Interventions

During our choosing time, Crew Frost have been developing their early mathematical skills through a range of practical, hands-on interventions linked to the EYFS Development Matters guidance. This week, the children have focused on recognising, extending, and creating their own two-part patterns, as well as organising and comparing objects by size from biggest to smallest.

The children showed great curiosity and engagement as they explored pattern and shape through play. They were encouraged to use mathematical language to describe what they could see, including words such as pointy, corners, sides, stripy, and edges. This supported the children in talking about and exploring shapes and patterns around them.

These activities help to build strong foundations within the Mathematics area of learning, particularly in noticing patterns, comparing size, and developing spatial reasoning. Crew Frost have worked incredibly hard to explain their thinking, solve problems, and apply their learning independently during provision.

We are so proud of the progress Crew Frost are making as they continue to grow in confidence and prepare for their transition into Reception. Well done, Crew Frost!

Sharing our Stories: 15/05/2026

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

A wonderful day at Piglets Adventure Farm! @ Green Top

Year 5 hit the track @ Plover

Work to be proud of @ Carcroft School

Walk for Water @ XP Gateshead

Uncovering a big problem @ Norton Infants

Something Better Change @ XP Doncaster

The band is just fantastic that is really what I think @ 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!

5 x Readers In KS1!

Here are our magazines all lined up ready to go for Friday’s assembly! If your child has read 5 times at home this week – and it is recorded in their reading record – they will get a raffle ticket for our VERY EXCITING raffle in Friday’s community meeting!

2 winners will be chosen each week at random and they will be invited to select a comic book from this gorgeous range!

This week there will be 4 winners due to last weeks assembly being cancelled.

We cannot wait to see who our first winners are!

You’ve got to be in it to win it: 5 reads, over 5 days, recorded in planners.

Work to be proud of✨

Dallas has been building up her resilience to work independently on the challenge table. She has been answering abstract questions independently in maths, with concrete support if needed. You are a superstar!! ✨

Maths

Crew Farrow have been using number lines to solve subtraction questions. Well done for recording your equations on the squared side of your whiteboards!

Phonics

Pink group have been working hard in phonics to get speedy with the story green words this week. Well done for helping your partners spot special friends and Fred talk the word if they have struggled.

🫀Investigating our heart rate🫀

Crew Gray have been investigating to determine if exercise directly impacts our heart rate. We conducted a controlled experiment measuring our heart rate at resting, low intensity exercise and high intensity. We did this by recording our pulse before and after each activity, before recording our findings, which we are now going to use to write our investigation report.

Learning all about blood

In Crew Gray, we have been discovering all about blood and what it is made of! During an exciting hands-on lesson, we explored the four main components of blood and uncovered the important job each one has to keep our bodies healthy.

We used water mixed with yellow food colouring to represent the plasma, which gave the liquid a realistic look. Marshmallows were used to show the white blood cells, which help the body fight infections. Cheerios represented the red blood cells, which carry oxygen throughout the body and give blood its red colour. Small pieces were also added to represent platelets, which help blood clot when we get a cut. As we carefully added each part to create our own “blood model”, we were amazed to see how these components work together to help our bodies function every day.

Finding Fractions!

Crew Ramsay got stuck into some Concrete Maths to conceptually understand fractions of an amount. We divided an amount into 4 equal parts to ‘see’ the quarters. We then found 3/4 of the amount by adding 3 of the equal parts together. Here we are getting stuck into some part, part whole activities.