Welcome to the XP Trust Annual Stakeholder’s report for the 2022/2023 academic year.

Membership of the Trust

  • Dr Richard Pountney (Chair)
  • Steven Mundin
  • Doncaster Rotary,  represented by Adrian Hattrell*
  • Michael Wilkinson
  • Sally Lockey
  • Liam Scully

Strategy – Governance, Communications & Technology

“Are we doing the right things in the right way with the right tools…?”

Governance

Membership of the Board of Directors

  • S Bielby (Chair)
  • R Pountney
  • R Scott
  • M Dewsnap
  • N Skelton
  • A Buxton
  • A Meade
  • T Blair
  • A Best

Membership of the Executive Team

  • Chief Executive Officer
    • Gwyn ap Harri
    • Operations, Performance, Wellbeing & Strategy
  • Chief Academic Officer
    • Andy Sprakes
    • Curriculum & Professional Learning

Headteachers / Principals

  • XP & XP East – Claira Salter
  • XP Gateshead – Julie Mosley
  • Green Top – Kelly Overson
  • Norton Infants & Norton Juniors – Andrea Tunney
  • Plover – Jayne Ogle
  • Carcroft Primary School – Kirsty Atherton

Local Governing Committees were held for all schools with delegated powers to engage with local policy, issues and key performance indicators from the Trust. All our Primary schools agreed to move from LGCs to Local Community Groups for 2023/24 to create more school level activism and engagement. Our Secondary schools decided to keep the LGCs for the following academic year.

The Trust had a weekly calendar of events with networks and crews happening mainly on Wednesday and Friday afternoons.

Our Clerk to the Board, Julie Morrell, coordinates all of these activities and ensures legal compliance.

In March 2023, the CEO proposed a new leadership structure, based on empowering existing staff within our schools, reducing Trust overheads significantly. Over the summer term, the Trust, including Directors bought into this process and introduced the following to governance:

  • Heads of school to be named Headteachers or Principals (their choice)
  • All Heads to be invited optionally to all governance meetings
  • Terms of Reference (ToRs) were reviewed to ensure all executive functions and legal compliance was covered.
  • A ‘live’ document called the “Director’s School Performance Narrative” to be produced by Heads, bubbling up the information needed to ensure Directors can address the ToRs of each committee.
  • Directors could call ‘ARCS’ (Action Research Case Studies) to deep dive an executive function or ToR, creating a working group that reported back to Directors where more, or clarity of, information was needed.
  • Heads reviewed the Trust engagement calendar and rationalised the networks and crews to work on priorities driven by themselves.
  • In particular, the SEND and DSL networks reviewed their purpose, proposing ‘workshop’ style network meetings alongside focused peer reviews, coordinated by a practising SENDCo and DSL, Louise Ponsenby who becomes our ‘Advanced’ ADSL and ASENDCo.

The ToRs and content of the Performance Narratives were a focus of governance in the summer term, in preparation of the new academic year.

Communications

The well established, centralised Trust Comms team, (based in XPE, but regularly visiting all schools in the Trust) coordinates communication both internally and externally. This can mean anything from banners & blogs to videos and media releases.

They work with and support the development of projects with external partners, such as Edge and the Wood Foundation, helping to deliver and capture the CPD delivered. They create films, books and events to showcase expedition products and curate work across all the Trust schools.  They also play a key role in the sharing of the stories of XP locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.

The professional skill sets of the team range from journalism, branding & design, photography & film making, social media, curation, copywriting,crisis communications and fundraising. 

Technology

This year we have worked on an equitable distribution of technology across our Trust. In primary schools we have a bank of 30 iPads for each phase. In secondary schools we have an iPad available for every student via our parental contribution scheme. 

All teaching staff and crew leaders have Macbook Air computers, ensuring that we have the best technology available to complete professional tasks efficiently. 

Working closely with our partners at realsmart, we have developed ‘SMAPS’ (realsmart learning maps). This technology allows for curriculum planning, delivery, assessment, portfolios and standards mapping, curating a digital and repurposable curriculum.

Our school operating system (SOS) continues to develop, ensuring we focus on our Narrative for Success when identifying issues with pupils.

All other functionality is upgrading over a manageable timeline, including telephony, internet connectivity, wifi and printing.

Activism 

“How are we actively contributing to building a better world?” 

All of our schools continue to develop and deliver cross-subject, academically-rigorous Learning Expeditions as the cornerstone of curriculum delivery and implement Crew, our pastoral system.

Our engagement with our local communities continues to evolve and grow, as does our connection and collaborative work with the wider world. 

Our charitable work is usually connected to expeditions and this year was no exception, with monies raised for local organisations – including £1,000 for St John’s Hospice – and life enhancing products gifted to the community, such as terrariums for residents delivered to care homes. 

We have welcomed hundreds of delegates from around the globe, delivering CPD and sharing our design principles. Visitors from India, Hong Kong, America, Japan, Australia, Spain, Israel, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Denmark and many other places have joined our schools across the Trust. 

The partnerships and collaborative work developed through this have been hugely positive and palpable. 

We hosted the Summer Deeper Learning days, collaboratively with the Edge Foundation in June, welcoming individuals and organisations from around the UK and the USA, as part of the ongoing work we engage in and support to directly influence, debate, and codify the possibilities for the future of education. 

To develop the research and activism of our expeditions we are also working more closely than ever before with partners, including Doncaster City Council, The Edge Foundation, The Frenchgate Centre and local and regional cultural organisations.

We are now – at XP School – the official home of the Doncaster Youth Jazz Association, who meet and practice here every week. Internationally renowned, We are looking forward to working with their orchestras and ensembles in the future.

Some expedition highlights from 2022/23 were:

Plover Pantry – Better World Day 2023

The community at Plover have established and raised money to sustain a food bank for their local community. ‘Plover Pantry’ has been supported by student activism and Expeditions over the academic year.

What a wonderful world  – XP Doncaster (Terrariums delivered to Oaklands and other care homes.)

Students created their own self-sustaining terrariums as a product of their Expedition with the guiding question ‘what is our relationship with the natural world?’. They then gifted these terrariums to care homes and others in the local community.

Do Your Bit: XP Gateshead POL at King’s Hall, Newcastle University

Year 7 at XP Gateshead hosted a Presentation of Learning as part of their Expedition ‘Do Your Bit’ with the guiding question “Why is it important that we honour all those that made sacrifices in WWI?”

From The Ground Up: XP Gateshead

Answering the guiding question “What does the communities of North East England owe to the miners?”, students at XP Gateshead created this beautiful book that was launched at Seven Stories in Newcastle.

Fight The Power: C28’s Production of Macbeth

Year 8 at XP Doncaster created and performed a version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth which explored where the power lies throughout the story.

XPCC23: Our Annual Climate Conference

Students at XP Doncaster hosted the second annual XP Climate Conference, asking ‘If not now, when? If not us, who?’. Special guests and interviewees included local businesses and Shadow Secretary of State of Climate Change and Net Zero, Ed Miliband.

A Christmas Carol: Year 11 Study Guide

Year 11 students at XP created a beautiful study guide to support their GCSE exam on Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’. They worked with experts such as Lucinda Hawskley and the Dickens Museum in London to create this incredible revision guide.

From The Ground Up: C29

Year 7 at XP Doncaster’s first ever XP product was a film made up of a selection of history, science and other informative segments – pieced together to tell stories and answer the guiding question ‘What does Doncaster owe to mining?’

Ready Steady Grow – KS1 across the Trust

Students across XP Trust primaries answered the guiding question ‘How can I be the healthiest version of me?’ with this wonderful collection of recipes, information and more!

At the Coalface – Plover UKS2

Year 5 students at Plover created an anthology of poems, sharing miners stories and experiences – all to raise money for Markham Main Miners Memorial.

North East South West – KS1 across the Trust: Hessian Tote bags designed and created by the students to help promote sustainability and climate change awareness across our borough. These are now also part of our delegate packs – spreading the message beyond our borders.

Dear World Culmination – 0ver £1,000 raised for the WildLife Foundation

Last year’s Year 3/4 charity single product ‘Dear World’ raised money to support the WildLife Foundation – students were proud to share this final amount with them in 2022.

Are We Really Free To Choose: Book, Prints and Exhibition at D31 Gallery

Year 11 were proud to launch their Year 10 Product ‘Are We Really Free To Choose?’ at the D31 Gallery in Doncaster. The launch of this beautiful book, full of student artwork and poems was attended by the public and featured curated artwork from the product.

Why should we care for Bear? – EYFS across the Trust

The final product of this Expedition saw the children baking biscuits in the shape of bears, used book and toy sales to sell in our settings. 

The money raised from this product bought every child a teddy bear to take home which they personalised in school – some were also gifted to the local community.

How does movement affect our world? UKS2 at XP Trust

Students in Year 5/6 created and curated their learning in the form of lectures and science fairs, answering the guiding question ‘How does movement affect our world?’

What Lies Within the Castle Walls – KS1 across the Trust

For the final product of this Expedition, each school from across the Trust produced a model of a different type of castle drawing upon skills they had developed.

Lest We Forget – LKS2: Touching and powerful engagement of all our Primary schools with the people in our communities across Doncaster who experienced WWII

Transport Day at Plover EYFS

We’re on the move – an Expedition with the guiding question ‘Would you travel by wheels, wings or other things?’ culminated in this awesome Transport Day, which saw all kinds of vehicles congregate at Plover for the children to explore and experience.

Expedition Focus: A Christmas Carol

Creating a Year 11 exhibition in their GCSE year, with a text that formed part of their work In English Literature ended up being a truly positive affirmation of the power of expeditions – even in an exam year.

The  initial idea at the heart of it was that a peer to peer study guide would be created for ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens. This guide could then be used by any students anywhere in the world in digital format, or as a published book.

Actors playing Scrooge that year – at the Old Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company were approached to comment on their experience of playing the character, all the illustrations were created by students and online interviews /Q & A’s were held with Lucinda Hawksley and the curator and education director of Dickens House Museum in London.

Copies of the book were delivered by students to the museum team, on a visit to Dickens House and the book is now accessible online on the Dickens House website, to support their school visits.

Beautiful Curation: highlights from across our Trust…

Our Experts

Our experts in school and online this year have ranged from politicians to plant growers!

The Royal Ballet were in residence for four days as they delivered their ‘Chance to Dance’ rehearsals, working with students at Primary Schools from across Doncaster – including our own Norton Junior School, and then two performances; attended by over 400 people. A perfect opportunity for us to showcase our school. (They are returning next year).

Ed Miliband, Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero was a contributor to our Climate Change conference once again. South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard came to XP Doncaster for an Ambassador tour and to chat with pupils about how regional politics works. 

Lucinda Hawksley, author, historian and the great-great-great granddaughter of Charles Dickens, was interviewed by XPD Year 11 students for their GCSE study guide for a Christmas Carol – alongside the curator of Dickens House in London. 

From the Durham Miners’ gala, to individual testimony and reflections, XPG students immersed themselves in the real life stories that shaped their hugely successful book – ‘From the Ground Up’ – which sold out. A second print run had to be published.

Frickley Colliery Band were part of the ‘From the Ground Up’ expedition at XPD, bringing the soundtrack of our local pit villages to life. 

A local gardening expert joined us at XPD for a day to guide 100 students through the creation of a terrarium, self contained miniature jar garden. These were delivered to care homes in our community by our students, who were able to see first hand the impact they had on the residents.

All the Primary Schools across the Trust created a WWII book ‘Lest we Forget’ – asking the question ‘How does war change lives?’ Again the call on local experts was hugely important, including those who had experienced the conflict first hand. 

Experts in the story of an evacuee, taking part in Remembrance Day and interviewing those who witnessed world events were all part of the research. Field Study visits to Eden Camp and a reenactment of an evacuee’s journey were also crucial. 

Experts from the NHS, The Conversation Club (who support asylum seekers and refugees) artists, musicians, food banks, local politicians and our Comms Crew have also worked with our students sharing their own specialisms. 

Our second Climate Change conference brought together our students, parents, community, green businesses, experts from the NHS and Ed Miliband, the Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero,  to debate, make pledges and share the news and ideas about the challenges our planet and people are currently facing. 

Visitors and Delegates

We have continued to develop our connections and collaborations with delegates from all over the world. 

On one day alone we welcomed 70 visitors from Hong Kong. We have delivered CPD  to educators from India, Israel, Australia, America, Spain, Denmark and across the UK.

Our partnership with the Edge Foundation has grown with delivery of CPD to their referred candidates and our contribution and engagement in the Deeper Learning coalition. 

A partnership established in 2018, we also still work regularly with The Wood Foundation and the more than a dozen schools in Aberdeen and its environs that they support. This engagement has been wholly positive and for the first time allowed us to welcome students from the Northfield school, Aberdeen as part of a visit. 

Our protocols and processes have developed to accommodate the ongoing progress and needs of the schools who visit us. Some have engaged with us many times now, returning to continue their CPD and bringing new colleagues with them. 

In June we hosted, with our partners Edge, a two day Deeper Learning coalition conference. It was attended by over 60 delegates at XPE and then on the second day at Doncaster Racecourse. Delegates from organisations such as Whole Education, Big Education, School 21, Schools of Tomorrow and Worcester University joined us.

Some of our Year 11 students were invited to the Racecourse to share their experience of five years at XP and their immediate plans for further study. This was very well received and the students remained as guests for the rest of the day.

Our schools’ relationship with Miri Piri Academy in India continued with ASP and GAP being invited to travel to the school and deliver a CPD module entitled ‘What is Crew?’

As Andy said: “Working with Miri Piri showed the power of Crew can transfer across cultures.”

Last but not least, our Spanish visitors from Madrid have kept in contact with us and are keen to establish closer links – including exchange visits and a wish to contribute to our climate change conference.

Leadership and Performance 

“How are we moving towards where we want to be …?”

Since March 2023, as detailed above in the governance section, leadership across the Trust has transformed into an empowering model, creating leadership growth within our existing schools.

The onerous Annual School Reviews were replaced with live and dynamic Performance Narratives with a focus on increasing adult agency rather than the appearance to other stakeholders, creating a tangible thread from child to director.

Heads have taken leadership on peer and external focused reviews, helping them improve in a targeted and strategic method.

As a result, XP School achieved a strong Ofsted report and a number of Primary schools improved their academic performance.

Academic performance at XP and XP East is not where we want or expect it to be, and we have partnered with Meridian Trust as an improvement partner to address this, aided by funding from the DfE. Our Primary schools with the most need will also benefit from this partnership.

XP University continues to develop under the leadership of our CAO, offering programmes of professional development to meet the needs of our schools.

Equity

“What do we need to be the best versions of ourselves…?”

XP Trust continues to be one of the most inclusive Trusts in each locale, especially in light of the pressures from the wider system.

To enable this, Heads, SENDCos and DSLs have refocused on our legal powers and responsibilities that lie with mainstream schools. We continue to strive to meet the needs of all our students, but where we cannot, we ensure the responsibility for this is sought and support is in place for all our students.

While we reserve the right to exclude pupils, by working collaboratively and collegiately with our local partners, we have not permanently excluded any pupils again this year.

Safeguarding is strengthened by our empowered DSL network and crew, shifting from online training to face to face, scenario based learning. Improved access control to our buildings tightens our processes further.

Attendance continues to be a focus of improvement, in light of lockdown, and while attendance is generally inline with national and local figures, it is below attendance prior to lockdown, as it is for many schools.

Safeguarding, attendance and behaviour policies and protocols were reviewed across the Trust, ready for the new academic year.

Operations – Finance & Legal, Facilities and Risk Management

“Do we have everything we need to survive, sustain and thrive..?”

This was a year of uncertainty, with teacher strikes over unfunded pay offers, resolved only in the last week of the year. Directors and CEO agreed to use surplus to fund the bumpy road we were on. Unfortunately, the government did not fund the significant pay award to support staff and this affects our sustainability going into the new academic year. As such, a staffing restructure will have to take place as current staffing levels are not sustainable.

Advanced HR, an experienced and local organisation, were appointed as our independent HR advisors.

Despite this, schools continue to be maintained effectively, with every step being a step towards a more sustainable future. Where we repair and improve, it is with a mind to reduce energy costs.

To reduce costs and improve quality, we have planned to bring all cleaning staff in house for the next academic year.

Risk management and Health and Safety has been strengthened both in house through Michelle Jones achieving her NEBOSH qualification, and appointing our independent advisors, Risk Fluent.

Nick Skelton, our long standing Finance Director has handed over to Craig Jones, and we thank him for his support and challenge and wish him the best for the future.