Sharing our Stories: 09/10/2026
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
C29 and C30’s fieldwork to Cambridge University @ XP
Sensory Play Crew @ Norton Infants
Year 5/6 boys football champions @ Norton Juniors
G31 Farrell Centre Fieldwork @ XP Gateshead
Netball Update: Brilliant effort and a first win! @ XP East
Share your stories with us!
Write to us at comms@xptrust.org – we want to hear about it, write about it and celebrate it!
Celebrating Success in Crew Rock!
Today during our Year 9 Community Meeting, we had the opportunity to gather as a year group, reflect on our progress, and celebrate all the incredible achievements happening across XP.
Here are the key takeaways for Crew Rock from today’s meeting:
Attendance
Consistent attendance is at the heart of our success, and Crew Rock came out on top! We secured the #1 spot for best attendance in the entire year group with an outstanding 98% attendance rate. Fantastic dedication from everyone in our crew—setting the standard for the rest of Year 9 to follow!
Crew Praises
Our hard work and positive contributions are definitely paying off. Crew Rock earned an impressive 328 praises, placing us right near the very top of the year group leaderboard (just a fraction behind first place)!
Moments like this remind us what it truly means to “be crew, not passengers.” Let’s keep showing up for each other, building up those praises, and pushing for another incredible week ahead.
Well done crew Rock!
C29 & C30’s fieldwork to the University of Cambridge 🎓
On Wednesday 7th October, a group of sixteen successful Key Stage Four students were cordially invited to visit the University of Cambridge. Places for this fieldwork were limited, and therefore hotly contested. Students had to make a written application outlining their suitability for the visit, which was excellent preparation for future job and university applications. We very impressed to read quality self reflection within the successful applications.
The day included a guided tour of Homerton College (even to their college pub!), along with an introduction to University session with a student ambassador Q&A session. All students conducted themselves incredibly maturely, and we were especially proud to see the confidence with which they asked clarifying and probing questions of the Cambridge staff and students about what it is like to study there. We were invited along with 3 other schools from Doncaster, Sheffield and Rotherham; during the Q&A session, XP students were the only ones asking some brilliant questions!
During the afternoon, pupils were put to the test by Dr. Paul Elliott – the admissions tutor for Homerton college – in a murder-mystery, ‘escape room’ type session. Dr Elliott has designed, created, and implements over 100 different puzzles to test critical thinking ability! Paul’s puzzles are often used as part of the admissions process, to test logical and lateral thinking – and thinking outside the box! These puzzles required lots of critical thinking, problem solving and quick mental arithmetic to try solve a crime – with students being offered a fully funded, formal visit back to the University early next year if they were able to fully solve the crime. Stay tuned here – they have 2 weeks to do it in!
Fortunately, the challenging curriculum at XP had already prepared our students pretty well for this as they are well used to making lateral connections between subjects. Here at XP, we agree wholeheartedly with the professor’s assertions that “it isn’t enough to just know stuff”. You must be able to apply it to different situations too!
Overall, yesterday was an incredible day which showed the successful applicants exactly where they could be in 3-4 years time. We had so many great conversations to raise aspirations!
Miss Cross & Miss Cocliff x
netball announcement
No Year 10 netball tournament tonight. Practice for Year 7 and 8.
Crew Sinfield – working hard
So far this term crew Sinfield have been working super hard! In community meeting last week Mason was celebrated as photographer of the week, with his brilliant picture and Dawn also received the most praises in the year group…which is amazing!!
Crew have had a total of 227 praises this term for a variety of things with 157 of them being for participation in sessions…well done crew!!
We also had visitors in crew yesterday. Crew were looking at different poets and discussing their pace, rhythm, emotion when the poets presented their poems. All of crew showed brilliant courage in performing a poem together. I know for some members of crew it was out of their comfort zone but we all supported each other and it was a fantastic end result!!
Really impressed with our first term of year 10….keep going crew!
Mrs Burnitt
Netball Update: Brilliant Effort and a First Win!
A huge well done to our Year 8 and 9 netball teams for their recent fixtures against Ridgewood! Both squads played two fantastic games, demonstrating excellent teamwork, communication, and skill on the court.
Our Year 8 team faced a very skillful opposition and, while they didn’t take the win this time, they put in a resilient and highly commendable performance. Meanwhile, a massive congratulations to our Year 9s, who secured their first win of the season fueled by some truly outstanding teamwork!
Adding to the excitement, this was the very first time the teams took to the court in our brand-new netball dresses, and they looked incredibly smart.
Keep an eye out—details for our next match will be coming soon!
D6 Starts at XP Doncaster
Saturday was the first D6 of year and we welcomed 27 students across XP and XP East. They were supported by 5 Alumni coaches . The students were able to choose from a selection of revision materials in Maths and Science or they were able to bring their own extended study.
It was great to see the students showcase my compassion and supporting each other with problems, questions or simply how to use a toaster for pancakes.
The feedback from students was positive with one student voting “it gives me a quiet space to learn as it’s noisy at times at home” and another stating “it’s good to come and collect resources that I can use including past papers and flash cards”.
We look forward to seeing the pupils again on Saturday along with hopefully a few more.
E32 Explorer working as historians
Recently in the expedition Being Human, E32 have been trying to answer the guiding question “what does it mean to be human?”
To do this they have been working as Historians and analysing historical sources in preparation for their history assessment. Here is a sample of the beautiful work happening in this class at the moment
Crew CBO update
Crew CBO are waiting for our official crew name “Sendler” to be approved. The crew have recently visited a care home and made some wonderful connections with the residents who live there. Last week during our community meeting it was announced that our crew had received the most positive comments out of the entire year group, this was fantastic news and shows just how well they have settled down into yr 8 life. Special praise goes to Brandon who received the most individual praise comments.
I have challenged the crew to get back to earning £5 for having 100% attendance for the entire week. We keep nearly doing it, but so far this year after 7 weeks our crew attendance is at 89% and we regularly have several students who miss that 9.15 cut off, please help us to achieve this goal
