The Wood Foundation is a Scottish charitable trust committed to developing young people, supporting communities, and driving systemic change in education. Through its programmes, it empowers schools to rethink learning, nurture leadership, and tackle inequality – with a strong focus on transforming outcomes for pupils in disadvantaged areas across the north of Scotland.
Our partnership with The Wood Foundation began through an introduction from the Edge Foundation during a delegate visit to XP. From that first connection grew a shared understanding that we were working towards the same goal: transforming education so that it is equitable, authentic, and empowering for young people.
Through The Wood Foundation’s Excelerate programme, which works with 19 schools across Aberdeenshire, XP has helped refine and shape their professional learning offer by sharing our model of Crew, Expeditions, and student-led learning. We’ve welcomed their educators to XP to see our approach in action, while our staff have travelled north to deliver workshops and training. These exchanges have been genuinely reciprocal – their feedback and perspectives have helped us refine our own practice and deepen our understanding of how our model translates into new contexts.
This partnership is firmly rooted in shared values: the conviction that exceptional teaching flourishes through collaboration, that schools can be inspiring environments, and that education is a powerful driver of social equity. The work with schools like Northfield Academy perfectly exemplifies this mission, empowering teachers to discover renewed purpose, deeper connection, and greater confidence in their profession.
As schools across Aberdeen have embraced Crew, we’ve seen the ripple effects reach back to XP. Student-to-student exchanges during visits, and even the BBC documentary that followed, have showcased the cultural and human impact of this collaboration. It has reminded us that when you share your practice generously, it comes back richer.
