Y11 (E26) Awesomeness Community Meeting

Today’s Awesomeness meeting was just that, with so many reasons to celebrate our awesome Y11s 🙂

We had a bumper batch of praises/appreciations to go through from staff, followed up with some lovely appreciations from students afterwards.

There is a strong sense of crew throughout Y11 – and that’s what’s going to get them through next week’s mock exams… and beyond!

Keep working hard and having each-others backs, Y11… You have smashed your first term back!

Mrs Parker x

C26 Loving Learning Labs!

The whole English team would like to appreciate all the C26 students who attended the Learning Lab tonight. Nearly every student across both schools attended and they were all fully engaged in some superb poetry revision.

This commitment and effort will pay off in the long run. Remember this is a marathon and not a sprint. Think of these session as a key part of your training.

It has been wonderful to hear students discussing exam technique, the alternative meanings of some of the quotes and considering complex poetic techniques such as iambic pentameter, free verse and colloquial language.

Thanks so much guys, you made Mrs Desborough’s day!

‘Non-Stop’ – Welcome back

 After a well-rested summer holiday, Crew Rowling arrived back at school to relearn the meaning of crew. During this first week, Crew completed many tasks, challenges and activities which brought our crew closer together. 

On the first day back, to build back up the bonds of crew, we went on a hike in Langsett and the Peak District. While this walk may have been difficult to some, with crew by their side, we were able to complete this hike in record time. Some (well, maybe just Harvey) had fun!

The following day, time was spent together in our new Crew room, doing activities to build up our sense of crew. During this time, we played a (improved) version of Mafia, created and led by Lily. We also tackled the ‘30 Ways to XP’, where Crew created postcards full of inspirational quotes and advice and Ben and Oliver even cleaned the Crew room 🙂 We also thought about revision techniques and looked at important dates for year 11.

On Thursday, Crew tackled games of rounders and other fun games organised by Mrs Nixon. Crew’s determination saw them fiercely winning rounders, as well as Extreme rock paper scissors! After Crew fought through ‘the floor is lava’, Shawn and Layton’s epic chopstick skills meant we smashed the next game, where we had to get as many pieces of dry pasta into a cup. After fighting through a few more activities, Crew felt more competitive then ever! 

We look forward to looking back at our week as a whole tomorrow and sharing our thoughts and experiences with the rest of C26. 

Crew Rowling

E26/Y10 Community Meeting

Today we got together for our final Y10 community meeting! As well as going over our first week back plans, we used it as an opportunity to share our final appreciations of the year. The biggest appreciation came from Mrs Sprakes and Mr Voltaire for the hard work and effort they all put into last week’s Climate Conference (which they’re all quite rightly still buzzing from!)

It was also a delight to be able to announce the recipients of our ‘Above and Beyond’ awards, nominated by Crew Leaders to celebrate those students who embody our character values and HoWLS day in, day out. As well as receiving a certificate, the 10 students selected have been given the opportunity to go ten pin bowling on Friday morning. As I said in this morning’s meeting, we really could’ve have given the award to most of Y10!

Y10 have been absolutely awesome this year and they already have developed the attitude, mindset and work ethic needed to get through Y11. We are all feeling really positive about our final year together.

Wishing you all a great summer!

Mrs Parker, Mrs Barnes, Mrs Goddard, Miss Cross, Miss Burrows & Mr Wilmott 🙂

C26 (Y11) First Week Back Plans

‼️ UPDATE – Please can all Y11 parents complete the consent forms by Friday 25th August (if you haven’t already done so) this is to allow your child to attend the hike to Langsett ‼️

We are pleased to be able to share with you the first week back plans for C26/Y11, as outlined below:

Here’s a summary of the key points:

Tuesday: Y11 students will be out on fieldwork to Langsett Reservoir on the first day back. Please read the attached parent letter, kit list and complete the consent form if you haven’t already done so. XPE students should arrive for an 8am start; XP are in at the usual time of 8.30am.

C26/Y11 Langsett Consent forms – to be completed by parents/carers of Y11 students only

East – E26 Consent Form – Langsett Hike
XP – X26 Consent Form – Langsett Hike

Wednesday: Students should wear comfortable, outdoor appropriate footwear/clothing.There will be some walking involved and some outdoor work.

Thursday: Students should wear comfortable appropriate footwear/clothing suitable for physical activities.

Friday: We will be school based. Please wear normal school appropriate clothing.

If you have any questions or concerns about our first week back in August, please contact your child’s crew leader in the first instance.

Have a lovely summer!

Mrs Parker

‘We are the champions!’

WOW! What can I say, Crew Rowling were incredible on sports day!

First off, we took on the athletics track and field and dodgeball. Ben and Harvey competed in the long jump, Oliver competed in the tennis ball throw, Thomas and Cerrina ran the 100m sprint and then we had an unbelievable team for the 400m relay which included Oliver, Ben, Cerrina and Thomas.

While this was going on Layton, Shawn, Lily, Logan and Faith played dodgeball. Hearing crew chatting before heading to this event they seemed to be positive and afterwards it sounded like they worked really well as a team (I would expect nothing less).

Our second session consisted of football and rounders. Both teams did really well in these sports and staff were complementary about their conduct at these events.

We then spent time drawing up and narrating our Crew mascot, completing a sports quiz and recreating an iconic sporting photo. Then we headed over to the athletics track to hear the results of the day…

Crew Rowling were announced as the winning crew for E26!!

Crew showed excellent sportsmanship throughout the day and both Miss Johnson and I are incredibly proud of them.

Mrs Barnes and Miss Johnson

C26 (Y10) Fieldwork – 19th & 21st June 2023

On Monday, 19th June 2023, X26 Skipper and E26 Pioneer will be attending fieldwork to Bradford Literature Festival as part of their current expedition, Bad Romance – attending a day called ‘How did Hitler Happen?’. 

X26 Admiral & E26 Explorer will be attending fieldwork on Wednesday, 21st June to Bradford Literature Festival – attending a day called ‘Shakespeare Day!’. 

We will depart promptly at 8:45am, meaning students need to arrive at school NO LATER that 8:30am to be registered and briefed about the day. 

Please see the attached letter for more information. If you have any questions or queries, please get in touch.

Crew Turing’s Time at the Spa!

For the past week, Crew Turing have focused on personal wellbeing – we’ve been exploring how to make sure we practice some self-care during the stressful GCSE exams that are coming up!

One way we chose to de-stress as a crew was by running a ‘spa morning’. We kept some humour in it, though, by choosing funny face masks! We also welcomed Jay into crew who will join us for this week!

Lewis seemed to really enjoy the cucumber slices… and I’ve never heard a better “disgusting” than when Dylan put his hands in the moisturising gloves! A big thanks to Mrs Parker for providing smoothies, too!

What a lovely crew morning!

Mountain High!

Crew Rowling have once again been busy over the last few weeks. Cerrina, Thomas and Harvey were presented with certificates for their writing achievements during our E26 ‘awesomeness’ community meeting.

Some of our crew members have started up a chess club at lunch, they even attempted to teach me how to play. It is great to see such positivity between students at lunchtime while playing chess. I pledge to attempt to learn how to play chess in the near future so that I can join in!

Some of our crew members also were selected to join a breakfast for students who consistently have really great behaviour. The criteria for these breakfasts will change each term so that everyone has the opportunity to be selected to attend but for this term the students who were selected and attended were Logan, Shawn, Harvey and Cerrina. All of the students who were selected to attend were praised in our community meeting, along with Shawn showing off his hot chocolate skills.

Another great opportunity that I would like to highlight was that two of our crew members attended an event for the premier of the Flying Scotsman documentary. After the event an email was received by Mrs Burns praising the students who attended for their manners and general engagement with the event, so a huge well done to Layton and Cerrina for being asked to attend and for how they conducted themselves.

I have also heard amazing feedback about how much effort crew are putting into their sessions, especially their upcoming English speaking exams. From the snippets I have seen they will do great!

I am also pleased to see that every single member of crew has received praise points in the last few days. There is certainly a positive buzz around students in E26 at the moment and how hard they are working. 

Keep it up everyone, you are all amazing!

Mrs Barnes and Miss Johnson 🙂

LOOL Students Getting Smart with the Police

Year ten leaders of their own learning students, hosted two expert police visitors in session yesterday. The session was a Q&A style focused on consolidating their knowledge around their exam topic Rights and Responsibilities!

Year ten were thoroughly impressed with the officers who attended and appreciated the stories shared from the Police.

A great session of getting smart for all!