Last Friday we invited three very talented actors from Box Clever to deliver our own personal performance of Macbeth, complete with interactive workshop. And what a performance it was!
Year 8 were amazing and were fully immersed in the experience – a real credit to the school! They made such a positive impact on our visitors, who decided to join us for lunch to soak up some of the XP East ethos and chat to the students.
Take a look…
Today in HUMAN, 7Explorer have spent some time getting to know more about the USA. We shared out facts we already know and then we watched a brilliant video clip to find out about the different American states.
We then zoomed in to find out more about which states make up the Deep South.
In groups, we had to look at a map of the southern states, one at a time and outside the classroom, memorise the location of one state and then return to our group to label our maps.
We only had 20 seconds to memorise the state and then 40 seconds to share out with our group and record our findings on our own maps.
Groups had to be well organised and co-operate with each if we were to label our maps correctly.
Take a look at us in action!
Tomorrow, we’ll find out which team is the winner!
E25 have really thrown themselves into their first Case Study, Microscopic Machines, in the new STEAM expedition called Human Machine. We have been looking at our first learning target: I can explain how different cells are adapted for their function.
Caiden is shown below using a video tutorial to build his knowledge of how to use a microscope, whilst Zach M, Zach H and Nikodem were Getting Smart by choosing to spend extra time at breaks looking at their cheek cell slides and onion cell slides. Cerys, Aaron, Zach, Dylan and Shanna are pictured here giving kind specific and helpful feedback in purple pen, whilst Harvey added labels to his animal and plant cell comparison diagram.
E25 have a Quizlet task to work through as pre-learning before our lesson on Thursday 17th January 2019. Use the resources available to familiarise yourself with the 15 words and definitions in advance of our lesson.
We discussed good ways of doing this: it is better to spend 15 minutes each day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on the bus, at break or in Extended Study, than to cram it all into one session!
The link is on Google Classroom or you can click here.
Many thanks,
Mrs Townson
Phew! It’s been a busy week so far for 7Explorer and we’ve only been back at school for three days!
The new year has seen the launch of our new expedition, beginning with Immersion Week which is when we are given lots of clues about what our new expedition and guiding question might be about. We have to try and piece the clues together, looking out for any red herrings!
We started by sharing the following quotation:
‘I wanted you to see what real courage is. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.’
We then watched the opening credits to the film ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’.
What could the connection be?
Yesterday, we travelled to Liverpool where we visited the International Slavery Museum. We are now busy trying to work out how what we saw and heard could link with our new expedition.
Today, we took part in a Gallery Walk, contemplating different images, some happy, some quite harrowing, and thought about how these could also be linked. A couple of us think we spotted some red herrings!
So far, words such as unique, slavery, division, separation, punishment, racism and rights have been shared.
The ‘big reveal’ is on Friday – what do you think our new expedition will be about?
E24 are gearing up for their final assessment in STEAM by revising the content we have covered in our expedition A Place Of Our Own. They used a scaffold to support their summary notes of the main concepts and key words, using colour, text and images to highlight the information in ways which they felt were most meaningful to them. Here they are sharing best practice and supporting one another in filling in any gaps in their knowledge:
E25 have been working hard creating original choreography to accompany a piece of poetry for their Presentation of Learning next week. The poem is called ‘Let’s Unite’ and was originally written in Pashto, although we are using a translation from the Poetry Translation Centre.
Here is a taster of the first few lines of the poem for you – written in the original language of course – we can’t ruin the surprise!
په دی ښایسته دنیا کې
په دی یوه دنیا کې
مونږه جدا جدا یو
مونږه تنها تنها یو
لکه د لاس د ګوتو
لکه د لمر د وړانګو
زمونږه پښو نه لاندې
Students considered the imagery in the poem, identified the patterns of repetition that we could build on and used Kind, Specific and Helpful critique to hone their ideas into movements which enhance the spoken text. Last week we even had an extra special guest in the Civic Mayor of Doncaster, Councillor Majid Khan, who witnessed rehearsals during a tour of XP East.
I can’t wait to see the finished product when all three X Block groups bring their work together. The students have taken the lead in idea generation and directing, using the skills and techniques we have been studying in Drama since the beginning of term. I’m really proud of what they have achieved so far, well done E25!
We’ve had another fantastic week in Pioneer during Hums! We have started to work towards answering the guiding question to our expedition: ‘Does war unite or divide?’
We first started to bring together all the ways that war unites and divides us, drawing from HUMAN and STEAM lessons, particularly focusing on the Great War. A part of this was looking at examples of unification and division in War Horse (which is the anchor text to our expedition). Each group had a different extract of the text and had to identify where and explain why unification and division took place.
Next, the students became teachers! They taught each other about the extract they had, the examples they found and why they had chosen them. It was great to hear how eloquently the students summarised their chapter to each other and how they could provide evidence from the text to support why they had identified a section as either unification or division – or sometimes both!
I can’t believe we’ve nearly finished this expedition, it’s been immensely rewarding watching the students of 7Pioneer grow academically and socially over the last few months and I can’t wait to begin our next one in the new year.
C24 have been working in both maths and art on applying their knowledge of geometry and architecture to create blueprints of their own Eco-school. We firstly estimated the length and width of our own classroom in metres, which we then validated by collectively measuring the room, so we’d know roughly what size we’d need to scale the blueprints up to.
We then used computer aided design – an app called Room Sketcher. The students realised the minimum area for a classroom to cater to 25 students was 42m squared. The students then populated their classrooms with items that the Architect expert who visited in October had suggested on her blueprint of XP East.
Here are Libby and Alesha’s designs! I can’t wait until we get them finished next week. I love how Alesha has started to develop specialised classrooms and learning spaces. Libby used inspiration from our architect expert and used the adaptable sliding doors.
Another extremely stand-out piece of work was Callie’s extended study. She has re-created the corridor that my classroom lies on. I was blown away by her efforts and craftsmanship and quality – even down to the desk arrangements!
Here’s the link to the app for any C24ers who would like to carry on with their designs.
What a morning of productivity!
These guys have been on it all day, working hard, getting smart, and crafting some really powerful and engaging poetry.
And we’re only on the first draft so far!
Amazing.
