Product launch

By C Duffield6th December 2017

 

On Thursday 30th November all of our students came together for the product launch session. During the session students were introduced to the final stage of the expedition and the groups they will working in to produce the final product, then they looked at a final product that has been produced by students from XP.

Students worked in pairs making notices and wonders about sections of the book and then feeding back to the rest of the school. Mr Smith then encouraged students to make suggestions for our product and how we can make it unique to us. The aim of this protocol was to ensure our product is produced to a high standard and reaches the levels of craftsmanship and quality expected of XP East students. By using the XP product as a model students were able to visualise what is achievable as a whole school community when working collaboratively.

 

 

Fantastic work !

By C Duffield5th December 2017

After hearing so much positive feedback from our students SLC’s over the last few weeks, I was so lucky to be invited to Alanis’ SLC. I was so impressed with how well she spoke about her learning and the use of her portfolio throughout. Her confidence is growing and her personality really shone through.

It is easy to forget that our students are only in their 12th week at XP East and secondary school, especially when listening to them articulate what they have learn’t.

Thank you to Alanis and a huge well done to all of our students on completing your first SLC.

Good luck to those who have got theirs over the coming week.

Leading our own debrief..

By K Poncia30th November 2017

As part of our X Block sessions, we are working on a piece of drama which we are going to share as part of our Presentation of Learning in December.

Mrs. Poncia and Mrs. Parker were blown away when we circled up and debriefed our work so far.  Alyssa took the lead and used protocols such as ‘Whiparound’ to allow us all to share our ideas.

Alyssa explains:

‘We sat in a circle and everyone listened to me.  Then I said, “Let’s do a Whiparound and then we’ll build on our answers if we need to.”  

This really showed me that we are able to lead our own discussions without the teacher telling us what to say or do.’

Answering our Guiding Question: first draft

By A Parker28th November 2017

One of the principles of expeditionary learning is that learning can’t be done in one draft.  Along with self-reflection, we expect our students to give and receive feedback to one another, and redraft their work until their ‘good’ work becomes ‘great’ work.  All feedback has to be Kind, Specific and Helpful.

7Pioneer started writing their first draft answer to the guiding question today.  Over the next few days, we’ll share examples of their work at different stages, so you too can appreciate the power of peer critique and the redrafting process.

Here are the opening paragraphs from Tom D, Callie, George and Nicole. The quality of work is already impressive, and Mrs Poncia and I are excited to see how this first draft evolves into the finished article.

 

 

Selling soup

By A Parker25th November 2017

Some excellent work from 7 Pioneer this week in Discrete Maths!

They have been building on their fractions and decimals knowledge to work out proportional relationships and ratios.

The problem they had to grapple with was how to make the most profit from selling 500 servings of soup, based on a random sample of 40 people.

As ever, the emphasis was on showing and being to explain the rationale behind their thinking rather than getting the correct answer.

What does the community of Doncaster owe to the railways?

By A Parker25th November 2017

That is the question we’ve been working towards answering since we embarked on our first learning expedition in September. This week in HUMANS, 7 Pioneer have been analysing historical sources and making lots of notes which will help them finally answer the guiding question in their assessed piece of writing.

 

Art sessions in X-Block

23rd November 2017D Pearson

It’s full steam ahead as we come closer to the completion of our final product…..

Having practised cross-hatching and block shading, sketching to proportion, vanishing points and lines of perspective, we are moving to the final exciting phase on our journey towards producing our final product. This week we transferred our sketch drawings of trains onto higher quality cartridge paper, and our art work is really taking shape thanks to the use of acrylic paints to add depth to our designs.

‘Shape of You’ – Thank you Louie B!

23rd November 2017Jamie Portman

Thank you to Louie B in 7 Explorer who chose the song ‘Shape of You’ by Ed Sheeran for an activity that opened our lesson today.

Students had to link the lyrics to what we are studying: ‘What does the community of Doncaster owe to the railway?’ It is an activity where students need to think really carefully about what the lyrics could mean within the context of what they are learning about.

Both myself and Miss Duffield were amazed with the connections that they made. Links to the lyrics revolved around previous studies around source work, economic and social benefits, indirect and direct employment, specific jobs, attitudes at the time and many more.

See if you can link the lyrics to Doncaster’s past!

 

 

‘FREEZE!’

By Jamie Portman21st November 2017

Today I shouted ‘FREEZE!’ to everyone in 7 Explorer.

I then asked specific students to ‘unfreeze‘ in order to show the body language of students in the class, whilst others were still seemingly frozen in time.

This helped me to physically show how every single student was totally absorbed in our historical enquiry on sources from Doncaster’s past. Their body language showed a level of intensity that resulted from their determination to move forward in their learning.

As you can see from some of the photos, students were interrogating the details in the historical sources to find clues into how the community of Doncaster benefited from the Railway. I was thoroughly delighted with their focused approached, and by the way in which they can adopt an enquiring mindset to the task in hand.

Drama

By A Parker17th November 2017

We’ve had an amazing week in Drama, as students begin to plan their performance for their first ever Presentation of Learning.  We won’t reveal too much at this stage, but if the storyboards are anything to go by, it’s going to be spectacular!

Next week, we’re moving onto scenery and scripts.