Beautiful Work This Week
Lungs of the World: Beautiful Work from Norton Juniors
In Autumn 2023, Year 5 and 6 across the trust embarked on an expedition with the guiding question: Why should we help our planet survive?
As part of the Expedition, students created their own soft toys based on a chosen animal from the Amazon rainforest – learning about why it is endangered and what we can do to protect the species. The students used ‘The Great Kapok Tree’ as a model text. The pupils wrote their own version of the story through rainforest animals’ eyes for younger children in the form of a book and shared them with Year 2 pupils (along with the soft toys) with the purpose of teaching them about deforestation and its impact.
G30’s first POL at St Mary’s Church, Heworth
In the Autumn term of 2023 students at XP Gateshead studied an expedition called ‘From the ground up’ with the guiding question “What do the communities of the North-East of England owe to the miners?”. They presented their learning from this Expedition on Monday at St Mary’s church – sharing their story and performing the songs they have written to tell the stories of the mining community.
These songs will be recorded in New Year and a CD will be produced!
As part of the presentation, students unveiled a board full of their beautiful work – including narrative accounts, diary entries and artwork relating to the Felling Pit disaster.
The chosen venue for the presentation was also historically significant. Not only is St Mary’s the site of a memorial to the disaster and those who lost their lives, but it is also the final resting place of Thomas Hepburn – the famous miner, Trade Union leader and advocate of better working conditions for miners. The building that XP Gateshead is now based in was once named after him.
Sir Tim Brighouse
We were deeply saddened across the XP Trust to hear about the death of Sir Tim Brighouse on 15th December.
Sir Tim was considered to be one of the most important voices and thinkers in education, and a great champion of state schools.
We were very fortunate to be able to welcome him to XP on a couple of occasions and to hear him speak about our school with warmth and encouragement.
He has left a legacy of equity and advocacy for education for all and we are very proud that he is part of our story.
Top of the Blogs
Rail City Launch @ Doncaster Free Press
Enjoying Christmas Lunch in our festive clothes! @ Norton Infants
Crew Spetch Christmas Fun @ Green Top
Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead
There’s s’more from XP Outdoors @ XP
Primary School Christmas Musical @ Norton Juniors
E28 Crew Malala Roundup @ XP East
We’ve got Vacancies at XP Trust!
Visit xptrust.org/vacancies to find out more and apply to #JoinOurCrew
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!
Merry Christmas
