On Wednesday Ali and Libby invited us all to create our own identity chart. Some of our self portraits were more flattering than others! We really loved this session, especially as Ali and Libby linked it to the current work we’re doing in HUMANS around exploring our own identity.
We enjoyed it so much that we’re going to have a second session next week!
We were proud to support Megan’s fund raising for St John Ambulance by hosting a cake sale.
Big thanks to everyone who baked and bought cakes. We raised £28!
Find out more about the great work St John Ambulance do here.
In today’s crew we discussed friendships, and specifically how to deal with conflict within our friendship circles, and considered how our behaviour and words impact on others.
We used our character traits as a reference point for appropriate behaviour (see – they’re also relevant for our lives outside of school!) and we were able to start to resolve an issue between some of our crew members. We kept on coming back to the notion of ‘crew are family’, and discussed how upsetting it was to us a whole unit when people fall out. One thing we all strongly agreed on is that any issues which occur outside of school or at break times should be ‘left at the door’ and not impact on lesson time.
Building and maintaining good friendships is always tricky no matter how old you are. We’re in the unique situation of starting at a new school with new people to get to know. There are bound to be a few squabbles along the way. But we are also crew, and crew sort things out together.
I’m absolutely delighted to report that Crew APA not only managed 100% attendance this week, but also did so with no lates!
This is a big deal for us, as we’ve been working very hard on our timekeeping and attendance over the last few weeks, and the Crew support has been amazing!
A huge ‘Well Done’ to everyone for making the effort to come in every day, and on time. We now need to make sure that we keep it up!
😊
Wednesday’s are Crew Take Over Days, where two of our crew are responsible for planning and delivering our morning crew session.
This week Brendan and Aden led a session on character traits. This was a mind mapping exercise and crew members were instructed to think about what each character trait meant to them, and add their thoughts to each poster.
This was a great session as it’s always good to spend some time revisiting and reflecting on our character traits. Well done, Brendan and Aden!
I’m frequently humbled by what my Crew choose to share during our time together, and today was no exception as we shared our ‘Soundtrack to my life’ songs.
For this session, I asked my Crew to pick a song and tell us why it means something to them before we listened to it together. Music can evoke so many emotions and memories of special people and special times, and can make us happy or sad.
The Crew shared some very personal – and very moving – stories, and I was blown away by the compassion and support my Crew showed to one another. We cried together, we laughed together and yet again I was reminded why Crew is so important to us as a network of social and emotional support.
Here is Crew Parker’s soundtrack:
Nicole: Death of a Bachelor by Panic! At the Disco
Dakota: A Team by Ed Sheeran
Megan, Bryn, Tom D: Way too Good at Goodbyes by Sam Smith
Mackenzie: Not Alone by Harry Gardner
Ali and Libby: A Thousand Years by Christina Perry
Tom H: Wolves of Winter by Biffy Clyro
Noah: Sun Comes Up by Rudimental featuring James Arthur
Brendon: See you Again by Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth
Aden: Reasons by Mitchell Edwards
Mrs Parker: Uptown Girl by Billy Joel
Monday morning check-ins are my favourite, as we regroup and tell the rest of the Crew what we got up to at the weekend. Highlights from this weekend include trips to Lincoln’s Christmas Market and Old Trafford; family time; birthday meals; a wedding and a concert! But it’s not all about the good times. We also had to deal with a fallout between brothers, and a viscous cat!
Today, we also pulled names out for our Crew’s Secret Santa. Remember the rules: the gift should cost no more than £5 (bonus points for a handmade present!) and we’ll be gifting them on our last day, Friday 22nd December.
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.
Today we donned our finest hi-vis jackets (as modelled by Tom D, Mackenzie C and Thomas H), grabbed our litter pickers, a few bin bags and headed outside to clean up our school grounds.
The concept of “leave no trace” and respect for our environment is really important to us at XP. East. The fact that we are all responsible for keeping our learning space clean and tidy – both inside and outside – reinforces the sense of pride we have in our school.
Good work, Crew!
(Big thanks to Mr Smith’s Crew for helping out, too!)
A big well done to Dakota, Thomas, Mackenzie, Aden, Bryn, Tom, Megan and Nicole. You absolutely smashed your SLCs this week!
You all made your parents – and me – very proud!
Looking forward to hearing what Alanis, Brendan, Libby and Noah have to say about their learning and progress next week.
