To ensure a balanced intake of students across all ability levels, all applicants to an XP secondary school must sit a Fair Banding Assessment.
This multiple-choice test focuses on non-verbal reasoning and helps us place students into one of five ability bands. There is no pass or fail, and results are used solely to support a broad and representative admissions process.
Completing the assessment is a key part of the application and must be done to be considered for a place.
Please ensure your child is registered by 31st October 2025 and prepared to attend the assessment on 22nd November 2025.
At XP, we believe education should help young people discover who they are, what they stand for, and how they can make a difference. The arts are at the heart of this.
Through music, dance, drama, and visual art, our students learn to collaborate, express themselves, and craft work of real depth and beauty. These aren’t “extras” to the curriculum – they are essential experiences that develop the character traits we value above anything else: courage, craftsmanship, respect, and compassion.
Last Friday, we celebrated these values at our second XP Festival of Arts & Culture – a day filled with music, dance, and art from across all the schools in our Trust. Every primary school showcased their dancing skills in collaboration with Phoenix Dance Company, alongside cheerleaders and singers from across the Trust.
The afternoon culminated in a show-stopping parade led by the New York Brass Band, bringing everyone together for an unforgettable rendition of Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration”. The evening carried the energy forward with live music from XP Doncaster and XP Gateshead students, alongside local bands and professional artists.
Our students were phenomenal – both on stage and in the audience – showing once again the power of Crew in action.
A huge thank you goes to the XP Doncaster and Plover staff who stewarded and supported the event. It was a powerful example of what’s possible when we create spaces for young people to thrive.
What a year it has been for Crew Rosa Parkes. We have had some amazing POL’s for lots of great expeditions. Students have overcome their fears of speaking in front of large audiences to leading sessions to their parents/ guardians. Winning sports day has to be another highlight of the year, 2nd year as winners. I could not be prouder of crew, they worked together showing all the XP character traits and HOWL’s. Next year we stepping things up with Duke of Edinburgh and Passage, exciting times.
Miss Mountains class were proud to display their climate work looking at climate change initiatives across different countries.
Below is a description written by the students about the work they produced.
Fasia and Rihanna:
In our poster, we have two paragraphs talking about how Iceland and India want to improve their climate change. We studied the CO2 emissions between Iceland and India and you can see the data on the top of our poster. We also have pictures on the bottom of our poster looking over both countries and how different they are.
Isobelle and Willow:
Willow and I have been working hard to create a poster with factual, statistical data. Both France and Greece are dedicated to combatting climate change as they are both aiming for climate neutrality by 2050. France focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, adapting to the impacts of climate change and transitioning to renewable energy.
Greece is also working towards reducing its gas emission with a specific target of reducing gas emission by 54% by 2030. However despite the effort, public concern about climate change varies between the two countries. In 2023, 52% of French people considered climate change a serious problem compared to 44% of Greeks.
Macie and Freya G:
We looked at Brazil and the average mean surface temperature between 1991-2020.Then we plotted it onto graphs to show the historical warming. We also looked at Brazil Plans to tackle climate change.
Dan, Billy and Terrance:
This is our climate presentation, we did the Netherlands. We tried really hard and think you will enjoy it very much. Here is our work. We looked at renewable energy and we looked at the mean average monthly rainfall, we also looked at its geographical challenges.
Adam, Alex and Alfie created a lengthly document linked below:
We did a project on Thailand, and how the actions of human carbon and waste consumption can destroy biomes and habitats. Whilst we researched Thailand’s contribution towards this, the country’s carbon dioxide usage was much smaller than other countries, like the USA and China. Our presentation is linked below:
As we approach the Summer Holidays, we wanted to share the information provided below from the Family Hub for parents reference. We hope you find this useful.
Please see letter – Crew Leaders will be handing these letters out in due course. If you have any questions please contact your child’s Crew Leader. We look forward to seeing you soon.
Make sure students have a water bottle as the weather is getting hotter this week.
Bring suncream to school.
Parents/ guardians please email or write a note if students are excused from PE and students still need to bring full PE kit if excused so they can take part as a coach/ referee.
All students in Year 7 and 8 should be wearing their PE t shirt for PE.
