Analysing the Numbers in Crew Parkinson

By H Hickson4th April 2019

Last week, Crew Parkinson received their second data drop since beginning XP East. The students were graded on their academic achievement for each subject and their Habits of Work and Learning (HOWLs), which are: work hard, get smart and be kind.

The students compared this to their MEG (minimum expected grade) and have each created a spreadsheet to record their data. We looked back at their data from November and compared it to March’s data to look for the progress they have made. I am pleased with how many students in Crew are on, above or well above their MEG across their subjects – this just shows how their hard work pays off. See for yourself below! 

We will spend the coming Crew sessions continuing to analyse and reflect on our grades and HOWLs. Overall, I am super impressed with the HOWL grades, however, we have identified that some students have slipped a little in their HOWLs. Therefore, we will spend time to unpick the reasons for this and how we can make a step in the right direction to improve. We also acknowledged that a lot of students in Crew have also improved their HOWLs from the last data – this is fantastic and it certainly shows when looking at students academic grades.

So, how does this compare to the other Crews? We’re definitely doing well, although there is still room for improvement. We’re currently 3rd for Work Hard, 1st for Get Smart and 2nd for Be Kind. Congratulations Crew! 

Although this post may have been an overload of numbers, they are vitally important for students to understand their learning and take responsibility for it due to the conversations and reflections that these numbers allow. Over the next week, for example,  Crew will ask themselves:

  • which part of my conduct in lessons has made my HOWLs increase/decrease/stay the same?
  • why has my academic grade increased/decreased/not changed?
  • what do I need to do to increase my HOWLs/academic grade?

I’d like to reiterate how proud I am of Crew and the work that they produce. However, most importantly, it’s the support and friendships that have been made within Crew which have made us such a powerful team.

Harvey inadvertently created a Crew catchphrase which fits this moment perfectly: huzzah and hurrah!

 

 

Academic Crew: Where are We? Where do we want to be?

By K Poncia4th April 2019

Over the last two weeks, Crew Churchill have been analysing our recent grades for academic attainment and HoWLs.
We were delighted to find out that all of our Crew’s HoWLs grades have improved. So, well done, Us!

We are now busy making notices, wonders and writing questions about our data.
From this, we will be talking to staff to help us set targets and make pledges to help us progress even further!

We’re on it!

Sports Crew: Finch vs Mandela!

By Megan Riddiough3rd April 2019

During Crew today, Crew Finch went down to the sports hall to have a mini bench ball tournament against Crew Mandela.

We won 3-2 and I think this is because we pulled together as a crew and communicated well. In addition to this, members of our Crew would pass the ball to someone else if they felt like they had the ball a lot without being told to do so. We supported the weaker players by ensuring the ball was passed to them once the stronger players were on the bench.

A big well done for Crew Finch for showing what we are capable of doing when we pull together as a team, and now we know just how much we are capable of, we have set the standards even higher!

These Crew events are important as they help us to bond together more and work together as a whole Crew. No one gets left behind.

After the tournament, we circled up in Crew to discuss what worked well for our team.  Aden said that us winning today shows how far we’ve come as a Crew, and we wouldn’t have done so well this time last year. We all agreed that we have definitely grown stronger as a Crew in Year 8.

On behalf of Crew Finch, I would like to thank Crew Mandela for inviting us into the sports hall.

Written by Megan.

Photos by Dakota.

 

Shackleton #FlashbackFriday

By A Brown1st April 2019

As part of our push to try and reflect on our learning, we’ve been doing #FlashbackFriday for a few weeks now. It’s been great to really focus on what crew members have been learning and reflect purposefully on our learning each week.

I particularly liked how April focused on character growth and life skills in this week’s #FlashbackFriday; and Denim’s focus on really important social skills.

The task is simple: share one specific thing you have learnt (in or out of school) in the last week.

Yet, the purpose is much more powerful.

It’s important to ensure we focus on what we’ve learnt to identify our strengths and areas for improvement, but also to make sure we begin to move the things we’ve learnt into our long-term memory, from our short-term memory.

This week we added a self-critique of HOWLs to keep us focused on our own progress each week and reflect on HOW we learn.

Lots more to come on this! Keep reflecting Crew Shackleton!

Appreciating Alesha for student-led Crew

28th March 2019D Pearson

Today’s Crew Young was led very competently by Alesha. I really must appreciate her for her detailed planning and delivery of a baking session that everyone enjoyed and took part in. Alesha selected a cookie recipe, mindful of the time limits, calculated a cost price and went shopping on behalf of 12 other students…..showing skills that students in year 9 at XP School are currently developing on their Duke of Edinburgh programme. Thank you Alesha, we loved the session!

 

 

Academic Crew Young this week

27th March 2019D Pearson

Today Crew Young were tasked with selecting a piece of recent work which best represents their adherence to our HOWLs, and/or progress against MEGs, and/or of which they are particularly proud. In a similar way to our Student-Led Conferences, students were then encouraged to share and articulate their learning, as a focus of Academic Crew, explaining how they had shown particular resilience or where they had produced work of notable craftsmanship and quality.

Dominic chose his Macbeth assignment because: “Sir said it’s the best piece of work you’ve ever done“.

Keisha also chose her Macbeth piece: “although I found it frustrating, I enjoyed it a lot and spent quite a bit of time on it“.

George was most proud of answering questions to a very high grade on his HUMS test, which considerably exceeds his MEG.

Aaron shared his work on how characters were influenced in Macbeth, whilst Adam surprised us with his technical terms used to articulate his choice of maths as: “I am most proud of performing inverse operations to find the missing number in calculations“.

Lewis was delighted that he achieved the highest grade in HUMS, as it is a grade that considerably exceeds his MEG.

A very positive and encouraging academic crew check-in from Crew Young – well done everybody!

 

When hard work pays off…

By A Parker26th March 2019

It might just look like rows of numbers to you, but to me it’s proof that the work we’ve been doing in Academic Crew around our habits of work and learning is paying off!

I’ve had a sneak peek at the latest assessment data for Crew Finch, and I’m pleased to say that there has been a massive improvement in the grades awarded to our Crew members for getting smart, working hard and being kind across Humanities, Science and Maths.  I’m also pleased to report that the Crew average in all areas has risen since the last data drop in November (assuming my maths is correct!)

I’m going to wait for Mr Portman’s “big reveal” before posting our results, but let’s just say it’s looking good for Crew Finch!

But, do you know what? Wherever Crew Finch appear on the year group league table, I do not doubt the effort they have all been putting in, both in Crew and in classes.  The data tells me all I need to know and I’m super proud of them all 🙂

How do we best learn?

By Katie Haughey25th March 2019

It’s safe to say that Crew Turing had all missed one another after enjoying a restful couple of weeks off! We started the week with pancakes, after I promised we’d make them on pancake day, having failed to realise we weren’t in school. As per usual, everyone pitched in with preparing and de-gungeing, and were ready to hit the ground running in session 1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A significant deadline that we decided to dedicate time to last week was the STEAM assessment. We used Tuesday’s crew to revise some of the content that would appear on the assessment. I was delighted to see so many members of my crew had already made great progress with this, and they had been working at home and in extended study by using the expedition site and all the other amazing resources Mrs Townsend had provided. However, revision is one of those often difficult tasks to execute well, so I decided to direct my crew to look into how we learned. During the session on Tuesday, we examined the following:

Now, I am not suggesting this pyramid and the percentages it is suggesting are totally accurate, however, it was a great way of getting crew to think about how they learned best. We were particularly interested in being able to retain knowledge and be able to recall it. What we see above rang true to crew members, we are more likely to remember something if we have been participating in the learning, and if we can teach someone else, then we have definitely learned it!

It was fantastic to see Reece putting this into practice by drawing specialised cells on mini-whiteboards for others to identify during extended study on Wednesday night. I advised all my crew that as long as you remain on-task, revising with someone else can really improve retention.

I set my crew the challenge of going away and doing some ‘explore further’ work that they need to prepare and share with crew this week. The topic is chosen by them, and I’ve advised they use the expedition sites to help them decide if they are unsure on what they would like to research. They are to prepare a no more than 5 minute master class for crew on what they have learned, which should not be something they have already done in class, but related to what they have been doing. I’ve had some amazing suggestions for topics so far – Alice is building her spanish vocabulary and Callum and Charlotte are researching case studies of slave traders. I can’t wait to hear what they have to share!

Academic Research Diary- Extended Study

By J Smith24th March 2019

Crew Mandela have a new protocol for Academic Crew!

All students have their own Academic Research book, each week a topic will be selected by a crew member for students to take home and lead their own learning on extended study tasks set by crew.

This week I chose the first topic and this was based around the STEAM expedition ‘Is knowledge power?’ and static electricity!

The research books have been taken by all members of crew and will form our academic check in on Tuesday. Raven was particularly excited about leading his own research into how lighting can strike in the same place twice and how electrical storms form.

Crew Young: Louie’s student-led session

22nd March 2019D Pearson

The concept of students as leaders of their own learning permeates everything we do at XP East. This week Young’s student-led Crew session was centred around a table tennis tournament. Thanks to Louie, supported by Aaron, for setting out the equipment, explaining the rules, organising the pairings and collating the scores. Quite by coincidence Louie eventually won the tournament.

Other students in Crew Young are planning their student-led sessions – with baking and mindfulness featuring amongst the ideas currently being considered. Thanks Louie!!!