First Week Back – Reflections September 2025

Tuesday 26 August – XP Doncaster

At XP Trust our first week back at school always focuses exclusively on Crew. We use this time to remind ourselves of the importance of Crew and reinforce both our Habits of Work and Learning and also our Character Traits through engaging in shared experiences and challenges. 

As Kurt Hahn said, ‘We are Crew not passengers, strengthened by acts of consequential service to others.’ Therefore, the first week back embeds our culture of character growth, service to others and how, through challenging  and supporting each other, we can become our best selves.

The journey begins…

I arrived at XP Doncaster at 7.30am to the glorious sight of our new Year 7 students with their parents gathering together as Crew for the first time. Every year as new students join our secondary schools, at both Doncaster and Gateshead, on their first day of school they board coaches to visit the Outward Bound Centre in Ullswater to explore the Guiding Question with their new Crew Leaders, ‘What Does it Mean to Be Crew.’ Working alongside OB instructors, Crew Leaders help students to embed our cultural norms and high expectations. It is transformational and becomes the foundation for realising our common mission. All students summit a mountain together as a Crew and this becomes the cornerstone for our work and growth for the next five years at school.   

Wednesday 27 August – Visits to Carcroft, Norton and Green Top

Today, I visited three of our primary schools starting with Carcroft. Whether it was Year 2 filling buckets of kindness, or Year 3 creating a time capsule so that they could reflect on their progress and growth, or Year 6 collaborating to problem solve, there were clear examples of Crew fundamentals in every learning space. Character traits like ‘craftsmanship and quality’ and habits of work and learning such as ‘working hard’ were at the forefront of activities making them purposeful and loaded with high expectations for future growth and academic achievement.

What do our Habits of Work and Learning look like, sound like and feel like?

I watched Taylor in Year 6 work particularly well as his group built a bridge together and, seizing an opportunity in the corridor, I congratulated him on his effort. He quickly put me right as he stated, with absolute conviction, ‘But it only worked because we worked together…team is Crew.’

The next stop was Norton Campus where I witnessed beautiful work and warmth from EYFS to Year 6. In Year 1 there was a clear focus on kindness and pupils were discussing what they could actively do to be kind to each other, including challenging one another to be kind when required. There was a specific link here between our HoWL of ‘Be Kind’ and our Character Trait of ‘Respect.’ Through activities like this, that are often difficult and challenging, our young people are able to translate often abstract and difficult concepts into concrete examples that they can understand and articulate both in their words and through their actions. 

As an aside, Presley in Year 1 was confident to talk to me and share his not inconsiderable knowledge of apes, his favourites are gorillas and after explaining their habitat and behaviours he proceeded to give a pretty mean impression of one, beating chest and all!!

In the meantime, Year 5 engaged with the Guiding Question, ‘How Can Our Crew Be Strengthened by Acts of Service to Others?’ and had created beautiful gifts that they had presented to the elderly at a Care Home in the local community. 

The blog post from the school website has beautiful images that show the impact of this work https://nortonjuniorschool.org/acts-of-service-to-others/.

Whilst walking around the school, I noticed that Year 6 were busy improving their outdoor environment. Stewardship and service underpins our culture at XP and the pupils I saw embodied service to others by their hard work and thoughtfulness. 

I ended the day by visiting Green Top Primary and witnessed a comprehensive atmosphere of positivity and commitment to Crew. For example, Year 4 was rebooting Character Traits by focussing on and answering the Guiding Question, ‘What do our Character Traits look like beyond  the school gates?’ They were engaging with activities that honoured and celebrated the local community; designing beautiful postcards that they then gifted to people in the community who are often unsung heroes like leisure centre workers, local businesses and the emergency services.

The outside areas are stunning at Green Top, designed and purposed around building character and it was fantastic to see pupils from every phase engaging in orienteering, camping and Crew building activities. In addition to pupils being Crew, it was also a pleasure to see the new library and the refurbished EYFS learning space. These environments will no doubt enhance the strong culture that already exists in the school. This was most beautifully expressed through an external display, visible as you arrive at Green Top, which was part of a whole school project where pupils were asked to create a ‘doodle’ in the style of the writer and author Tom Gates that best represented Green Top to them ,personally. It was interesting to note that pupils picked examples of character traits, Crew, the outdoors, fieldwork but most of all examples of kindness. Beautiful work by Michelle Clay, Kerry Jones and Nathan Pickles who co-ordinated and facilitated this project!

Thursday 28 August Visits to XP Doncaster and Plover

I started the day by spending time with Year 11 students who were clearly focussed on thinking deeply about how they could utilise Crew to help themselves and each other achieve their best in their upcoming GCSE examinations. Alumni students had been invited to the school to share their experiences of Year 11 and the importance of Crew to them building courage as well as giving and accepting support. 

One of our alumni students said, ‘I never knew how much I needed Crew until I needed Crew.’ A beautiful summation of the power of Crew. Students then worked in Crews going through different revision techniques and subsequently debriefing their efficacy making pledges about studying for the coming year. The atmosphere in these sessions bodes well for the future as all students were engaged and present – the recipe for success!!

I also saw our alumni students in a different context talking to Year 10 about careers and future choices, all of them outlined the value of their time at XP and how through building their character in presenting and articulating their learning to adults in Presentations of Learning, Student Conferences, Final Word and engaging with visitors from around the world they had been at an advantage and stood out from others.

On Thursday afternoon I was invited to Plover to be part of their launch of Character Traits that had been the primary focus of their First Week Back. The whole week had been dedicated to the Character Trait of compassion and was culminating in a ‘Colour Run’ to raise money for the schools chosen charity, the RSPCA. Before the event (and as the heaven’s opened) I had the privilege of presenting, which is a great personal honour, the ‘Andy Sprakes Award for Compassion’, to two young people who have done extraordinary things. 

Last term, Olivia cut off her beautiful long hair to raise money for the Little Princess Trust and had collected donations of over a thousand pounds for the charity. Similarly, Harris, through a series of challenging sponsored walks, had raised close to a thousand pounds for children’s cancer charities as well.

After the presentation, pupils and staff enjoyed the colour run – and so did I. Plover is a school that has a strong culture of kindness and everyone connected with the school should take great pride in this.

Friday 29 August XP Gateshead in Ullswater

I ended the week with a trip up to Ullswater to join Year 7 students from XP Gateshead on their final day. It was heartwarming to join the final debrief with Crew Leaders and Outward Bound Instructors and listen to staff talk about their highlight of the week.

Staff talked about:

• scaling waterfalls and realising how Crew develops confidence and collaboration; 
• how a student who had been anxious about confined spaces had, with the help of his Crew, faced this and shown the courage to walk through a tunnel not once but twice;
• that even when Crew were exhausted, carrying very heavy bags, they got through by pushing and encouraging each other as a Crew
• the pride that all Crews managed to summit a mountain and that they did this together as Crew.

Next up were the individual Crew presentations that answered the Guiding Question, ‘What Does it Mean to be Crew?’ This took place outside above the lake and the ‘mountain’ that students had courageously climbed. The presentations were powerful and moving. Students, after four days, were speaking the language of Crew and providing visceral examples of being Crew. 

The presentations were expertly debriefed by Martin Said who was inspirational in connecting the experiences shared by students in this first week and how they will be realised back at school in the months and years ahead.

Our Core Practice concerning First Week Back states:

 ‘At XP Trust, every year, our first week back is always used to either introduce or reaffirm the importance of Crew. Through shared rituals, protocols and practices, strong bonds are created, or re-established, that are the foundation of our culture.’

What I saw last week was a realisation of the above and I am proud of our young people and staff for starting with such purpose and passion. 

Here’s to the new school year!!!

Andy Sprakes