Crew Finch are embarking on an epic virtual journey to raise funds for our Crew Charity, Firefly Cancer Awareness and Support. This physical activity will also go towards the DofE Silver Award.
We are aiming to walk, run or cycle a collective total of 500 miles over the next 3 months (1st March – 30th June.)
Firefly provide free community transport for Cancer patients in our area to and from hospital for treatment and appointments. It is a vital service for these patients.
Firefly are currently operating 10 vehicles. I have spoken to Ian (Chewie) from the charity who tells me that they will use the money raised to put towards the cost of keeping these vehicles on the road. It currently costs the charity approx £1100 a week in fuel costs alone! They will also use the money to buy essential PPE for the volunteer drivers.
All charities have been hit really hard during the pandemic as they can’t rely on their usual fundraising activities so we would really, really appreciate it if you would contribute what you can to this wonderful cause.
Every little helps and it will motivate us all to go that extra mile (or 500!)
Here’s our fundraising link (donations go direct to Firefly):
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
After almost a year of bubbles, online learning, lockdowns, tiers – and tears! – I just wanted to send you this Valentine’s Day message to tell you how much I admire you all.
I admire your resilience.
I admire your courage.
I admire your motivation.
I admire your positivity.
I admire your humour (or at least humouring me!)
I admire your hard work.
I admire your compassion.
I admire that you are still working hard to become the best versions of yourselves.
I admire you for checking in every morning in Crew.
I admire that even through the toughest of times (or should that be especially through the toughest of times?) we are, first and foremost, Crew.
So, this Valentine’s Day I want you to take some time to send some love to the most important person in your life: YOU.
Love yourself. Appreciate yourself. Do something that makes you feel good.
(You definitely deserve chocolates and flowers, too.)
Because, as me and my mate RuPaul always like to remind you:
This week has seen the start of Crew Finch’s Y10 Student-Led Conferences. A massive well done to this week’s presenters – Ali, Noah, Mackenzie, Tom and Bryn – for the hard work and integrity evident in all their presentations, which went ahead online with only a few technical glitches! I am one very proud Crew Leader this week (even more so than usual!)
I’m looking forward to more of the same next week. I did email all Crew parents last week with the link to the booking form so if you haven’t already booked, please can I politely remind you to do so before next Thursday (11th Feb) – just email me if you’ve lost the link.
The first SLCs of Y10 are also the first time since the Y9 Passage Presentations that students have had chance to reflect on their academic progress and character growth, as well as presenting examples of their beautiful work. This process has been made easier by the information analysis sheets provided by Mr Allen (thank you, Sir!) They have really made our discussions and reflections much more meaningful, and have helped Crew to come up with some really pertinent pledges and targets.
(ICYMI: I spoke about how we’re using the information analysis and crew narratives to help us frame our pledges for the academic year in this post.)
There has been a new addition to our SLC agenda this time round. Crew have been asked to reflect on their work from home experience, including their online attendance, engagement and productivity. This has meant that we have had some difficult conversations (with more to come during next week’s conferences) but Crew’s self-awareness and honesty around the challenges they are overcoming have been truly humbling. Although I am a little bit heartbroken that one of my Crew thinks that the lockdown period will cause a ‘hinderance’ to his future prospects, despite his absolutely outstanding work ethic and attendance at every single session…
On the subject of attendance…
I’m disappointed to report that I’ve only had 50% attendance at Crew sessions this week. Even more disappointing is the fact that our Crew also have the lowest attendance and engagement levels in online sessions across the whole year group.
However, I don’t want this to overshadow how immensely proud I am of those who are turning up on time to Crew and daily lessons every single day: Tom, Thomas, Ali, Noah, Dakota and Kobe deserve a special mention and we’ll have to think about how we can celebrate your lockdown learning achievements once we’re back in school 🙂
So, I’ll just let Noah have the final word with his perfect explanation of why every day at school matters:
And it’s been a very busy 2 weeks of getting settled into our new online learning schedule, engaging in new expedition immersion activities (which have been brilliant!) and Crew, of course, which has been very much ‘business as usual’ from 8.30am every morning.
Although, as the quote above says, I feel we need to come back better than business as usual this term. It takes an extra boost of motivation, determination and integrity to show up online to Crew and daily lessons (especially on snow days!) and, even though we’ve had some very tired Crew members who’ve needed a virtual prod to get them fired-up on a morning, I’m really happy with the attendance and engagement from Crew across all lessons.
Crew Narrative Update
So, as we strive to be better than business as usual, we have spent quite a bit of time in Crew revisiting and refining our Crew Narratives, which now include students’ first Academic Progress grades of the school year. You can read more about the work we’ve been doing around Crew Narratives in this previous blog post: A HOWL-ing end to the year
Crew are looking forward to discussing their Crew Narratives, academic progress and pledges in more detail with parents at the upcoming Student-Led Conferences. More details and booking slots will be available soon.
Habits of Work and Learning
The latest HOWLs League Table has been released:
Coming second in all categories is certainly something to be celebrated but, as we pledge to be better than business as usual, we know we can all push ourselves to work harder, get smarter and be even more kind than we already are to maybe get us back to the top of the leader board. Our work and reflections in our Crew Narrative will help us to achieve this goal.
Happiness check-ins
It hasn’t been all work and no play for Crew: I have introduced them to the delights of Blankety Blank (how could they not know what that was?!) and had a daily happiness check-in using our very own Happiness Calendar.
I am a big fan of Action for Happiness’ Monthly Action Calendars and have used them in Crew before but this month we decided to create our own. Crew have come up with some absolutely smashing ideas, and we invite you all to use our calendar and commit to a daily happiness task yourselves:
I’ve chosen this photo from Christmas Jumper day to be our Official Crew Christmas Card.
(Can I just point out that no students were harmed during the taking of this photo, despite the look on Ali’s face haha!!)
Before I update you all on what we’ve been up to in Crew, I just wanted to give my personal thanks to all my Crew Parents for your unwavering support of myself and the school. I’ve really missed not being able to catch up with you face-to-face during SLCs or Presentations of Learning, but it’s so reassuring to know that whenever I phone you or send you an email, you’re always 100% behind what we do.
Thank you for being part of our Crew – I certainly couldn’t do this without you 🙂
I know Christmas is going to look and feel very different for a lot of us this year, but I’m sending you the sincerest of best wishes and hope you all have a restful break.
Our Y10 Silver DofE students have been unable to undertake their usual charity fundraising activities this year, so they’ve decided to create food hampers for our local food banks.
We’re all very aware of the financial impact the various lockdown/tier 3 restrictions have had on our community, especially on those who have been furloughed or are self employed and unable to work. So, in addition to the staple non-perishable items (cereals; tinned and packeted foods; tea/coffee/juice) we are specifically asking for donations of those ‘treat’ items that some families may have to go without this year.
For example:
nice biscuits
chocolates/selection boxes
Christmas crackers
mince pies, cakes, etc.
small gift sets (e.g. hand cream/deodorant)
If you are able to contribute, please can you send items in to be passed on to your child’s Crew Leaderby Monday 15th December.
The school are also collecting items for our kindness boxes, which we’ll be putting together to support families within our XP Trust. See this blog post for more information and, again, please donate if you can.
Towards the end of last term, Crew Finch undertook what has now become the annual task of setting their Pledges for the academic year.
Before doing so, we spent some time reflecting on the pledges from the previous year and, even though the last school year was interrupted, many of those pledges were fulfilled! For example, quite a few Crew members wanted to improve their reading and comprehension skills – Big Tick to several of those who pledged to do so, as shown with our recent AR Star Reader test results (as mentioned in this previous blog.)
I wasn’t surprised to see that many of this year’s Crew Pledges were focussed around their Choice GCSE/BTEC subjects. Although Choice is supported by a teacher or a mentor, there is a strong expectation that students become leaders of their own learning and commit to studying in their own time. Quite a few of these pledges recognise this and acknowledge that it’s going to be hard work.
Crew have not only pledged to work hard in their Choice subjects, they have also asked Crew to support them by holding them accountable and challenging them if they’re not working as hard as they should be (just a little ‘nudge’ now and then!)
This just goes to show how much Crew support is valued and needed, probably now more than ever.
We will have regular pledge check-ins throughout the year.
We’ve spent the past few Wise Wednesday Crew sessions looking at how sleep (or lack of!) affects our concentration and productivity at school. A lot of the discussions have been around what we can change to ensure we are getting a good night’s sleep, like making sure we go to bed at a decent time every night and making sure we start winding down as we prepare for bed for example, by switching off devices! Over the past week, we’ve done a daily sleep check-in and I’m pleased to say that most Crew members, including myself, have noticed an improvement in the quality of our sleep just by making small changes.
This week, we started to explore what other lifestyle factors impact upon our health and wellbeing by reflecting on some of the ‘bad’ habits we may’ve gotten into. We used the following video as a discussion point – a tongue-in-cheek instruction guide on how to be miserable. I think at some point most – if not all – of us recognised ourselves in this! It’s definitely worth sharing here for you to watch, too:
Watching the video and having our discussions made us realise that:
It is only by understanding bad habits that we can carve out good ones.
Mr Wilmot revisited this message during Friday’s Crew session, leading a session around being aware of what we do that we know is bad for our mental and physical health – and what we can do to start making positive changes.
Crew showed courage by sharing some of the bad habits they’re aware of, mostly around comparing themselves to who they see online, over-thinking, self-sabotage and imposter syndrome.
We looked at what we do when we do feel in a low mood: stay in our rooms, withdraw from those around us, no physical activity, we might eat too much junk food – all with the aim of making us feel better – which it may do for a little while – but these behaviours actually make us feel worse in the long run!
With that in mind, Mr Wilmot encouraged us all to take some time out this weekend and do something solely for ourselves, ideally away from the online world… something we know we will enjoy, to help us to reset our minds and make us feel better about ourselves. Hopefully, by developing the good habit of checking in with ourselves and doing more of what makes us happy, we’ll be able to cope better with the daily stresses around us. In a world that glorifies ‘busy’, this has never been as important. It’s also a very timely challenge with Saturday being World Mental Health Day.
I pledged to go out for a run and be really mindful of my surroundings rather than keeping my head down and focussing on the ground (pleased to say that I achieved that this morning – noticing the gorgeous autumnal changes on my regular route has definitely made me feel happier!) I’ll be checking in with Mr Wilmot next week to see if he’s read the last 100 pages of that book he hasn’t got round to finishing and also see if Crew have stuck to their own pledges to spend some time checking in with themselves over the weekend.
And finally:
