Last term, XP School’s C24 GCSE Spanish students grappled to answer our Guiding Question: “¿Tecnología – somos sus servidores o sus maestros? (“Technology – are we its servants or its masters?”). Whilst some might have found it difficult to articulate a response in English, imagine doing so during lockdown and in a modern foreign language!
This formed part of an expedition culminating in a Final Product centred around the family, expressing their own and their family’s reading habits and preferences, and uses of social media at home. Students collaborated to create a challenging rubric designed to encourage extended responses – including making an argument in favour of digital books or paperbacks – that was then used as the framework for our Final Product…..a monologue spoken in Spanish with accompanying slide presentation that evidenced standards ranging from beginning to excellence across a range of learning targets, such as: “I can compare and contrast reading books digitally with paper-based formats, making an argument in favour of one of these”.
Alfie from our crew has been doing some extracurricular art work I wanted to share with you all! I am always so proud when someone from our crew goes above and beyond! He has been contributing to a project carried out by a care home in Matlby along side the residence and giving everyone involved a reason to smile!
Check out the article published in the Rotherham Gazette!
We are entering into the 7th week of online learning at XPE- with seemingly, no end in sight, and so our community meeting was focused around strategies to beat the screen fatigue, and a challenge to to get us all out of the house this weekend!
We started off with a brilliant check in of superhero names, based on dates of birth- some absolute, moving then onto apologies, appreciation and stands. Some fantastic work going on- as shown by the appreciation from staff and students within crew Churchill, for the work around student led crew sessions.
See all E24 apologies, appreciations and Stands made below on the Padlet
Scan this QR code or see applications here
Community meeting Photography Challenge
To encourage us as staff and students to get time away from the screen, a challenge was set for students to over the weekend take photos whilst out on walks out of the house, to be entered in the following categories,entries must be original, and be taken over the weekend whilst out of the house- see some of the entries posted on the challenge by students in E24-
Voting for category winners will take place in week 7 community meeting.
The categories…
1) Architecture
2) Near and Far
3) Nature
4) Food
5) Frozen
6) Technology
E24 Original photos, submitted by Alfie C, Chloe T, Summer, Keisha
Our year 9 students were lucky enough to get out on fieldwork on the final week of term to complete work relating to their ‘Welcome to the machine’ expedition. Over the next seven weeks of the winter term, they will be working on their answer to the guiding question:
‘Do the benefits of industrialisation outweigh the costs?’
For their first STEAM case studies, students have been looking at conservation data, learning about how data can be collected and displayed using multiple representations. They have also been learning about specialisation and ecosystem management.
They visited The Hatfield Moors, our local nature reserve, to examine the extent of the fire damage from earlier this year. Students have been learning about the protected species that can be found at the site, particularly the adder, and how Natural England and the fire service prioritised safeguarding these species during the clear up operation.
While at the site, students conducted a series of sampling techniques, as well as collecting data on the wildlife. Sadly, due to slight delays in being able to visit the site, we weren’t able to spot any adders as they have likely gone into hibernation for the winter, however, students were still able to find other species key to maintaining and supporting the ecosystem at the wetland.
Students also conducted a number of tests on the site, in accordance with their two daily learning targets for the day:
1. I can estimate the population density of a species using random sampling techniques.
Students engaged in data collection of various parts of the site, using quadrats to provide increasingly accurate estimations of species numbers in the areas we sampled. We created a set of axes, used a random number generator to find coordinates to sample, and collected the data from those coordinates.
After collecting data in teams of three, we used all the data collected to calculate the predicted species number, based on scaling up the measurements to accommodate the size of the field. In debrief, due to a large range in answers, we went on to calculate the mean for those estimations, to create a more accurate estimation. We also discussed why using the random number generator was fundamental in keeping our research free from bias.
2. I can investigate the effects of abiotic factors using systematic sampling techniques.
Students then went on to conduct a series of pH tests on the wetlands, again using their quadrats placed along a transect, to link changes in species to abiotic factors of the wetlands. In debrief, we examined the data, looking for patterns relating to the abundance of the plant species and the abiotic factor recorded.
I’d also like to thank our very own Marshall Jones, for taking his time on the day and spare time to create this amazing vlog documenting the day:
I feel incredibly fortunate that we were able to make it out to the site given the current circumstances, and I really look forward to hear how the work the students have done on this series of case studies will inform their guiding question answers over the coming weeks.
