What an amazing day abseiling in Monsal Dale, Derbyshire. Feeling a little sore from the 8 mile walk yesterday, Crew Shackleton tackled the short walk to the bridge we’d be abseiling from and then confronted their fears with courage and compassion for each other.
For many, this was a new experience, so hats off to everyone who gave it a go!
See the highlights from our morning…
Orienteering was excellent in the afternoon after a brief lunch stop. Unfortunately we were too busy dodging cyclists, checking out lime kilns, reading maps, looking for clues and attempting to trick Crew Ali with cunning decoys….that I forgot to take photos. But take my word for it, it was a great afternoon.
While students up and down the country will be returning back to classes next week, XP East’s E25 returned on Tuesday to embark on a week long expedition, allowing them to re-immerse themselves in our school’s culture. Mr Brown kicked off the day with a community meeting centred on the incredible achievements of X21’s GCSE results. The underlying theme we noticed in the reasons for their success was crew, so we moved on to our guiding question for the week:
How crew are you?
Five weeks is a long time off, we had a lot of catching up to do in morning check in. Spending the first day back is fundamental, it allows time for us to familiarise ourselves with the support network we have built last year. We reviewed what had worked so well in the first year, and what we were going to do this year moving forward.
In session 2, we got stuck in with a crew challenge, where we had to build a tower from straws and other materials that would stand unassisted for a whole minute. Sadly, no crew managed it (it is very tricky to execute!) but the conversations that were had afterwards were reflective and really allowed students to unpack their role in the activity.
We often use the phrase ‘no pilots, no passengers’ to ensure that every person in crew is guaranteed a role. Listening to my crew analyse points where they may have taken over too much or when they were passive shows how much they’ve grown since year 7. We took the reflections from the tower session into the inter-crew competitions.
We spent the afternoon in the sports hall completing mini challenges as crews. I noticed a real difference in how well my crew cooperated in this session from the tower session. Students were giving others pointers and tips. I saw students encouraging others, sharing water, offering help with degunge. This afternoon, while it was fun, was also really valuable in reestablishing what crew is all about.
Some admitted to feeling nervous or worried about what challenges might lie ahead in year 8, with them no longer being the youngest in the school. We’ll tackle them together this year as crew. What was pretty lovely about that first day though, is that during check out, every member of crew said they had a really great first day back. Can’t wait to hear their reflections on ‘how crew’ they are on Friday!
What a fantastic start to the academic year for Crew Shackleton today. It was great to be back and see everyone again, and most of all see how keen (if not a little tired) everyone was to be back at school again.
Guiding question for the week:
How Crew are you?
Yesterday, as our Crew Challenge to help us consider the guiding question, we split up into random groups of 3, and undertook the challenge of protecting an egg as it was dropped from the top balcony of the school. All the groups had was:
3 marshmallows
10 cocktail sticks
a small piece of pipe foam insulator
3m of tissue paper
sticky tape
a plastic bag
Highlights below…
A really successful activity that allowed us to start to get back into working as a Crew and work towards answering out guiding question by the end of the week. We made some excellent observations and reflections on how well we managed to work together, or not so well in some cases, and promised to revisit the challenge later in the term with fewer materials and a harder set of rules for the challenge. To not only complete the challenge more successfully, but work better as Crew to do it.
The first day back has been a whirlwind, but I’m happy to say that Crew Ali have taken it in their stride and ‘hit the ground running’ as we like to say at XP East. We began our week as we always do, with a check-in to see how everyone was feeling after the summer holiday. It was an opportunity to share stories and experiences, but also to discuss how we had built our character and challenged ourselves during the time away from school.
We did a kit check to make sure we are ready for our hike and activity days later in the week, as Craftsmanship and Quality in preparation is really important; unfortunately not all of our Crew were fully prepared for the check, but this is definitely a learning point for next time, particularly as we begin the Duke of Edinburgh Award next year.
Today’s activities included building a VERY wobbly Tower of Power (build the tallest tower you can in 30 mins using only paper, string and sellotape! It didn’t stay standing but our debrief really helped us unpack what went well and what we could do better next time. Our ability to reflect is a strength of what we do at XP East and it is a skill we continually practice. The enthusiasm from the Crew in our afternoon’s inter-Crew Minute To Win It activities really set a great tone for the week.
Check out Miss Haughey’s video here:
It’s going to be a busy week, but we are going to have a great time in Crew!
Well, what a Sports Day! Crew Ali are delighted to share the news that our crew were the overall winners on our very first Sports Day at XP East. It was a tough day, with inter-crew rounders and football tournaments followed by track and field events at the fantastic Doncaster Keepmoat Stadium facilities.
The weather was great, the sense of community was palpable and today just felt like…Crew! I was particularly impressed with how all of our students across the school pulled together through the events where some individuals needed more support and encouragement. A huge thank you to all our parents and friends for helping our students to prepare and for your involvement this year. Our students are a credit to you all.
School starts on Tuesday 27th August where we will be embarking on a week of crew.
Throughout the week students are required to be at school at normal time (8:30am) but finish times will be slightly different depending on the schedule for the day. Students will require a pen, pencil and ruler this week and a kit list has been sent out for Wednesday and Thursday.
The week’s schedule will be as follows:
Tuesday – In school with a normal finish time of 3:15. There is no extended study in school this week.
Wednesday – Out of school on crew activities so students will need a backpack with a packed lunch, a bottle of water, hiking boots and waterproofs. Please check the kit list for further details of the required clothing. Please can students come to school in trainers, not their walking boots. We are expected to be back at school for around 5pm.
Thursday – Out of school on crew activities so students will need a backpack with a packed lunch, a bottle of water, hiking boots and waterproofs. Please check the kit list for further details of the required clothing. Please can students come to school in trainers with their walking boots in their bag. We are expected to be back at school for around 5pm.
Friday – Students will be in school all day. Their week will be completed with a Presentation of Learning commencing at 2:15pm which parents are invited to attend and support students as they answer their Guiding Question.
Please refer to these important docs and ensure you and your child are familiar with them.
The end of last week saw Crew Ali out in the sunshine doing Clean Up Crew, a weekly fixture which Crews sign up to do across XP and XP East. One of our core values is Stewardship and the principle that we ‘leave no trace‘. It’s really important to us that we all roll our sleeves up and get involved, and it’s amazing how much litter we found blowing in from outside the school grounds. This is something Eco Crew have identified as one of their areas to work on as we prepare to apply for our Bronze Award and Eco Reps Keisha, Aaron, Sami and Alice are leading on this.
Click here to visit the Eco Crew website and find out more.
E25 will be holding the Presentation of Learning for their current expedition ‘Three Cheers for Trees!’ on Thursday 18th July at 5.30pm.
Students have been working extremely hard throughout their expedition and this will be an opportunity for them to share their learning with parents, carers and visitors.
We will also have a surprise to share with you at the end of the evening – the grand revealing of our final product!
It’s been all systems go in Crew Parkinson in preparation for their SLCs over the last 2 weeks. 9 members of Crew have had their SLCs now and I am impressed with the quality of them. It showed the students have been getting smart as overall the standard has improved since their first SLCs in November due to the work they have put in. It was great to hear the students reflect on their academic grades, their HOWLs and the work they found challenging, would like to improve and are proud of, as well as setting targets for themselves to take forward.
As a bit of relief from the SLC preparation, we played a game of Crew hockey, organised by Bob. After a great game, we circled up and reflected on where we had seen the character traits during the game. The crew identified members who had shown either respect, compassion, integrity, craftsmanship and quality or courage during the game. For example:
Ava was identified as showing courage because Bob nominated her as team captain and although she wouldn’t have chosen to lead her team she certainly stepped up to the mark!
Marcus and Kris were appreciated by Crew for overcoming a small disagreement and showing compassion and respect to each other and Crew so that the game could continue.
Callum was appreciated for his craftsmanship when scoring 2 goals – well done!
This discussion led to a wider conversation reflecting on the year. We talked about how although our Crew is made up of people with very different personalities, beliefs and interests but we have all grown together as Crew. I’m so thrilled to be their Crew leader and build even stronger bonds over the next academic year!
Over the past couple of weeks, crew Turing have been getting their resources prepared for the student led conferences. This will be my crew’s second presentation meeting between them, myself and their parents. I’m anticipating that a further six months at the school will really improve the standard, and I am expecting them to be excellent.
I’m incredibly impressed to see so many members of my crew attend the after school SLC preparation sessions and come to meet me in their spare time to continue uplevelling their scripts. The Thursday sessions have been a great opportunity to get some detailed feedback from myself, plus we’ve ended each session on a high and have dedicated 20 minutes to team games, which have been a lot of fun!
Other than this, each students had a 1 to 1 meeting where we have gone through their academic grades and HOWL scores from data drop 3 and enjoyed hot chocolates. I’m delighted to see so many members of my crew smashing MEGs and making significant gains on their HOWLs from the last data drop.
This week, I’ll be preparing a full data set that my crew can take home with them, and I’ll also be organising targets that will carry over to year 8.
