We have set off on our journey back to Doncaster following a fantastic week of Crew Building at Outward Bound!
Our current estimated time of arrival back at XP is 6pm. We will continue to post updates as our journey progresses.
We look forward to seeing you soon!
After a well-rested summer holiday, Crew Rowling arrived back at school to relearn the meaning of crew. During this first week, Crew completed many tasks, challenges and activities which brought our crew closer together.
On the first day back, to build back up the bonds of crew, we went on a hike in Langsett and the Peak District. While this walk may have been difficult to some, with crew by their side, we were able to complete this hike in record time. Some (well, maybe just Harvey) had fun!
The following day, time was spent together in our new Crew room, doing activities to build up our sense of crew. During this time, we played a (improved) version of Mafia, created and led by Lily. We also tackled the ‘30 Ways to XP’, where Crew created postcards full of inspirational quotes and advice and Ben and Oliver even cleaned the Crew room 🙂 We also thought about revision techniques and looked at important dates for year 11.
On Thursday, Crew tackled games of rounders and other fun games organised by Mrs Nixon. Crew’s determination saw them fiercely winning rounders, as well as Extreme rock paper scissors! After Crew fought through ‘the floor is lava’, Shawn and Layton’s epic chopstick skills meant we smashed the next game, where we had to get as many pieces of dry pasta into a cup. After fighting through a few more activities, Crew felt more competitive then ever!
We look forward to looking back at our week as a whole tomorrow and sharing our thoughts and experiences with the rest of C26.
Crew Rowling
Some highlights from the second day of E29 Crew Week.
We spent yesterday resetting crew, drilling down into our character traits and re-establishing our norms. We were tasked this morning with learning a dance routine, with the added challenge of adding some of our own choreographed moves!
We continued to see the benefits of crew as we pushed ourselves out of our comfort zone, showing compassion by encouraging our peers and demonstrating craftsmanship and quality by taking the time to perfect our footwork and ensure our timings were on point!
Capturing the sheer joy on their faces confirms exactly the reasons why we take this time to build and strengthen our relationships – we are crew.
E29 Crew Leaders.
Our new Year 7s (C30) have arrived safely in Aberdovey for their Outward Bound experience – we arrived at around 1pm and have been getting stuck into activities already!
For further updates on our adventures, please follow #C30Aberdovey on Twitter – we’ll be posting there for the rest of the trip!
#WeAreCrew
Welcome back to E28. Students spent the morning resetting Crew by playing a round of The Floor is Lava! Students had to work in Crews to move their whole crew across the sports hall without touching the floor or the obstacles on it, all the while keeping a tennis ball in a bit of drain pipe. Students developed their teamwork and communication skills, all while having a great time!
The E28 Team
Welcome back!
It has been a gorgeous morning welcoming our C30 cohort and watching almost all of them set off on their adventure to Wales. We have a jam packed first week back planned with lots of crew building activities, fieldwork, acts of service and a PoL planned. Further details of specific year group information can be found on the blog by searching for their cohort in the search bar.
A few reminders as we come back to school
Regular Kit and dress code
Students will need a regular kit on PE days and regular dress code for school. These can be found on the school website. (Linked above)
A reminder that for day to day kit we expect students a school bag with the following:
All of these items should be in a typical school bag or rucksack please.
C30 & new starters ParentPay system
Please ensure you sign up for ParentPay to pay for device orders, school lunches, music lessons and any other chargeable activities. We are a cashless school and therefore all payments are made through ParentPay.
If you do have any issues or do not receive an email or letter with the sign up details by the end of this week please contact your child’s crew leader.
Moving forwards all fieldwork and offsite visits where a coach is needed will have a voluntary contribution added to parent pay, this is to help towards the ever increasing coach costs whilst allowing us to continue to offer the fieldwork and immersive experiences we currently offer.
Keep up to date
A reminder that our 2 main forms of communication around upcoming events and any reminders are via the school website and email. Please ensure you keep us informed if your email address changes. You can do this by emailing the office
| XP Office | XP East Office |
| [email protected] | [email protected] |
Subscribe to our website!You can subscribe to our websites by adding your details on the front page. The subscription box is found on the right hand side towards the bottom of the page and looks like the image above. All C30 parents will be subscribed unless they request to be opted out.
New Expeditions
Our expedition newsletters will be out in a couple of weeks with updated information about the expedition, fieldwork plans, expedition teacher contacts and how to access extended study. Next week we begin our expeditions with immersion activities, visits and experts in school. We are looking forwards to the new expeditions and reminding our students that at XP our work is three dimensional – academic success, developing character, and allowing all students to respectfully express who they are through their beautiful work:
Academic success + character growth + beautiful work = The best version of you!
Please keep your eye on the blog for highlights of our first week back.
Mrs Claira Salter
Principal
We are so proud of the overall results that our students in the E25 at XP East achieved in our GCSE results.
Highlights include over 60% of our students achieved 9-4 in English Language, English Literature, Maths, Double Award Science and History. We continue to see the impact of our expeditionary learning curriculum on combined higher outcomes in English Literature and History with a third of our students achieving a 6 or above across the disciplines. We also celebrate some very strong results in some of the chosen subjects with particular praise to those students who achieved strong grades in BTEC Sport and GCSE Geography.
We must remember that E25 was significantly affected by numerous year group closures during the pandemic, and it is within this context that their achievements should be particularly celebrated.
However, as we continuously say at XP, academic achievement is only one measure of success.
Through our cross-subject expeditionary curriculum, students have enjoyed an engaging, creative and rich learning experience. This has allowed our students to engage with the world and create beautiful work that really matters and that has made a difference.
For example, all of our students in E25:
All of our students in E25 have worked purposefully at university and with experts in school including:
Through our learning expeditions our students not only gain the knowledge to pass exams, not just the cultural capital of knowing the world around them, but also the powerful knowledge to positively change the world they will adopt when they leave school – those of you who attended the Climate Conference can testify to this!
Our work for students at XP is three dimensional – academic success, developing character, and allowing them all to respectfully express who they are through their beautiful work:
Academic success + character growth + beautiful work = The best version of you!
We remind our students throughout their journey with us that, as adults, we are judged by who we are and the quality of our work. This is why we focus relentlessly on character growth and beautiful work as well as qualifications at XP Trust schools. Qualifications will get you through the door. Who you are and the quality of your work will get you the job, the place at university, the start up business loan.
Therefore, we continue to be proud of our staff, students, parents and the wider community that has supported our students to be the best version of themselves. We have achieved all this because of our differences.
We welcome all of our former students to join our XP Alumni to keep in touch with our schools and each other, sharing your experiences beyond our school.
XP Alumni –
Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/company/xp-alumni/?viewAsMember=true
Facebook https://www.linkedin.com/company/xp-alumni/?viewAsMember=true
We look forward to continuing this work with our current and future students and remind our E25 students that they will alway be part of Crew XP!
Mrs Salter
Principal
G29 Students at XP Gateshead launched their book ‘From The Ground Up’ which answered the guiding question ‘What do the communities of North East England owe to the miners?’ at Seven Stories in Newcastle!
They also celebrated all of their beautiful work from their first year at XPG – you can view a collection of it here!
Year 5 and 6 Students at Plover School launched their awesome new Poetry Anthology ‘At the Coalface’ at a Mining Gala they hosted for their local community – beautiful work!
Over 5 years ago Miss Stewart and Miss O’Neill started their journey with us at Green Top as apprentices. They then progressed and secured Learning Coach positions whilst studying towards a degree in Education. Over the last two years they have both completed their degree and qualified as teachers! We are so unbelievably proud of them both and grateful that we were a part of their special journey. Sadly we didn’t have any teaching positions for them at Green Top so they have secured teaching positions in other schools. Again, we are so, so proud of them! We wish them both lots of luck in their new schools and know that they will be wonderful teachers inspiring many children in the future!
This year we say goodbye to Sue, one of our school cooks. She has been looking after us all for 30 years and we will be sad to see her leave!
We presented Sue with flowers and gifts today and celebrated her time at Green Top!
Good Luck Sue!
Year 9 students from XP and XP East gifted 30 terrariums they created for the residents of the Oaklands Care home this week. The home on Bawtry Road was delighted to accept the miniature indoor gardens, which the residents will look after and keep.
Darren the Oaklands manager is pictured here accepting the terrariums – all of which are low maintenance and were happily handed over to residents.
Ed Miliband shared an update from his Facebook page about XPCC23, praising students for their awesome work and involvement in the conference.
Pizza Party! @ Carcroft School
Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead
Red Carpet Celebrations @ Plover
Products at the Picnic @ Green Top
Ahoy there, Shakespeare? @ Norton Juniors
Year 10’s Final Year Group Community Meeting @ XP
Jeff’s Law – exciting Expeditions on the horizon! @ XP Comms
Thank you for joining us for another great year of beautiful work and stories from across the XP Trust – we hope you have a wonderful summer!
We’ll see you in September!
XP Comms Crew
G29 Students at XP Gateshead launched their book ‘From The Ground Up’ which answered the guiding question ‘What do the communities of North East England owe to the miners?’ at Seven Stories in Newcastle!
They also celebrated all of their beautiful work from their first year at XPG – you can view a collection of it here!
Year 5 and 6 Students at Plover School launched their awesome new Poetry Anthology ‘At the Coalface’ at a Mining Gala they hosted for their local community – beautiful work!
Over 5 years ago Miss Stewart and Miss O’Neill started their journey with us at Green Top as apprentices. They then progressed and secured Learning Coach positions whilst studying towards a degree in Education. Over the last two years they have both completed their degree and qualified as teachers! We are so unbelievably proud of them both and grateful that we were a part of their special journey. Sadly we didn’t have any teaching positions for them at Green Top so they have secured teaching positions in other schools. Again, we are so, so proud of them! We wish them both lots of luck in their new schools and know that they will be wonderful teachers inspiring many children in the future!
This year we say goodbye to Sue, one of our school cooks. She has been looking after us all for 30 years and we will be sad to see her leave!
We presented Sue with flowers and gifts today and celebrated her time at Green Top!
Good Luck Sue!
Year 9 students from XP and XP East gifted 30 terrariums they created for the residents of the Oaklands Care home this week. The home on Bawtry Road was delighted to accept the miniature indoor gardens, which the residents will look after and keep.
Darren the Oaklands manager is pictured here accepting the terrariums – all of which are low maintenance and were happily handed over to residents.
Ed Miliband shared an update from his Facebook page about XPCC23, praising students for their awesome work and involvement in the conference.
Pizza Party! @ Carcroft School
Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead
Red Carpet Celebrations @ Plover
Products at the Picnic @ Green Top
Ahoy there, Shakespeare? @ Norton Juniors
Year 10’s Final Year Group Community Meeting @ XP
Jeff’s Law – exciting Expeditions on the horizon! @ XP Comms
Thank you for joining us for another great year of beautiful work and stories from across the XP Trust – we hope you have a wonderful summer!
We’ll see you in September!
XP Comms Crew
🚨Update – Please can all Y9 parents complete the consent forms below by 25th August (if you haven’t already done so)- this is to allow your child to attend the Flamborough Head Hike🚨
We are excited to share our first week back plans with you for the new academic year 2023/2024.
Key documents here:
New Y9/C28 parents only!
For the most part of the week, students will be based at their respective school (Tuesday, Thursday, Friday). Start and finish times will remain the same 8:30 – 15:15
If you have are experiencing any difficulties in accessing this information or have any questions please contact your child’s crew leader, who will be more than happy to support you with this.
We hope you have a wonderful Summer and look forward to seeing you in the new academic year!
