XP School

Beautiful Work This Week

Being Human – Beautiful Speeches from XP Gateshead

The G29 students speeches answering our guiding question “What does it mean to be human?” is now live on our website.

You can listen again and relive the POL speeches here!

This beautiful work is also available to visitors to the QE Hospital at the Windy Nook Entrance via a QR code on the art installation. This is important work matters, raising awareness of the importance of organ donation. A work that chimes with Olivias’ concluding remarks to our POL.

“…being human is about our social structures and relationships. How we connect, understand each other and have a sense of understanding and acceptance for ourselves and others.  We build our world through our memories and experience to decide where we want to go in the future. Humans grow through our community and others around us.”

XP Y9 Fieldwork to Thackray Museum

The Power of Change @ Carcroft

In Spring 2024, students from Years 5 and 6 at Carcroft School embarked on an Expedition to explore the 19th century’s impact on our lives today, examining whether its influence has been positive or negative. Students immersed themselves in the era by creating African pattern-inspired book bindings and sculptures. They delved into the work of British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonabare to understand cultural identity and globalisation. The history case study focused on the British Empire, particularly its effects on South Africa and the Zulu people, comparing Victorian society with Zulu society and discussing the legacy of these interactions. The science component of the Expedition related these historical impacts to the concepts of reversible and irreversible changes, using chemistry to draw parallels between the societal changes and scientific processes.

The Expedition’s culmination was an art exhibition-style event where students showcased sculptures inspired by Yinka Shonabare, reflecting on cultural identity and personal, cultural, or ethnic adaptation in an ever-changing world. This final product, along with literacy-based assessments and case study reflections, demonstrated the students’ learning and understanding of the 19th century’s influence. Throughout the Expedition, a diverse range of texts, including graphic novels and classic literature, enriched the students’ experience. Despite limitations on fieldwork due to economic conditions, video calls with South African residents offered insights into the lasting impacts of the British Empire on the Zulu people, enhancing the students’ global perspective and understanding of historical legacies.

Highlights from UKS2’s COL @ Plover

In the last week of term, students in UKS2 at Plover celebrated their work from their Expedition ‘The Power of Change’. Their guiding question was ‘How did the 19th century influence our lives today?’ and their final product explored significant locations in Doncaster, creating a history trail for members of the community to follow to learn more about the City’s history.

‘How will what I do today impact the world tomorrow?’ @ Norton Infants

Last term, students in KS1 at Norton infants explored ocean pollution – contrasting clean and polluted waters and their effects on wildlife, leading to local litter collection activities and artistic recycling projects, culminating in a family event promoting the reduction of single-use plastics. They delved into the science of this by examining the characteristics of living and non-living entities, focusing on animal needs and dietary types, and assessing human impacts on ecosystems, resulting in a detailed report on local fauna. Their geographical studies spanned identifying global continents, oceans, and specific habitats, enhanced by a narrative exercise based on “Somebody Swallowed Stanley.” Art skills were honed through various mediums in creating a sculpture and alternate story settings from “The Tin Forest.”

The students’ final product drew together learning from all three of these case studies. They created these activity booklets, which contain examples of beautiful artwork and written information, and include activities for children to complete – here’s a sample of their work below!

We would like to donate these booklets to local places so that children can complete them whilst they are out in our community! If this is something that you feel you would like copies of, we can send them to you! Please send an email to [email protected] and we will organise sending them to you!

Top of the Blogs

Wise Wednesday @ XP

Beautiful Work from Scarlett @ XP Gateshead

We are Sea Explorers @ Norton Infants

Class 7 found a time capsule @ Green Top

Ready Steady Cook @ Plover

New Reading Challenge @ Carcroft School

What is Power? @ XP East

‘Hats on for Hope’ @ 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!

Y10 students will be sitting a full set of mock exams w/b: 29th April. These will take place under full exam conditions to give them a taste of what to expect next year. The timetable is attached, along with some information around what each subject will be covering. Students have been provided with revision resources, and will be expected to revise outside of school to ensure they give their best efforts.

To help them prepare, we would like to invite Y10 students to D6, our in-school Saturday provision, which runs from 9.30-12pm in XP East’s study area. These are really useful sessions where students can meet up for independent study-time or form study groups and access more revision resources.

Y10 have lots of things to look forward to on the run up to the Summer break (fieldwork, college open days, work experience to name a few!) so to keep you fully informed we will start sending out a weekly planner so we can all keep track of key dates and events.

It’s really encouraging to see that many of our Y10 students are already showing the learning behaviours and focus needed to pass GCSEs, which will make the transition into Y11 so much easier for them!

Mrs Parker and Miss Cocliff.

Crew CBU have had a great start to the term- today we looked at the impact energy drinks can have on children. Crew were really surprised to find out the amount of sugar and caffeine content they contained.

Crew also had a fantastic first couple of days with a check in on Monday – learning what everyone got up to over the holidays and tranquil Tuesday where all students made sure they had a book to read and completed some independent reading to start the day.

Great work crew!

Find out more about each role here:

Cleaner

Cleaner in Charge

Its summer sports time.

Rounders practice will start this week on Wednesday 3.15-4.30. All welcome, please bring your PE kit.

Welcome back, hope you have all had a lovely easter.

Extra curricular this week is as follows:

Tuesday: Cheerleading 3.30-4.30

Wednesday: Y7 and Y9 boys football game at home. Students will finish between 4.45 and 5.

Thursday: BTEC Sport catch up.

There will be lots more going on next week and the enrichment timetable will be shared via blog later this week.

Crew SMI have had another busy term. From visiting a Gurdwara to running a mile for the British Heart Foundation, Crew SMI have well and truly done it all this term. We’ve had some ups and downs, but we’ve made it through as a crew. We’d like to share a couple of our highlights from this term.

Highlight 1 – Passing our SLCs

We spent a few weeks preparing for our Student Led Conferences, gathering work to show our parents – work we were proud of, work we found challenging and work we needed to further improve. We all worked really hard to put together a presentation showing these pieces of work. Everyone completed their SLC and passed! Here’s a few of us with our certificates.

Highlight 2 – World Book Day

Crew SMI decided to dress up as characters from the famous book ‘The Lorax’ by Dr. Suess. We spent a few days planning our outfits, ensuring everyone had a character to portray. Then on the day, we arrived early and got into our costumes, ready to attend Community Meeting as our Lorax characters. Were we the only ones dressed up that day? Yes. Yes we were. But we didn’t care, as we had great fun choosing characters and coming up with costume ideas. It really brought us together as a crew. We did get a few funny looks and laughs throughout the day though, but we stayed in character. It was a great day and we can’t wait till next year to do it all again… but as who?

To finish the term on a high, Crew SMI celebrated Easter with a few games and an Easter basket full of goodies each. We hope you all have a wonderful Easter break and eat lots of chocolate!

See you all in two weeks!

Miss Mitchell