The car park is now accessible at the side of the school which was previously locked.
Thank you
XP East
Crew Young…..getting to know you (again)!
“Would you rather be really good looking, or super intelligent?“, “What is your ‘go to’ tea?“, and “What song always gets you on the dance floor?”. These were some of the prompt questions that Crew Young members fired at each other, in a 2 minute “blind date”, conducted in a Covid-friendly way recently. The aim was for our crew to reacquaint themselves with each other and strengthen the bonds that bind us together after such a long period of remote learning.
It’s been lovely seeing everyone face to face rather than on a screen!
Crew seem to have grown at least a foot, with the exception of Miss Johnson and Mrs Barnes of course! Crew have settled back into being in school really well. I do not think the transition would have been as smooth without the continuous support that the members of Crew Rowling have given each other.
Crew Rowling have been lucky enough to gain a new crew member, Jake. I know that Crew Rowling are experts at making people feel welcome as I have witnessed it first hand. They pulled together to show Jake the ropes and he is fitting in great with our Crew sessions. He did shock us with his amazing ‘poker face’ during a game of ‘two truths, one lie’, which we used as a fun way of reconnecting after so long of not being together. Jake has also done a great job of helping Mrs Watson and his peer with litter picking and keeping the school looking clean and tidy. We were very impressed with the job they had done.
This week in Crew, students took time self evaluating their HoWLs and recorded this for each subject. The interactions between students were great as they gave feedback to each other via comments on the spreadsheet, highlighting areas that they may want to increase their grade and examples why. This seemed to give a boost in crew and everyone seemed quite positive after the session. I do think some were a little hard on themselves to start with.
Rounding off last week, we played the mystery game ‘Mafia’, where Harvey did a fantastic job of narrating and making the story entertaining. It was a great way to end the week and we went into the E26 community meeting on a high after having fun as a Crew.
Keep up the good work Crew Rowling!
Mrs Barnes and Miss Johnson
Unfortunately the car park used to drop off and collect XP East students is temporarily inaccessible to us, we are working on this to get it re-opened ASAP, during the mean time parents will need to collect students from car park 3 on the other side, making sure that your registration is logged with either office by email office@xpschool.org office@xpeastschool.org or by phone 898792. Any longer than 20 minutes could create a fine letter in that car park, many thanks, XP & XP East.
Year 9 Common Mission
Purpose
To explain how we use Common Mission to support students to access different pathways to academic, career and life readiness at XP. Common Mission is a curriculum process that is additional to our Core GCSEs, where we further develop character and positive habits of work and learning in our students. In addition to our Core GCSEs, we run one session a week from Year 9 called ‘Common Mission’. These sessions allow students to think about, prepare and take qualifications in pathways that will help them to become who they want to be later in life. Common Mission sessions include career and further education advice, as well as time for them to study a GCSE of their choice if they have the motivation, capacity and capability to do so. Common Mission includes the opportunity to study a Choice qualification or to pursue other curriculum or personal interests. In these sessions students develop their self-study skills so they are ready for their next steps in the education process.
X25/E25
On Wednesday the 14th of April, students at X25 and E25 students will choose one of the following common mission options to develop their self-study skills so they are ready for their next steps in the education process, with the potential to gain the listed qualifications. 28th of April will be the start date Your support and guidance as parents will be invaluable to our students making a choice that is right for them. As well as discussions at home, our students will spend time in crew this week. Please see the video below outlining the overview of Common mission. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate use the form attached and I will answer any questions as soon as possible.
Topic Options:
| Common mission Option | Potential Qualification | Specification |
| Business Studies | GCSE | AQA |
| Engineering | NCFE Level 1/2 | NCFE |
| Maths pushing 9.0 | Additional Study GCSE AQA | AQA Maths |
| Music | ABRSM | Level 2 Music qualification through the Rock School (RSL) |
| BTEC PE | BTEC | Pearson Edexcel |
| Triple Science | GCSE | AQA Triple Biol, chem, phys |
| Psychology | GCSE | AQA |
| Dance | BTEC | BTEC Pearsons Level 2 |
| Geography | GCSE | AQA |
| Core Expeditions | Additional Study | STEAM, MATHS, HUMAN |
| Self Study | Mix | Mix |
XP Self Study Website Examples:
Have any questions?:
D6 is our voluntary sixth day of school which will take place each Saturday during term time. D6 is led by ex-students of XP who are returning to provide our current students with peer to peer academic study support. There will be additional support from our school learning coaches and members of the Leadership Team. Existing students in Year 10 will be able to come into school on a voluntary basis on a Saturday morning from 10.00-12.00 each week to access this additional support.
The long-term plan is to open this up to students in all year groups, but in light of the recent lockdown, we are currently only extending this invitation to students in Year 10 as an additional layer of support in response to the previous lockdown. Whilst we understand that there may be some concerns around coming into school on a weekend, we feel it is justified in light of ensuring our students are able to access the education and additional support they deserve. Therefore, all Year 10 students are welcome at XP from this Saturday 17th April. Sessions will usually begin at 10.00 until 12.00 for the time being.
Appropriate risk assessments and protocols around safe and hygienic working have been prepared, and we will ensure that rooms used in the school have been sanitised before and after use. Refreshments will also be provided.
We hope students in Year 10 along with XP and year 10s and year 11s can join us this Saturday! If there are any questions or concerns please email Mr Smith at jsmith@xpeast.org
Just a reminder that all students should do their Covid home test this evening and to add it to the NHS test and trace app and the schools register. These can both be found on the front page of the school websites on the right hand side. It is necessary to add the result to both registers please.
Crew leaders will send reminder emails to their students every Sunday and Wednesday to remind them to test. If your son / daughter does get a positive result please keep them and any siblings at home and contact the school office as normal.
It is really important that staff, parents and students understand that the Lateral flow tests we are doing at home must ONLY be used for asymptomatic testing. This means that they should only be used on people who have no signs or symptoms associated with the covid virus. If you or a member of your family have the specific covid symptoms (new and persistent cough, high temperature, loss or change in taste or smell) then you and your family must immediately isolate. A PCR test must then be done to confirm if you are positive or negative. Only confirmation of a negative PCR test will allow you to return to school. A negative lateral flow test will not.
If you have any questions please contact the school and I will be happy to answer any questions.
Have a lovely Sunday.
Kate ap Harri
Year 10 will begin their first set of GCSE mock exams from the week commencing 10th of May over the following two weeks. This first round of mocks will be over two weeks to all the students.
The following exams will be taken by students in E24/Y10:
AQA citizenship (Cit students only)
AQA Spanish Writing (GCSE Spanish students only)
AQA Spanish Speaking (GCSE Spanish students only)
OCR B SHP History The People’s Health / Living under Nazi Rule
AQA Geography Paper 2 (Common Mission students only)
Eduqas English Language Component 1
Eduqas English Literature XP made paper from a combination of Comp1 and 2
AQA Business Paper 1 (Common Mission students only)
AQA Maths Paper 1 Non Calculator
AQA Maths Paper 2 Calculator
AQA Science Paper 1 – Communicable and non Communicable diseases
AQA Science Paper 2 – Mag/electro mag/Hydrocarbons/alternative sources energy
All exams will take place during a normal school day, and will take place in the sports hall with appropriate CV-19 safety adjustments in school.
I’ve lost count of the number of ‘Crew Finch are back!’ style blogs I’ve written, but here’s another one! We are (finally) back together in Crew for – can you believe it – the first time in 2021!! Fingers crossed that this time, we are back for good…
What’s struck me this time round are the good vibes coming from Crew who seem genuinely happy to be back at school with their friends and are even, dare I say it, enjoying being back in ‘proper’ lessons. Although I can’t praise the quality of our online provision and our students’ engagement during these challenging times enough, there’s nothing like the real thing!
Understandably, some of our Crew were anxious about being back in school so we spent the first couple of days together just doing what we do best: pulling together to help alleviate some of those worries, giving each other a safe space in Crew to talk about how we feel about things (with no judgement) and just generally helping each other settle back in to our new school routine.
We also reconnected with some speed dating! After not seeing each other for over 3 months, it was good to spend 1:1 time with everyone, finding out more about what makes us tick by asking deep, probing, philosophical questions 😉 such as:
- If you had a warning label… what would it say? (most were spot on!)
- Who is the most intelligent person you know (Kobe was outraged that nobody named him!)
- What’s your favourite fizzy drink? (Dr Pepper caused some controversy…)
- Would you rather be really good looking, or super intelligent? (always a tough one to answer, that one!)
I won’t be looking at some of our Crew in quite the same way after the answers they gave to some of the questions!
I enjoyed taking a step back and just watching them all interact during this speed dating activity. It made me smile to see them laughing with – or, in some cases, at – each other and I feel reassured that, whatever life throws at us, we always find our way back to Crew.
Good morning.
Just a quick reminder that school closes today at the normal time for your childs year bubble and re-opens on Wed 7th April due to the Easter weekend break and staff days.
Have a fab weekend!!