Crew Young’s Academic Resolutions

By D Pearson9th January 2019

 

Crew Young got off to a blistering start to 2019, by tracing the origins of New Year’s Resolutions. We discovered this widely-held tradition dates back to Babylonian and Roman times, and has been linked to the reimbursement of monies owed to others and to promises made to Janus, the Roman God. On the left is an example of an early twentieth century New Year’s resolution postcard.

 

We have scrutinised Crew attendance data, and HOWLs grades to identify who gets smart, works hard and is kind to others. Whilst Crew Young were justly proud of their first place position in the Crew HOWLs comparison table, Lewis warned against the dangers of complacency, and pointed out that we could score even more highly.

This lead to a discussion about how we might answer our guiding question: “how can I hit the ground running in the first week back?”, and to the creation of a personal academic resolution that will be reviewed – and if necessary refined – and that we will need to consider when we appraise our performance in our next Student-Led Conference. Here are a selection of academic resolutions:

Merry Christmas from Crew Young!

By D Pearson21st December 2018

This week started with Crew Young’s completion of their “Earth, Wind and Fire” tree plaques, jointly with Crew Churchill, in our well-equipped technology workshop. The week ended with the official planting of the trees, together with the students’ plaques, in the grassed area adjacent to the perimeter fence. A very special appreciation for Mrs Duffield who not only gave master classes in the production of the plaques, but who also braved the elements this morning to help our students to curate their final product.

Between Monday and Friday we also dedicated time to silent reading and spent yesterday’s Crew session reviewing the reasons why we adopted “Crew Young” as our moniker. Crew Young lived up to the expectation that we do indeed think differently!

As Crew Leader I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of our Crew Young parents for their continued support of the school, to wish them a very Merry Christmas and a healthy and Happy New Year.

We start all over again at 8.30 a.m. on Monday 7th January 2019.

Champions in action!

By A Parker19th December 2018

To some, this might seem like a casual game of basketball.  But this is so much more. This is Crew Finch putting in the practice to make sure we hold on to our title as Inter-Crew Sports Challenge Champions!

We currently hold the title for our badminton prowess, but we’re pretty confident that we can have basketball in the bag – or should that be, hoop! – too, thanks to our secret weapon: Hatfield Flyers player, Tom!

Despite being split into two opposing teams, there was a great sense of teamwork and crew throughout session.  We circled up at the end, where Crew had the opportunity to appreciate one another.

The biggest appreciation went to Tom for his excellent coaching skills, top tips and sportsmanship.  Mackenzie was also appreciated for being an excellent team captain and for making sure everyone on his team were involved.

Inter-Crew Basketball comp: Bring. It. On!

If you can’t do it, don’t pledge to do it!

By A Parker18th December 2018

A massive well done to Crew Finch for completing their SLCs, and an even bigger thank-you to all the parents who came and supported their child through the process.  It’s always such a privilege to listen to our students’ learning journey and I’m constantly amazed at the progress they’re making.

That’s not to say the journey is easy, and part of the SLC was to reflect on their learning.  I have listened to some really honest and mature accounts of how each student thinks they can improve, and what they’re going to achieve their goals.

We often say that pledges aren’t just words, we expect our students to act on them!  So, we’ve recorded our academic and HOWL pledges and displayed them on our crew wall.

Some fantastic pledges have been made, but my favourite by far is Libby’s who pledges to…

“Bring all of my excitement every day!”

We will have regular check-ins during our academic crew sessions, and each student will be expected to update their parents on progress at their next SLC.

Well done, Crew!

Update from Crew Young

By D Pearson17th December 2018

Last week was a real mixed bag for Crew Young. As well as our weekly weekend check-in we spent time preparing tree plaques, completing our latest Accelerated Reader assessment, and constructing our own stories using improvisation and Mr Pearson’s Story Cubes.

Earth and Air Reboot

By J Smith12th December 2018

Expedition Earth and Air has taken a backseat in recent months due to other expeditions being completed by E24. Crew Mandela have been the first students in XPE to use the brilliant new workshop facility to complete their final product plaques. The plaques will be put into the ground to commemorate the tree planting in the school grounds. The crew worked extremely well and showed great care and craftsmanship and quality when using potentially dangerous equipment.

 

Product Lab in Crew

By K Poncia11th December 2018

Churchill Crew have spent time in our product lab creating their final product for the expedition ‘Earth, Wind and Fire’.

The final product involves planting trees around our school site and then commemorating each tree with a plaque designed by each student.

Take a look at their handy work…

 

Academic Crew: Poetic Devices

By A Parker7th December 2018

E24 have started work on their final product in HUMS.  They have been tasked with writing a poem about Doncaster, inspired by Tony Walsh’s ‘This is the Place’.

This week, we used Academic Crew to explore some of the poetic devices they could use in their poems.

We started off with a GoGoMo, before circling back up to have a game of bingo to see if Crew could match the definitions to the device.  Finally, Crew were split into teams, and each team had to find and give examples of 3 devices from the list.  There was some ‘healthy’ debate over the word ‘moaning’ as an example of onomatopoeia; Mr Brown later confirmed that it was! (Mackenzie – 1 Mrs Parker – 0!!)

Academic Crew gives us the opportunity to build on our skills and knowledge, to support what we’ve been learning in lessons.   It was lovely to see Crew support each other with their learning, and even lovelier to see members of my Crew putting some of their new knowledge into practice in lessons.

I can’t wait to read their poems!

Crew Young – perception vs reality

By D Pearson6th December 2018

This week in Crew Young we have been encouraged to consider our perception of ourselves, and others’ perception of us, versus reality. This is in order to reflect on our adherence to the HOWLs in an accurate and informed manner. Whilst Alesha finalised her preparations for her SLC this evening, the rest of Crew Young looked at Extended Study completion, as well as other factors that directly influence our attainment. We graded ourselves on the bullseye chart and then challenged each other for a rationale.

 

In a world where you can be anything, be kind.

By A Parker28th November 2018

In last week’s Community Meeting I appreciated two students for taking the time to come and check up on me on a day when I was feeling a bit out of sorts.  I thanked them for this and commented that although it may not have seen much to them, their small act of kindness had made my week!  Mr Portman pointed out that other schools have organised “Random Act of Kindness” weeks, but we didn’t need them because our students are kind all of the time.

And I agree… Well, mostly.

Today we had a difficult conversation in Crew.  Over the past few weeks there have been a number of incidents where a couple of members of Crew haven’t been particularly kind to their fellow students, either in their words or their actions.  The majority of Crew Finch are exceptionally kind, and they felt it was time to hold these two individuals to account for their actions.  The Crew had a very mature conversation about they type of people they wanted to be, and all agreed that being kind and empathetic are important traits.  Crew also acknowledged that nobody’s perfect and that we all make mistakes – what’s crucial is that we learn from the mistakes, make pledges to change our behaviour, and consequently become better, or in this case, kinder human beings!

Today’s session wasn’t planned; it just happened in response to a situation Crew weren’t happy with.  Yet again, the Power of Crew in action!