Dear Families of students in Year 11,
Further to the Spring Newsletter which you will have received earlier in the year, please find the attached letter which details some additions to our current offer of Extended Study and study support. This will come into effect fully after next weeks mock exams and leading up to the start of the summer GCSE examinations which begin during the next half term.
Best wishes,
Mr Voltaire
We would like to appreciate everyone who came to our GCSE Support evening. We hope you found the information useful and that you and your son/daughter feel more confident about where and how to access revision support for each subject.
We know there was a lot of information to take in on the night so we have attached the presentation for you to go through again in your own time.
As mentioned at the evening, the GCSE Revision Support website is now live with subject specific resources, links to Y11’s 2023 calendar, our current revision timetable and lots more information for students and parents. Please bear in mind that this is a work in progress with new links and information being added as we speak!
If you do have any more questions, here’s a reminder of who to contact (please include your child’s Crew Leader in any emails you send.)
| Citizenship | [email protected] |
| Spanish | [email protected] |
| English | [email protected] |
| Maths | [email protected] |
| Science | [email protected] |
| History | [email protected] |
| BTEC Sport | [email protected] |
| Art, Craft and Design | [email protected] |
If you have any other questions your feel weren’t covered in the presentation, please contact your child’s Crew Leader or Phase Lead: Angella Parker for XP East ([email protected]) and Mel Cocliff for XP ([email protected])
We’d also like to take this opportunity to say a massive ‘well done’ to all the Y11’s who have completed their Student Led Conferences over the past few weeks. This was their opportunity to reflect on their mock exam grades (which most did with honesty and integrity!) and discuss how they are going to keep focussed and motivated during the next few weeks leading up to exams.
Thank you all for your support.
Angella and Mel.
As part of Y11’s History course, we have a wonderful opportunity to visit the site of Wabtec in Doncaster – which was formerly Doncaster Plant Works – a massive part of our heritage! One of the history GCSE papers Y11 will sit is based around this local site and we’re really privileged to be able to visit the birth place of both The Mallard and the record breaking Flying Scotsman – where students will gain a real insight into the site’s significance, both locally and nationally.
ALL of E25 will be attending on Tuesday 24th January 2023. Explorer’s fieldwork will take place in the morning, leaving XP at 9:15am and returning at 11:30am. Explorer will be in sessions as normal in the afternoon.
Pioneer’s fieldwork will take place in the afternoon – leaving XP at 1:15pm and returning back to XPE for around 3:00pm. Pioneer will be in sessions as normal in the morning.
Lunches should not be affected, but students may wish to bring a packed lunch. We have now secured a coach to transport us from XPE to Wabtec Rail.
If you have any questions/queries, please contact crew leaders, or the following:
Mrs Hannam – History Lead – at [email protected], or Miss Cocliff – X25 Phase Lead – at [email protected]
I am absolutely thrilled with the attitude that Crew have got now they’re in year 11 – everyone is 100% focused on the end goal and working really hard in sessions to achieve the best they can! It’s been great to know that many of crew are attending after school revision sessions and I’m hearing really positive things about their conduct from teachers. Keep this momentum going – I’m so pleased with you all and you deserve to do well after all the effort you’re putting in to your education. Everyone has already got at least one praise point so far and here’s just some of the praises for Dylan, Lacey, Bob, Callum and Toby have got since the start of term:
As Y7 and Y8 go off on their Outward Bound adventure, Y9, Y10 and Y11 will also spend the first week back with their crews undertaking various activities because, if we get Crew right, we get everything right 🙂
The plan for the week is above, and you will notice that it includes a coastal walk to Flamborough. Details of the coastal walk for each year group have been posted on separate blog posts:
Crew Leaders will go through the kit list with crews before we break up.
If you have any questions, please contact your child’s Crew Leader.
#wearecrew
As ever, we will be kicking off our first week back at school by regrouping and rebooting Crew.
On the very first day back – Tuesday 30th August – our C25 (new Y11) students will be going on a coastal walk to Flamborough.
Students should arrive at school between 8am-8.15am so that we can leave at 8.30am. We are aiming to be back at school by 3.30pm, but will keep you updated on the day.
All students will be expected to bring the Outdoor Kit listed below:
For further information or questions please email your child’s crew leader.
Thanks!
Just a quick notice to let all Y10 students and parents/carers know that History revision sessions will be resuming after the holidays, starting this Monday.
We will be offering two nights of History revision:
This is an excellent opportunity for students to embed their learning, to gain support, to practice exam technique and to push themselves further. It really is important that students are revising outside of lessons and this is perfect space to be able to do this successfully.
Students are welcome to come to both sessions or just one. In these sessions we will be recapping GCSE content and applying this to exam questions as well as giving students time to self study areas which they feel they need further development.
Y10 have made a fantastic start to their History GCSE and are working really hard in sessions. We now need to continue this hard work outside of the classroom, there is an expectation that students should now begin revising in their own time to embed the content already covered and prepare themselves for their GCSE exams.
If you have any questions regarding extended study, please don’t hesitate to email Mrs Elliott ([email protected])
Looking forward to seeing you this week!
Mrs Elliott / Miss Hickson
It seems like a lifetime ago when we first started to prepare for the Year 10 History mock exams and finally now the whole process is complete and I am really proud of how the students conducted themselves through the process. It all started after October half term with weekly revision being set and the start of after school revision classes – it was great to see so many students taking responsibility for their learning and putting in the effort to prepare for their exams. In our lessons we spent time going through exam technique and what to expect from each style of question and it was clear to see that this advice had been absorbed and acted upon. After the mocks had been marked, students spent their time FIXing the assessments, responding to feedback to improve their answers to the questions and I am confident that they will do themselves proud if they continue. It also highlighted the importance of revision, with some students who maybe didn’t put enough work in being disappointed by their result, I hope this acts as a lesson to learn from and not make these same mistakes as we continue through their GCSE content – as we keep saying, if you don’t know the content you can’t write an answer!
A massive well done to all students who achieved their target grade and a special mention to students who did exceptionally well: Lewis, Zach H, Harvey, Rosie, Mollie and Ava – we are so proud of you and all your hard work has paid off! Keep going and you’ll smash your final exams in year 11.
A reminder as well to keep revising using both the Nazi and Vikings textbooks and to attend the after school revision sessions on Monday and Tuesday with myself and Mrs Elliott.
Written by Aaron, Ava, Lacey, Kris, Rosie, Dylan, Florence, Marcus, Harvey and Bob.
It was a welcoming and fun start of the new school year. We settled back into the Crew talking to everyone as we had our Crew breakfast. This helped us to settle back in and get used to being in Crew again. Then we did Mandala drawings to put up on the Crew wall for everyone to see, we drew images and patterns to represent our identity. Near the end, we did Minute to Win It games with the year group… our crew came last in them, but spirits we still high.
On Tuesday we played Sportshall games with the year group. During this we did multiple games to strengthen our team work and healthy competition between the Crews. Crew Parkinson and Crew Anoa’i managed to win one round with some amazing dives by the alliance piloted by Marcus.
We then had a Careers session to make a charity and research the careers and job roles needed to start the charity. We did this activity to understand the different roles and qualifications needed in different career paths, for example we needed advertisers, fundraisers, medical professionals and accountants. We talked about how one of the ‘climbs’ of this year will be starting our GCSEs and the future ahead and began thinking about the qualifications we might need for our careers.
The whole year group were given prompts in order to write a letter to our future selves. We did this as part of a ‘solo’. By writing these answers we would be reflecting on our current and past selves to see what we could improve and set ourselves future goals – we’ll see what the future holds!
On our walk on Friday, we showed lots of character traits, which included: helping Miss Johnson up the steps when she couldn’t get up them, we regrouped on the steep hills, and we overcame the challenge of the two steep and tall hills. This demonstrates that we don’t just give up at the slightest challenge but persevere and support each other, we all hit the ground running, and if we get Crew right, we get everything right!
To explain how we use Common Mission to support students to access different pathways to academic, career and life readiness at XP. Common Mission is a curriculum process that is additional to our Core GCSEs, where we further develop character and positive habits of work and learning in our students. In addition to our Core GCSEs, we run one session a week from Year 9 called ‘Common Mission’. These sessions allow students to think about, prepare and take qualifications in pathways that will help them to become who they want to be later in life. Common Mission sessions include career and further education advice, as well as time for them to study a GCSE of their choice if they have the motivation, capacity and capability to do so. Common Mission includes the opportunity to study a Choice qualification or to pursue other curriculum or personal interests. In these sessions students develop their self-study skills so they are ready for their next steps in the education process.
On Wednesday the 14th of April, students at X25 and E25 students will choose one of the following common mission options to develop their self-study skills so they are ready for their next steps in the education process, with the potential to gain the listed qualifications. 28th of April will be the start date Your support and guidance as parents will be invaluable to our students making a choice that is right for them. As well as discussions at home, our students will spend time in crew this week. Please see the video below outlining the overview of Common mission. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate use the form attached and I will answer any questions as soon as possible.
| Common mission Option | Potential Qualification | Specification |
| Business Studies | GCSE | AQA |
| Engineering | NCFE Level 1/2 | NCFE |
| Maths pushing 9.0 | Additional Study GCSE AQA | AQA Maths |
| Music | ABRSM | Level 2 Music qualification through the Rock School (RSL) |
| BTEC PE | BTEC | Pearson Edexcel |
| Triple Science | GCSE | AQA Triple Biol, chem, phys |
| Psychology | GCSE | AQA |
| Dance | BTEC | BTEC Pearsons Level 2 |
| Geography | GCSE | AQA |
| Core Expeditions | Additional Study | STEAM, MATHS, HUMAN |
| Self Study | Mix | Mix |
