all really good at using our subitising and number bond facts to say how many were left!

Next, we practised choosing our own numbers and making these using our treasure! Then our partners closed their eyes and we stole some of the treasure! Our partner had to work out how much of the treasure had been stolen using our number bonds facts.

What were the Mayas known for?

To continue our history case study, Crew Hamill worked in mini crews to gather as much information about Ancient Maya as we possibly could. We started by listening to a song and working as a crew to chot down the important facts and information. Did you know they were experts in maths, pottery, agriculture and astronomy? Following this, we worked in mini crews to look through some information from a non-fiction book on the Ancient Maya and wrote down as many interesting facts as we could. We are going to use this to create a poster in our next expedition lesson.

Computing – Inventions!

Crew Hamill had SO much fun this afternoon creating their own inventions! We discussed all of the pieces of technology we found around school during our last computing lesson and reminded ourselves of what a computer is. We then used this information to come up with our own inventions that all involved a computer. We had to think about what we would need to input into our inventions in order for them to work and then what the output would be once we did that. We had some amazing ideas, including:

  • A cupcake machine: You press a button on your desk and the cupcake machine pops up from underneath, producing a freshly baked cupcake.
  • A glitter party machine: A small box attached to the ceiling. When you clap 3 times, it triggers the machine to open. When the doors open, glitter rains down from the ceiling and the box starts to play music so that you can have a party.
  • A time machine: A box that you can go into and programme with different years. This allows you to move forwards or backwards in time!
  • A shrink watch: When you twist the outer circle of the watch in one direction, it makes you shrink to the size of a little bug! When you twist it back in the opposite direction, you’re the same size again.

Fractions

In Y1 this week we have been learning about fractions – we looked at half and now we are looking at quarter. Today on our gallery walk we could show and explain which shape was cut into a quarter and which wasn’t. We could also explain why!