Nothing to do with cycling this time! Just thought I’d share a great user-definable resource that you might not have come across before. It’s called “Wheel decide” and I’ve used it for AFL and random name generators/cold-calling type activities. You can choose what goes in the segments then let 
your students spin the roulette-style wheel. I intend to use this with 7P in STEAM tomorrow to check their understanding of core scientific terminology.
To generate your own go to:
Place your bets!!!!!
Everyone knows that Rowntrees Of York Give Best In Value and that My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Nine Pies, right? But how many mnemonic devices can we share out with each other?
A mnemonic device is a useful tool to enable students to retain and recall key information, formulae, subject-specific concepts etc., especially when parted from their favourite device like when they might sit an exam.
This week I asked my Y9s to correctly conjugate one of the three Spanish verb types in the present tense as a learning check. On the left is a photo of one pair’s work.
Can you think why I asked them: “If You’re Happy Wriggle Your Toes”? This group took just 30 seconds to give me an answer. The question arose from CPD I attended a few years ago led by an MFL Ofsted Inspector
For those of you who might wish to inject some mnemonic devices into your teaching, there is a plethora of them out there on t’internet but many appear to come from USA-based websites. Try:
https://www.learningassistance.com/2006/january/mnemonics/html
Click here to see the photo gallery from our recent immersion fieldwork to Malham and Kingswood, or click here to read about why we went.
The students’ behaviour and attitude during both events was superb!
Thank you to all involved.
P.S The video will be released shortly. Stay tuned!
Click above to see the full photo gallery
After careful planning and preparation, we are delighted to inform you that Y7 (Class of 2024 students) are ready to embark on their first fieldwork visits next week. This will enable them to grapple with the guiding question that underpins our current learning expedition.
However, we aren’t revealing the exact locations until Monday, as we would like to maintain an element of mystery with regards to the theme of our first expedition.
The arrangements are as follows:
Monday 11/09/2017
Wednesday 13/09/17
In the interests of ensuring a prompt departure from, and return back, to school it is important that – as always – our students arrive on time on these fieldwork days.
Many thanks.
Today was the first day back from the Summer holidays, and it was great to see the team back together again. We visited Malham in North Yorkshire to reccy the area in preparation for our first official day as XP East.
XP and XP East Y7 Crews
Although this is instead of our original planned residential to Wales (this will still go ahead in Spring), we’re absolutely confident that the day will be a memorable one designed for students to begin to consider their first guiding question of ‘What is Crew?’ On Friday XP East students will also visit ‘Kingswood Inspiring Learning‘ adventure park, which will also help them to answer their guiding question. A special thank you needs to be given to Mr Said for organising the event at such short notice!
First impressions may create a false sense of security about what these 2 days represent. Make no mistake about it, students will be out of their familiar zones and will be confronted with challenges that will need the support of others in order to get through them. Yes, they will be enjoyable, but Crew is about establishing genuine and sincere relationships in order to achieve what had previously thought was not possible. Crew goes beyond ‘team work’ and instead creates a genuine culture of community which will underpin XP East, just as it does at XP School.
The 2 days will also be academically challenging from the perspective of gathering knowledge of the local geographical landscapes, and further exploring the character traits of the XP Trust (building on the Y6 induction day). Mark my words, this is important stuff for what lies ahead for the rest of the year.
Our own staff Crew at XP East is bringing together a variety of skill sets, experiences and personal qualities which will provide the foundations of what I know will be something very special. For me, our findings from the reccy at Malham today didn’t just reveal details about the visit, it also reinforced our own excitement for the beginnings of our new school, and amplified our Crew’s ambition for what something Margaret Mead once said:
Further links:
‘What does running around in the woods have to do with growing a school?’
Metacognition is a term I have heard used many times during the induction process at XP. This term was, for me, initially unfamiliar, however I noticed it was regularly used in reference to student learning. I wondered about why this term was being used so often and how it related to student’s learning and related to XP.
What does metacognition mean ?
The (dictionary) definition of metacognition is the awareness and understanding of one’s own thought processes.
Metacognition is essentially Thinking about Thinking !
Metacognition is extremely useful when learning, it allows the student to take charge of their own learning. The more aware a learner becomes of how they learn, the more able they become to assess their own learning needs, this in turn allows the learner to generate and implement strategies to meet these needs and progress.
At XP our students are encouraged and supported to take the lead with their own learning, to take ownership of their learning, they take the lead in SLC’s ( student led conference). Students present their learning to parents explaining what they have achieved and why they have or have not reached their expected grade.
Giving students learning targets and guiding questions ensures they understand what they are aiming to achieve, they become aware of their long and short term targets and understand the need to learn that particular piece of information. Evaluation is equally important in the process as it allows students to establish what has worked well for them and what has not. All of these strategies help to students to understand their own thought process and how they learn. They are thinking about thinking.
Metacognition allows students and teachers become more efficient learners, they become more aware of what they know and what they don’t know. Students can then plan their time more effectively so they can fill the gaps.
Metacognition plays an important role in learning at XP, the protocols used within sessions as well as learning targets and guiding question all link to metacognition and allow students to confidently become leaders in their own learning.
Mrs Duffield.
This video explains metacognition and how it links to learning.
One of the latest approaches to using technology in the classroom is the use of iPads. Teachers and developers are constantly devising innovative ways of using apps in the classroom to create quality resources and experiences for students. After all, some of the most advanced technology for reading, learning, and communicating is literally at our fingertips.
However, simply providing an iPad and saying it will increase learning of course isn’t enough. Careful and thoughtful deployment of this new technology is required. When used strategically, the possibilities for teaching and learning are endless. iPads allow for immediate feedback to students, all-class participation, simplifying collection of materials, annotating and many more. iPads could never replace quality teaching but when used in partnership, increase engagement and enhance learning.
May I show our appreciation and gratitude to Miss Robinson, Mrs Smith and students from XP who took part in our third and final ‘fine tuning’ of our Y7 expedition today.
‘Fine tuning’ is an approach that is used by a group of people to critique the Expedition planning process. It has specific protocols which begins with a 10 minute presentation by the Lead facilitator – in this instance, Mrs Poncia (ably assisted by Mr Smith) from XP East.
Mr Campbell (new XP STEM teacher) introduced everyone and explained that ‘fine tuning’ was all about being ‘soft on the people, but hard on the content’ and then facilitated the session which initially explored ‘warm praise’ for what the XP teachers and students liked. The panel then asked enquiring questions, and made suggestions about how we could improve our plans.
Mrs Poncia with the ‘Fine Tuning’ panel
The process encourages the people who are presenting to have a burning question that they would like the panel to consider providing answers to. Ours was ‘When should we introduce the all important guiding question?’ Existing experienced XP staff were able to offer advice based upon what they had learned from previous expeditions. Students then followed and provided us with several superb examples of when its introduction had worked well, and not so well during their time at XP. They then went on to provide us with some further suggestions which gave us many options to consider when returning back to our plans
The fine tuning session helped our XP East team to reassess our overall Expedition calendar, leading to a much better placed introduction of when we will introduce our guiding question. It has also led to establishing a greater sense of clarity with regards to our next steps, and reaffirmed in our minds that we are definitely on the right track.
See below for a quick interview with students.
Thank you all involved!
“That’ll learn ya!” is an enduring and endearing memory of what my mum used to say, as she cheerfully juxtaposed “teach” and “learn”. During our intensive induction programme we grasped the concept of teachers as learners, and conversely the notion of learners as teachers could be explored by skilful use of the correct protocol(s).
The late Middle English word “protocol” is derived from the French “prothocole”, itself via Latin and Greek prótokollo and in the EL context it can be defined as: “a related, well-defined set of actions in a classroom used for a specific academic purpose“. Which protocol(s) might we employ to encourage our learners to be teachers? Which protocols have I attempted to represent below?
As staff new to XP we have been encouraged to offer Praise, Question, Suggestion; to Build Background Knowledge; to offer a fist-to-five, complete an exit ticket and have the final word….but we have barely begun to scratch the surface of some perfectly practical pedagogical protocols. I pledge to widen my repertoire, work my way down the EL protocol list and eventually incorporate them all, over time, into my lesson preparation in order to emulate building a collaborative culture that is promoted on the EL website:
https://eleducation.org/resources/collaborative-culture-protocols
Join me!
Think about a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly, a beautiful analogy for change…
I’m sure we all feel like a caterpillar at times, an ugly, undeveloped, unconfident self. We all want to be the butterfly – the gorgeous finished product, flying about with grace and beauty, experiencing bliss everywhere we go. We all want to be seen as beautiful, respectable, and lovely. But, how do we get to that?
It isn’t so easy, some would say. Often, we see people who have become the finished product: a successful, beautiful, powerful human being who has it all. We all see people who we respect, admire and wish we were like. However, those people did not come into it without a lot of work on themselves, perhaps spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically.
We all want to be the butterfly, but do we really want to go through the process that it takes to become that? Think about what you see in yourself as the caterpillar. You might be all caterpillar in your opinion, or some percentage of caterpillar versus a percentage of butterfly. Perhaps you’ve been working on yourself for quite a while and you’ve already transformed some parts of yourself that were undeveloped before now. Perhaps you feel like you might even be getting close to being a butterfly.
Truly, I have now discovered, that my new self was always there, just as the butterfly was always there in the caterpillar. It wasn’t really visible before the transformation, but the blueprint and the potential was always there and present. I think of my new self as the eternal, deeper self: the Me that was always present.
I would encourage you to simply stop and be the butterfly that you know you can be. Stop all the wondering, fixing of yourself, and all the searching. You are already know what you want to become. All you have to do is step out of who you think you are for just a moment.
Be patient. It doesn’t have to happen overnight – you can’t rush the process. All you have to do is relax, drop the old stories and habits, and be determined to work hard and be the best you can be. It is actually very simple. Of course, some of your old caterpillar ways might reappear and assert themselves now and then, but you can always redirect your awareness back into the butterfly-you at any and all times.
Be at peace. All you must do is relax and let your XP butterfly come forth!
