More fantastic focus from Crew Finch today as we continue to prepare for our SLCs. I can’t praise them enough for their work ethic at the moment – 45 minutes of hard graft before lessons even start!
I love how Megan has colour coded her cue cards to help her remember the key points of her presentation. Excellent preparation!
Crew Mandela have been working on their Student Led Conference work for the last two weeks. It has been amazing to see some of the work that students have been bringing out of expedition and into crew to reflect on how they have improved as learners.
This current SLC has a much higher demand from the students as they will be focusing on academic growth and devising strategies to improve as learners in the future. Crew Mandela are rising to the challenge of this and have made great steps to produce honest reflections on their habits of work and learning.
Crew Shackleton have been working hard to focus on the real purpose on SLCs to get the most out of their learning and experience. Lots of discussion, peer support, planning and hard work.
These are going to be good!
It has been a busy couple of weeks since returning from half term for Crew Turing! We’ve returned rested, and ready to prepare for our student led conferences which will commence on Tuesday 27th November.
During our time off, Alan Turing hit the headlines – there has been speculation that he is likely to be the new face of the polymer £50 note! As a crew, we discussed why we believed he was the most worthy candidate, and we each took turns to vote for him on the Bank of England’s survey. You can vote too, here’s the link: https://app.keysurvey.co.uk/f/1348443/10fc/
I was delighted to hear of the many fantastic achievements from numerous members of Crew Turing over the past weeks. I’d like to congratulate Lexi for placing 4th in a national gymnastics competition and Jess for her horse riding achievements. Not only this, I was genuinely moved by the beautiful remembrance service that C25 held last week. Seeing you all develop and grow as people, standing up in front of a packed out audience and showing the courage you did was inspiring.
If your service was anything to go by, then the SLCs are going to be amazing! Judging from all the positive news I recieve from members of staff about my crew, having looked through their portfolios, and hearing the lovely appreciations that are made in community meetings, there is certainly lots to be discussed in terms of their progress in the first 10 weeks at XP East. The link to sign up is below if you have not done already:
https://m.signupgenius.com/#!/showSignUp/70a0b4ca9ac2ba4ff2-student
We discuss our struggles or goals frequently in Crew, we acknowledge that here at XP East there is always room for development and improvement in our academic work, but also through thethe charac traits and HOWLs. In the upcoming two weeks, we’ll be populating our crew notice wall with personal targets which we will set in our SLCs. We will then hold each other to account once a week, during academic crew, where we will evidence the steps we are taking in order to achieve these targets.
Watch this space!
This week in Crew Ali, we have been preparing for our Student-Led Conferences by sending formal emails to our parents and planning which three pieces of work we will share with them: one to demonstrate mastery in our learning, one which we are proud of and one which needs improvement.
Mrs Townson quoted Kyle from last week’s Community Meeting, when he said we should “look beyond instead of backwards”. Yes, our SLCs will involve a great deal of reflection on how we have been working since we began our XP East journey, but they also focus on the future beyond the SLC and how we will continue to improve. We are definitely not looking backwards at the types of Parents’ Evenings we had in Primary School; we are looking forward to sharing with our parents how we can be accountable for our own learning and facilitate a formal event which illustrates the depth of our learning journey so far.
Crew Churchill are currently working hard, preparing for their first Student Led Conference of Year 8.
Following reflections about our last SLCs in Year 7, we have created an action plan so we know what needs doing and when. We are now selecting the work we want to share, and reflecting deeply about how it shows our learning and links to our expedition.
Aran is super organised, making notes on cue cards and working hard at home to make sure she is prepared!
Crew Finch have been ‘on it’ all week preparing for their SLCs. Parents should have received an email inviting you to attend, but here’s a link to the booking form, just incase you missed it:
This week we have chosen the work we want to discuss and focussed on reflecting on our progress and the areas in which we need to improve, selecting work from HUMS, STEAM, Maths and Spanish. Today, Tom and Ali shared their work for students to critique.
Next week, we will be moving onto preparing our scripts and setting our academic targets.
Although we are using Crew time to prepare, students are expected to work on this in their own time too. I have set up a Google Classroom with all the resources they need to prepare.
In Crew this week we have spent some time revisiting the purpose of, and the process that lies behind, our Student-Led Conferences. We also considered the benefits and pitfalls of our prior experience of SLCs, as well as what we feel we have learnt as a result of hosting them last year. This is in order to prepare ourselves for the next round of SLCs that are due to take place in a few weeks.
First week back and we have hit the ground running in Crew, as we begin to prepare for our first Student Led Conference of Year 8. We have spent this week reflecting on last year’s SLCs, talking about what worked will and how we can improve with our “even better ifs…”
The next two weeks will be pretty much dedicated to SLCs: making sure our portfolios are up to date, selecting the work we want to showcase, preparing our scripts and creating an action plan with our academic and personal targets.
It’s pretty intense and Crew will be working hard to prepare. They have demanded biscuits to keep them going and I’m happy to oblige!
Invites with a link to the online booking form will be sent out early next week via email. SLCs are your child’s opportunity to discuss their learning and progress with you, and we do count on your full support. If you can’t make any of the dates offered, please get in touch.
Meanwhile, I took a photo of this quote Mr Portman used as a discussion point in our community meeting yesterday:
I’m going to keep on referring back to this quote in Crew over the next few weeks, as I’m sure some students will have moments of self doubt when it comes to reflecting on and talking about their work, and setting themselves targets for growth. I can see the potential in each and every one of my Crew; I just hope they can see it, too!
An exciting dodgeball rematch took place between Crew Churchill and Crew Young!
This was a follow-on from our previous encounter when Crew Churchill were the winners. Crew Young were hoping to equalise.
Crew Churchill won the first game. Crew Young made a valiant comeback during the second game, however, Crew Churchill proved too strong and were victorious!
Both teams played with true sportsmanship and integrity and congratulated each other at the end.
We can’t wait for our next Dodgeball challenge!
