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 and self assessment of HOWLs!
Scan this QR code or see applications here
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.
Scan this QR code or see applications here
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.
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
SLCs are nearly upon us,
Just a reminder for parents to sign up using this link to choose a 30 min time slot starting from the 1st of February.
Crew Mandela have invested lots of time this week putting together reflections and progress reports ready to be shared during the Student Led Conference! I am really looking forward to hearing students share their own work online with parents!
SLC Preparation:
The last two weeks in crew Mandela have been focused on moving the SLC process online. All crew members have been making the most of the home learning by going through the past 3 weeks online learning to find the very best pieces of work to include into their student led conference.
We have had some fantastic examples in crew Mandela, as shown by the example of the work below. Chloe T has gone above and beyond with her SLC presentation, not just in the preparation phase, but in the overall process of extremely impressive HOWL’s
Check out the quality of the online work collected into Chloe’s presentation
Student Led Online Crew
Massive appreciation to Raven O and Corey A for planning some fantastic online fun games for crew- examples of these are below, and it just goes to show that we don’t need to be in the building together to have fun as a crew.
The best activity was the game Scribble (online version of Pictionary) that really highlighted some highly creative ways of drawing some really difficult concepts!.
A massive appreciation to our Y10 families who donated items and gifts for our Christmas Hampers. Here are Silver DofE students Mackenzie and Thomas sorting out the boxes, which will be delivered to St John The Evangelist Church in Balby and The Trussell Trust at Christ Church next week.
We’re still accepting donations, but anything received after Monday 15th December will be donated to our school’s Kindness Boxes instead.
Thank you.
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:
If you are able to contribute, please can you send items in to be passed on to your child’s Crew Leader by Monday 15th December.
The hampers will be donated to St John The Evangelist Church in Balby and The Trussell Trust at Christ Church during the last week of term.
Thank you in advance for your generosity.
Kindness boxes:
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.
Thank you.
#aboveallcompassion
After a long period of time off, Crew Mandela and E24 have started their choice subject for a common mission! The crew have been well and truly on it this week, This week, we reviewed extended study that has been set in common mission and the craftsmanship and quality of the work produced in the crew has been amazing to see.
An example of this is one of the best pieces of work I have seen as a crew leader. Holly used some left over wallpaper to produce a revision resource for the second session in triple science.
We have had a lot of conversations this week during Mindful Monday to discuss how XP is different from other schools. This has been supported by the voices of two new students who have joined crew Mandela. The students have made a brilliant start and it has been refreshing to hear other students thoughts and opinions of why they have chosen XP.
In April we told you about changes to our DofE delivery in this blog post.
We now know that students won’t be able to complete the Outdoor Expedition within the original timescales set.
Unfortunately, this means that our Y9 students won’t be awarded the full Bronze Award this academic year.
However, DofE still want to recognise and celebrate participants’ achievements so far – and rightly so! – and will be awarding a Certificate of Achievement to all those who complete the Volunteering, Physical and Skills sections before the end of the year (31/12/20 is the official date but we will be setting our own school deadline, which is likely to be much earlier!)
Students will receive the full Bronze Award once they have completed the Outdoor Expedition, and we already have plans in place to get this done as soon as we can!
It is important to note that students will NOT receive the full Bronze Award if they don’t have the 2020 Certificate of Achievement before the end of the year.
We really hope you continue to support and encourage your child through their DofE journey.
Outdoor Education is a huge part of the XPE experience; it starts with Outward Bound and carries on through fieldwork and the DofE Awards we offer from Y9.
Students have completed the Volunteering section. This was done in school with Y9 students becoming Volunteer Reading Mentors for Y7.
We have asked all Y9 students to complete the St John Ambulance First Aid Course. Details have been uploaded onto the DofE Google Classroom.
I’d like to give a massive appreciation to the the following students who have been working through the weekly First Aid tasks that are being set for them:
Thomas H, Ben, Aran K, Rhys, Summer, Maclaren, Kaiden, Keisha, Theone, Eleanore and Chloe
Thank you all so much – I’m really impressed with what you’ve all done so far and would definitely feel safe being out on expedition with you guys!
There are still quite a few of students who need to join the classroom, or who have joined but have yet to start – it is really important that they make a start as soon as possible and get these tasks done!
Many students were using out of school activities as evidence for this section. However, once we went into lockdown, these activities were stopped and some students haven’t been able to collect enough evidence to complete this section.
However, students still need to continue with evidencing some form of physical activity and we have made some suggestions of what they could easily be getting on with: walking, running, gardening, Joe Wicks’ daily PE lesson on YouTube to name a few.
These sessions can be added to any which were previously recoded before lockdown (so you don’t have to start the 12 hours again!) but you MUST agree this with your Crew Leader. New evidence sheets are on the DofE Classroom.
All evidence will be submitted via the eDofE mobile app. It’s really easy to use and I’ll be in touch with each Crew to talk them through the process.
Thank you.
We have a new record in Year 9 for the most birds spotted in a single session.
Kyle in X24 spotted an incredible 60 birds from 14 different species, including a sparrow hawk and two herons.
Whilst we have not set any work for students in Year 9 to complete over the two week break we would love it if they continued with their birdwatching, bug hotels and bird boxes. Please remind them to send us lots of photos. We are in competition with XP for the most birds spotted. This means we need to up our game, as E24 are currently behind X24 in the leaderboard.
This afternoon at 3.00pm we will be hosting a hangout for all of Year 9 across both schools to find out how they have been getting on with their STEAM immersion challenges.
Students can join the meeting by logging into their school account and going to:
Attendance for the launch hangout was fantastic. Thanks to all of our families for your continuing support.
#wearecrew
