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 School, we believe music has the power to inspire and shape young minds. Each year, we offer a unique opportunity for children with a natural flair for music to gain a place in Year 7 through our dedicated Musical Aptitude route.
Whether your child already sings or plays an instrument, or simply has a keen ear for rhythm, melody, and pitch, this pathway recognises raw musical potential.
With access to expert tuition, vibrant performance opportunities, and a culture that celebrates creativity, XP School is the perfect stage for your child to flourish musically and academically. Click here to see highlights from our recent annual XP Festival of Arts and Culture https://youtu.be/-tcB979lD_g
Apply now, and don’t miss this chance to join a learning community where talent is nurtured and passion takes centre stage!
Emails with a link to the e-link form have been sent out to all parents and carers today. We’d really appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to complete the form — even if you don’t want your child to receive the vaccine.
Filling it in helps the school immunisation team keep their records up to date and saves them from making lots of follow-up phone calls.
Thank you so much for your time and cooperation — it really makes a big difference! 💙
This week, Crew Brunel has been all about resilience, reflection, and responsibility. Students have continued to show commitment even when routines have shifted a little – something to be proud of!
Monday
With Miss Mitchell feeling unwell, Crew Brunel joined Crew Peake for their weekly check-in. It was great to see students adapt quickly and still take the time to share how they were feeling and set themselves up for a positive start to the week.
Tuesday
As Miss Mitchell was still recovering, students joined Crew Sinfield and Crew Attenborough for their Tranquil Tuesday reading session. Everyone settled in beautifully and engaged with their reading — a perfect calm moment in a busy week.
Wednesday
Midweek brought our Wise Wednesday focus. Students worked in groups to take notes and discuss the weekly topic, showing great teamwork and thoughtful contributions. It was brilliant to see everyone learning from one another and building on each other’s ideas.
Thursday
Thursday was a big day for reflection and celebration. We looked at praises and conducts, recognising those who achieved their goals and challenging everyone to aim for a ‘no-conduct’ week next week. Students also reviewed the targets they set last week and made action plans to help them achieve them.
Friday
To finish the week, Crew Brunel joined the whole school community meeting. Students reflected on behaviours that didn’t align with XP’s character traits and offered apologies where needed, showing real maturity. We also celebrated those who have achieved a ‘no-conduct’ term so far — a fantastic achievement!
Special shoutout to David again, who topped the Crew Brunel praise leaderboard this week with an incredible 15 praises! Well done, David — your hard work and positive attitude are setting a brilliant example for everyone.
Overall, it’s been a week of growth and ownership. Crew Brunel are showing increasing responsibility for their HoWLs and are really beginning to take charge of their progress. I’m proud of the effort, honesty, and improvement I’ve seen — let’s keep it going!
Admiral have been further developing their mathematical skills by revisiting their Vitruvian Man ratio drawings. Previously, each student calculated the ratio of their head to their body to represent themselves in the style of the Vitruvian Man. Building on this, students deepened their understanding by learning how to use scale to create even more accurate representations. They carefully chose which parts of the body to measure, using this data to enhance the precision of their drawings.
As a class, we connected this work to our expedition theme, Being Human. Students engaged in thoughtful discussions about identity, historical beliefs around human proportions, and how shape played a role in these ideas. They reflected on how perceptions of human identity and physical ideals have evolved over time.
Their effort, creativity, and attention to detail were outstanding. They demonstrated excellent craftsmanship and produced work they can be truly proud of!
Even as GCSE preparation ramps up, everyone is taking it in their stride and showing real maturity, supporting each other, calling out positive behaviour, and celebrating those who go above and beyond.
Here are a few well-deserved praises from this week:
💬 From Miss Cross (English): “I really enjoyed working with Alfie, Bentley, and Lewis (from another crew) today. Your recall of key events from the novel was excellent!”
💬 From Miss Mountain (Maths): “Amazing attitude and effort from Finlay whilst rearranging formulae — really impressed with your work today!”
💬 From Miss Warwick (Spanish): “Lovely work from Seb researching a Spanish-speaking celebrity and creating a fantastic fact file!”
🌟 A special shoutout to Jess, who received 10 praises this week and is currently top of the leaderboard — well done!
As we head into the final week of term, we’ll also be having a big push on keeping phones in bags to help everyone stay focused and finish the term strong.
Keep it up, Crew Lovelace, so proud of the effort, teamwork, and positivity you’re showing every single day!
Year 11 must be feeling poetry fatigue at this point in the term. They have ploughed through seven weeks of finishing the poetry anthology and still have another week to go.
They are approaching every session with a positive mental attitude and are working hard to ensure they have plenty of detailed annotations to revise from. The quality of your work and the effort you are putting into session is fantastic and shows how much you care about your GCSEs.
Well done!
Keep up this fantastic work guys. I know it is a slog but it will be worth it I promise!
Important Safeguarding Notice: Children’s “Spy” Books
We want to make you aware of a recent issue affecting some popular children’s books by Andrew Cope, including the Spy Dogs, Spy Cats, and Spy Pups series.
Some editions of these books include a printed web address at the back. This link used to go to the author’s website, but the domain is no longer under his control. It has since been taken over by another party and now leads to inappropriate adult content.
The publisher, Puffin, has paused sales and distribution of the books and is working with schools, libraries, and retailers to remove copies from circulation. They have stressed that the website has no connection to the author or publisher.
What this means for you:
If your child has any Spy Dog, Spy Cat or Spy Pups books at home, please check the back for website links and make sure they do not try to visit the site.
It is safe for children to continue reading the stories themselves — the concern is only with the outdated link.
We recommend talking with your child about the importance of not following web addresses in books without checking with an adult first.
We will continue to share updates from the publisher as more information becomes available.
Beautiful work and amazing products are an integral part of our story at XP but equally important are the ways that we achieve that work and those products.
Our students are encouraged to draft and redraft, to refine their ideas, to not accept work that isn’t excellent. In the Arts team this year we’ve seen exactly that with students starting new courses and new expeditions and being given new opportunities to excel.
None of the pictures above show finished products, instead we can see the beauty of the creative process. For some that means painstakingly drafting and redrafting photoreal images using only pencils. For others it may be that a session sharing ideas on the whiteboard is the best way to make progress. Creating models and maquettes in a range of materials can be the catalyst that a student needs to make their creative vision into a beautiful final product. What looks at first glance to be a random collection of scraps can be actually a carefully curated abstract vision. A messy workbench will finally reveal a beautiful relief sculpture.
We celebrate our students creative work not only for the final curation but for the whole process of exploration, experimentation, and growth that leads them there — the ideas tried, the risks taken, and the skills developed along the way.
Last week our Y7’s/8s have continued receiving coaching from Club Doncaster and Doncaster knights rugby, which has seen students engaging with the wider community and developing further opportunities outside of school. This week is as follows:
Wednesday – Boys football practice/netball practice. 3.30-4.30
Thursday – Cheerleading practice and girls football practice. 3.30-4.30
We are currently working hard behind the scenes to finalise and approve all student awards on the eDofE system. This process takes time as each section is carefully checked and verified to ensure students receive the recognition they deserve.
Once this is complete, we will share further details about our upcoming Celebration Event, where students’ hard work and achievements will be formally recognised.
Thank you for your patience and continued support, we’re looking forward to celebrating together. This is likely to be after half term.
