Check out one of our students’ latest beautiful Expedition products, featuring powerful folk songs created by Year 7 at XP Gateshead, inspired by the rich mining heritage of North-East England. From performing mining-related songs to studying historical events and visiting Beamish Museum, our students have captured the essence of the miners’ stories.
Welcome to our final selection of beautiful work from the 2023/2024 academic year!
In our 10th anniversary year at XP, last week we celebrated with our first ever Arts Festival. Across our Trust, all of our 8 schools brought some of their creativity, community and beautiful work to share at the XP Doncaster campus. Students from our Primary Schools sang their fundraising original song ‘Dear World’, always an emotional and uplifting moment. From Samba to saxophone, spoken word to sensational dance routines – the XP Arts Festival, over nine hours of parades and participation, celebrated our schools, students and partners.
The dynamic Doncaster Youth Jazz Association’ who are now based at XP, delivered a brilliant set – complementing at one stage our parade of birds. Add ice cream and an audience not deterred by the occasional rainfall and you have the perfect day. We would like to appreciate everyone who contributed to this festival – whether artists on stage, backstage or as part of the dedicated crew who helped to make it happen.
See you next year!
All of the photos and videos above were captured by our Student Digital Leaders – beautiful work!
This week, we hosted our annual climate conference at XP. Students delivered a powerful keynote speech and then set up stalls, talking about different solutions and the research they have done on efforts we can all make to protect our planet.
During this learning Expedition, students in UKS2 explored how a healthy lifestyle impacts both body and mind through three case studies: history, science (biology), and design technology (DT). In history, they learned to use evidence to deduce information about the past, focusing on the achievements and societal structures of ancient civilisations. In science, they studied human development and the circulatory system, emphasising the importance of diet, exercise, and lifestyle on bodily functions. In DT, students applied principles of a healthy and varied diet, learned to measure ingredients accurately, and demonstrated various cooking techniques while creating and refining recipes.
Every school produced different final products that encapsulated their learning. Plover school’s Expedition culminated in the creation of colour tiles to decorate the school’s exterior, each carrying messages of mental well-being. These tiles serve as a lasting legacy of the students’ work, promoted during a colour run event involving parents and activities aimed at mental health awareness, with funds raised going to a mental health charity. Norton Junior School focused on producing healthy recipes, where students practised calculating ingredient ratios and perfecting cooking techniques – they then celebrated their work with parents with an event at Campsall Park, where participants ran 5k and enjoyed a healthy picnic together!
Year 1 and 2 pupils from Norton Infants embarked on a cross-curricular expedition to answer the question, “Where do we belong?” through art, geography, and history. They explored ideas through drawing, painting, and sculpture, learned to use geographical vocabulary and mapping skills, and investigated historical events and significant local figures. The expedition included expert visits, including talks from local leaders, to deepen their understanding of Doncaster’s uniqueness and diversity. Students also visited local landmarks, created related artwork, and produced an interactive travel guide. This project culminated in a family-oriented orienteering activity, showcasing the students’ findings and creative works.
Children engaged in a presentation of learning. Alongside their families, they visited our Diverse Doncaster art gallery and were able to see their art work of significant landmarks from across Doncaster. The artwork was accompanied by writing explaining important facts and information they have discovered throughout the expedition. Children were also invited to take part in our Doncaster orienteering challenge. Each family was given a list of clues about significant places in Doncaster – the children had to demonstrate their knowledge by working out what the location was, find the image of it in our school grounds and use the orienteering peg to mark their answer.
In the summer term of 2024, Year 3 and 4 students at Carcroft embarked on a learning expedition titled “From Bean to Bar,” exploring the question, “What is the real cost of a bar of chocolate?” The curriculum spanned history, science, and design technology, integrating studies of the Mayan civilization and fair trade practices. Students applied their learning by baking brownies, creating Mayan-inspired packaging, and developing an understanding of states of matter. For the presentation of learning, students sold their baking in boxes and invited parents to try different healthy dishes inspired by Mayan cuisine!
There have been a series of wonderful celebrations of beautiful work at XP Gateshead this week! G29 celebrated their learning from the Expedition ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go?’ – students truly excelled in all areas, from catering for 150 people, creating wooden birds decorated in their own Islamic art, folding over 150 paper cranes, creating menus, seating plans, not to mention the artwork inspired by the poem that they then performed beautifully. You can read more about it here.
G30 celebrated their work from across their first work at XPG – you can read the full blog and see more photos here. They also launched their CD of folk songs from their ‘From The Ground Up’ Expedition – which is available to stream online from next week! Stay tuned for more information!
And finally, last night G28 celebrated their learning from their ‘Hold Back The River’ Expedition with a Live Stream full of creative writing, read and recorded by the students – you can watch the stream below!
As we say goodbye to our Class of 2024 cohort across our XP Trust primaries, we wish them all well with their futures! We will miss you and remember – you will always be Crew.
Here are some highlights from Green Top’s Leavers celebrations yesterday!
We’re looking for:
A sporting week! @ Norton Infants
Chapter One Celebrations @ Carcroft School
Cup Completion @ Norton Juniors
Successful Panto Audition for Mia @ XP Gateshead
Pupils to benefit from Enthuse Partnership at XP @ Worksop Guardian
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 news@xpschool.org – we want to hear about it, write about it and celebrate it!
GCSE Geography students will be undertaking their required GCSE geography fieldwork on Tuesday 10th September 2024. Students need to arrive at school at 7:45 for a prompt departure and will return to school, traffic depending, by 3:30.
We will be collecting data on the downstream changes of a river at Edale in the Peak District, this will be assessed in the Paper 3 exam at the end of year 11.
Students will need the required kit list . Students will need to be prepared for weather changes and being outdoors all day.
Please complete this consent/medical form to help us to support your child on this fieldwork. The deadline for this is 2nd September 2024.
If you have any questions about the fieldwork, please email hwoodward@xpschool.org
Thank you
Harriet Woodward
GCSE Geography students will be undertaking their required GCSE geography fieldwork on Tuesday 10th September 2024. Students need to arrive at school at 7:45 for a prompt departure and will return to school, traffic depending, by 3:30.
We will be collecting data on the downstream changes of a river at Edale in the Peak District, this will be assessed in the Paper 3 exam at the end of year 11.
Students will need the required kit list – if there are any issues with this then please get in touch. Students will need to be prepared for weather changes and being outdoors all day.
Please complete this consent/medical form to help us to support your child on this fieldwork. The deadline for this is 2nd September 2024.
If you have any questions about the fieldwork, please email me at hwoodward@xpschool.org
Thank you
Harriet Woodward
Dear parents,
We have recently received next year’s prices from our current catering providers, Doncaster Council Schools Catering Service.
Due to rising food and labour costs, they have significantly increased the price to all of our schools across the Trust.
Even with the schools heavily subsidising this, we may still need to increase the cost per meal for parents to £3.00. We are greatly disappointed to ask this of our parents, but this is a decision we have had to make due to reasons out of our control.
We will continue to work with Schools Catering over the summer holidays to try and bring these costs down, whilst ensuring a high quality meal will be provided to each of our students. We will keep parents informed with any updates on this.
We are exploring other providers, and if necessary, we will look to change providers if a more cost effective offer is available elsewhere.
We will do everything we can to keep the price of school meals affordable to our parents, but we wanted to provide early warning that our prices are likely to increase from September 2024.
Here is a video showcasing some moments from the Leeds Rhinos game. The girls loved this experience and got to also meet the players after the match.
This week crew have been litter picking on the school grounds to complete their final product for their current expedition. Crew made sure they worked together to keep our school looking great.
We are so proud of the hard work they have produced over this last year and hope they all have a fantastic summer!!
Mrs Burnitt and Mrs Pulham
What an amazing day we had during sports day. It was great to see all students getting involved. Here are some fantastic moments from the day.
Please see attached the overview for each year group for the first week back.
Further details may be shared by each specific year group team; keep an eye on your inboxes!
If you have any concerns, please liaise with your child’s crew leader in the first instance.
The last of the taster days will take place on Tuesday the 16th students will be leaving school at 9am and should arrive back between 3:15 and 3:30pm depending on traffic. All students will be provided with a lunch at the college and will take part in three taster sessions and an enrichment session. The students have chosen the sessions that they would like to attend. XP Is proud to offer students a range of opportunities to help them make informed decisions about their next steps as they prepare to move into year 11.
Middle Bank
Doncaster
DN4 5NG
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