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This week, E24 will work with Expert Forensic Collision Investigator – Mark Senior as part of their expedition ‘Slow Down’
Mark will be with Explorer on Thursday morning & Pioneer on Friday morning. Please make sure all learners have their coat with them as some of the activities are outside.
Thank you
I absolutely love this picture which was taken the morning after the night before of Crew Finch’s last Passage Presentation. Phew!
It was nice to finally be able to put the last portfolio back on the shelf and have a bit of fun regrouping as a Crew with a competitive friendly game of Taboo!
It’s been an intense few weeks of final preparations and practicing in Crew, with feedback from those who had presented prompting last minute tweaks, changes and minor panics from those who had yet to deliver theirs!
I didn’t manage to take any photos during the presentations because I was too engrossed listening to what these incredible kids had to say. All 12 presentations have been very different and I have been left gobsmacked after each and every one.
I don’t know what impressed me the most: the honesty and integrity shown as they discussed their academic and character growth; the ambition and determination shown when they spoke about their future selves; the awe-inspiring confidence as they spoke not just to me, but to a whole panel of adults; or, they way they weren’t phased at all by any of the panelists’ questions at the end (and we asked some tough questions!)
GCSE choices have been made and Crew are now more than ready to tackle the next stage of their learning journey. They have all acknowledged that the GCSE years are going to hard, with some needing to up their game a little to make sure they get the grades they need. We talk a lot about climbing a metaphorical mountain in Crew. They have achieved so much already and I’ve no doubt at all they they will all get to where they want to be. However, if any of them stumble along the way, they know that they’ve got the whole Crew behind them ready to give them a supportive shove up to the top of their mountain.
A massive appreciation, as ever, to all the families who have supported their children through this milestone. It’s been an honour to share the experience with you.
Required Practical 1 – Investigation into the variation of the frequency of stationary waves on a string with length, tension and mass per unit length of the string.
This is just a reminder that on the last day of this term, Friday 28th February 2020, the school will be closing for all students at 1:30pm after Crew for staff to prepare for the new term. There will not be any provision for students to stay after this time so all students must leave at 1:30pm.
After a busy day at the UK Uni Search last Friday, both our Careers Hubs in XP and XP East are now FULL of University prospectuses.
Come and be inspired by these amazing courses on offer to you!
Can I go to uni? YES YOU CAN
We’re getting to the exciting part of our Bronze DofE – the outdoor expedition! A few of the DofE team attended a 2-day Outdoor First Aid course at Peat Rigg, tackling different emergency scenarios right in the middle of Storm Ciara (we’re hoping for better weather conditions on our actual hikes!) You’ll be pleased to know that we all passed.
So far Crew Finch have completed their skills section and are well on the way to completing their volunteering section (reading with Y7 students.)
Crew have already chosen their hiking groups – they’ll be walking in two groups of six rather than all together – and the nice part of this for me was hearing them say that they wanted to be in groups with those members of Crew who they wouldn’t usually spend time with so that they could have the chance to bond with them a little bit.
We want to make sure that students are fully prepared for the qualifying expedition element, so our Friday afternoon sessions are now fully dedicated to preparing for the outdoor expedition and will cover such things as:
Key dates:
I’ll be handing over the DofE blogging to Crew so that they can keep you updated on their planning and progress.
In Y12 Spanish, we are working on developing our grammar and verb skills in the context of the impact of social media within Spanish society. We learn key verbs to describe how the average Spaniard might use social media, and how social networks can influence global movements like Occupy and Real Democracy Now.
Our student was given a timeline showing different tenses ranging from past to future, and post-it notes with verb phrases from this topic (for example, I update, I have posted, I will interact, I would be influenced). Year 12 had to order the verbs by tense, then translate them into English. Finally, we finished off the activity with a rapid-fire, oral exercise, conjugating the new verbs into other tenses using the timeline verbs as a guide. It’s all about the verbs!
Thursday 13th February 2020. 15.30-17.00 Away Hayfield
Faith F, Faith, Sareena, Abigail, Safi, Cerrina, Millie, Maddie, Leoni, Maddie, Lacie, Mollie
You will need to bring:Â
Water BottleÂ
Black ShortsÂ
Shin PadsÂ
Moulded boots or trainersÂ
Black football socks (if you have them)/ any football socks.
Warm Jumper
I’d like to say a huge thank you for all parents and family members who attended my crew’s SLC over the past 2 weeks. The stakes rose this year as I introduced the pass/fail element. Thankfully and as expected, all my crew have passed! To prepare for their SLC, I gave them a quiz on what they thought they’d got in the most recent data drop, hoping that they would remember their most recent grades and HOWLs scores that I’d shared in crew. When they self-marked the following day, each crew member wasn’t far off their actual scores.
Hot chocolates were well deserved since my crew were highest in all 3 HOWL categories for the year group. We noticed that we were also 2nd from top for ‘be kind’ in the entire school, and that in the year 8 group, we were considerably ahead of other crews for get smart and work hard.
We also held our second student led crew this past week, Mollie and Torran prepared a football drill session. I told them I needed it to be well planned and structured so that everyone had a role and there was a clear goal for the session. They prepared 4 drills, including a warm up, passing drill, piggy in the middle activity that helped people develop their tackling skills and we finished on a short game. Roll on this coming sports day – my goal for crew is to try not to come last again!
I have asked a couple more students to prepare a session in the coming weeks, Sami has already pitched an idea to me that sounds really exciting. Finally, we doubled up with crew Parkinson on Friday to look at an important topic: sleep hygiene. We read this article and jotted down any surprising facts about sleep and the effects a lack of it had on our health.
Students were shocked about the links good sleep had with weight and appetite, dementia, cancers and performance during sports and everyday activities. We also watched a snippet of a National Geographic documentaryon how sleep can improve retention if we get a good 9hrs after a revision session. I’m challenging my crew to aim for 8-9hrs every day this week!
E26 pupils have been using watercolour paints to create beautiful sunsets and silhouettes inspired by African landscapes.
I am extremely impressed with E26 and their enthusiasm to create their artwork. We have some very talented young people at XP East! Well done!
