It was lovely to see Year 4 and 2 playing alongside each other during our Friday crew session.
The Power of Play
Sharing our Stories: 11/09/2026
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
]Celebrating Crew @ Norton Infants
Digital Leading Experts @ Norton Juniors
Fossils, Discovery, and Coastal Exploration @ XP East
Share your stories with us!
Write to us at [email protected] – we want to hear about it, write about it and celebrate it!
Could You Be a Change Maker?
As part of Mindful Monday this week, Crew White explored what it means to be a Change Maker and how we can make a positive difference to our school community.
We discussed the qualities that make a strong Change Maker, including being a good listener, showing courage, representing the views of others and being willing to take action rather than simply waiting for somebody else to make things better.
The children were then given the opportunity to apply for the role. Some children began their applications in school, while others chose to take an application home to complete for homework, giving them more time to think carefully about what they could bring to the role.
For those children who chose not to apply, they took on the important role of evaluating their school currently and making suitable suggestions for improvement.
Who will be Crew White’s Change Makers?
Allergy Update
Dear Parents and Carers,
Important Update: School Allergy Policy, Nut-Free Guidelines, and Birthday Celebrations
We have an increasing number of pupils in our school with food allergies. Due to the severity of these allergies, we wish to remind you that we are a Nut Free School. Anaphylaxis (allergic reaction) can occur as a result of digestion, inhalation, or any other contact with nut-based products.
Please avoid any nut-based products for packed lunches or any snacks – this includes products that may contain traces of nuts.
Potential allergens could include the following:
- Spreads (e.g. chocolate spread, peanut butter)
- Cereal bars
- Some types of biscuits/cookies containing nuts
- Condiments (e.g. satay sauce)
- Cakes containing nuts
- Some snack pots containing nuts
This list is not exhaustive; therefore, it is important that you check the packaging of food products before sending your child to school with them. We understand that this can be difficult; therefore, we may return food items in lunchboxes if we are made aware that they contain nuts.
Please only send fruit into school for children to enjoy as snacks during break times.
Benedict’s Law
Benedict’s Law is statutory guidance requiring schools to maintain a dedicated allergy safety policy, train all staff on anaphylaxis response, and keep emergency adrenaline auto-injectors on site. Named in memory of five-year-old Benedict Blythe, it creates consistent, life-saving standards to protect pupils with severe allergies throughout the school day. The changes mentioned in this letter form part of the guidance in Benedict’s Law.
Birthday Treats
In addition, due to recent allergy legislation changes (Benedict’s Law) and for religious reasons, we are unable to allow children to bring cakes or sweets into school for birthdays or special occasions. While we love celebrating special moments with our pupils, food items brought from home make it challenging to verify ingredients and guarantee safety for children with severe allergies.
How We Will Celebrate Birthdays
To make a child’s birthday extra special, they can wear their own clothes to school so we can see it is their special day, so we can all celebrate together. If their birthday falls on a weekend or during the holidays, they can come in in their own clothes on the Monday we return to school.
Useful Information Sources
For further advice on managing allergies, you may find these resources helpful:
- School allergy policy
Thank you for your understanding, cooperation, and continued support in keeping all of our pupils safe.
Warm regards,
Mr. S Longley
Head of School
Lockdown incident this afternoon.
All children and staff are safe, and no ill intent was meant by anyone involved.
This afternoon, a small incident occurred at school on the exterior fields. Staff swiftly implemented the lockdown procedure, and all children were safely and calmly brought inside the building. The police attended as per school procedures to assist with the incident.
We would like to reassure parents and carers that all children and staff are safe and happy in lessons.
If anyone has any questions, please speak to me or email [email protected].
Thank you for your support,
Mr Longley
XP Outdoors – Den Building
Crew Godley took their learning outdoors for an exciting den-building challenge! Working together, we used natural and recycled materials to design and construct our own shelter.
We had to communicate, share ideas, solve problems and support one another as we worked as a crew. We thought carefully about how to make our den strong, stable and weatherproof, testing our ideas and making improvements along the way.
This challenge encouraged us to demonstrate our HoWLs and Character Traits, particularly compassion, courage and craftsmanship. We discovered that successful crew work isn’t about one person doing all the work – it is about listening to each other, sharing responsibility and helping everyone to contribute.
Most importantly, we had fun learning outside, getting creative and challenging ourselves together!
Totally Value-able Maths
In Crew McLoughlin, we have been working hard to develop a secure understanding of place value. We have been exploring the value of each digit in a number and using our knowledge to read, write, partition and compare numbers. We have enjoyed using practical resources and mathematical representations to help strengthen our understanding and explain our thinking.
Year 4 Football skills.
Year 4 put in fantastic effort during PE today, practicing their football control and dribbling skills.
What is play?
We have enjoyed our first few lessons of our new expedition.
Today we unpicked what play is. We talked about how play can take lots of different forms such as imaginative and individual. Most of all we agreed that play should be fun!.
This is the definition of play that some of our crew came up with together.
“Play is when we have fun with our friends. We are kind and respectful to others. We can be a crew when we play together.”
We then went on to produce some beautiful work all about what play is.
Great work CrewRobson
Fine motor skills
As part of their morning task, they developed their fine motor skills by carefully threading pasta onto string. This activity helped to strengthen their hand-eye coordination, concentration, and control of small hand movements.
