Student Led Crew – Megan and Nicole

Eating jelly with chopsticks? Wrapping up students in toilet roll? It can only be Student Led Crew!

Big thanks to Megan and Nicole who organised today’s session, which was around the theme of Craftsmanship and Quality.  They set up different stations where we all had to think hard and carefully about the task, which included making a Mummy out of toilet roll, eating jelly with chopsticks, and drawing.  The best team from each station won a prize.

Well done everyone – Noah and Ali deservedly won the Mummy task!  Not one piece of toilet roll was ripped!  It was a lot a fun, but the serious message was to prove what you can achieve when you truly focus and spend quality time completing a task, rather than rushing.

Check-Ins

Today in Crew, we checked in by sharing some of the things we have been up to over the weekend.

Adam chilled out on Friday night and then got his bike fixed on Saturday. He slept at his mate’s house and played Fortnite.

Niven played out all day on Saturday and on Sunday he played football and his team won 3-0!

Kaiden went to his nana’s on Sunday for dinner. He had chicken, carrots, peas, mash and

Yorkshire pudding. Delicious!

On Sunday, Rhys went to the cinema and watched the new Johnny English film.

Ben also spent time watching films, including Ant-Man and the Wasp. He recommends it!

Lewis played Fortnite and chilled with Mackenzie.

Denzil went to church on Saturday and then played football.  Unfortunately, his team lost their match 4-1.

Kyle stayed over at his mates over the weekend and played Fortnite.

On Friday, Tyler chilled out watching YouTube and went shopping to town with his mum on Sunday.

Ruby has been busy dancing but also had time to go to her auntie’s party and watch some boxing!

Alyssa had a football match on Saturday but lost, however, they played with one person down.  On Sunday she went to town to hang out with some friends from school.

Aran had a busy day on Saturday!  She travelled to Walsall to celebrate her niece’s 11th birthday and her nephew’s 7th birthday. She didn’t get home until late so she spent Sunday chilling!

Theone chilled out on Saturday as she was not feeling well.  Feeling better, on Sunday, she went to Ikea and Meadowhall and then went to her grandparent’s to celebrate her grandad’s birthday.

So, that’s what we’ve been up to… and now we’re checked in!

 

Beautiful work from Noah!

Before we did our weekly pledge check-in, I shared some absolutely amazing work with the Crew, written by our very own Noah!

Just read the opening paragraph from Noah’s Humanities work, the task being to “use descriptive writing to capture a snapshot of Doncaster’s cultural heritage”:

Early, on a bright, warm, summer’s day, the sun shone down, radiating onto the St James’ Swimming Baths, waiting in anticipation for it’s doors to open, enticing families of all shapes and sizes, to an exciting place where joyful memories are made. The building stood proud and tall, with two, stone, brown beams at either side of the magnificent entrance, looking as good as new, yet being there for many years holding the towering rooftop up.

And it just gets better!

Next week the whole Crew will be sharing and discussing the piece of work they are most proud of to date (from Y8).  I can’t wait to celebrate our Crew’s achievements so far.

I’m also pleased to report, following on from our Crew Pledges from las week, punctuality has improved with just 2 lates this week – but that is obviously two too many!  Let’s get to zero lates next week 🙂

Free-style Fitness for our Youngsters!

This week Crew Young have been heavily involved in our two Open Evenings, designed to give prospective students and their parents and carers an insight into the daily working practices at XP East School.

Despite finishing at around 8.00 p.m. last night, volunteers from Crew Young still found the energy to let off some steam in a free-style fitness session this morning.

Needless to say, we are immensely proud of our students and of their achievements.

 

A great week of positivity…

Some wonderful comments appearing on the praise form for Crew Shackleton this last week or so. Great work crew!

Here’s a selection:

Zach H.: “Positive and helpful feedback for his peers in X Block Drama.” “Zach showed he is a proactive learner by asking me to sit in a seat he’d work better in. I’ve seen such an improvement in his work in class, he contributes more and I’m really happy with the number of questions he is able to get through. He also helps others around him. Keep up the good work Zach!”

Lucy-Mae: “Helpful comments and critique in X Block Drama.”

Zach M: “Zach has been really focused in todays hums lessons, he has put a lot of C & Q into his work.” “Work hard – great participation in whole class Spanish session”

Lilly: “Lily is always a superstar in maths! Her work is thorough, detailed and set out to a standard that I expect. She’s always contributing in lesson and reacts to others by agreeing/disagreeing with the class. Keep up the work Lily!”

Let’s keep it up!

Crew Churchill: Academic Check-Ins

Today in Crew we have taken part in an academic check-in where we shared a piece of work from our HUMAN sessions that we are proud of.

Adam, Kaiden, Tyler and Kyle shared their pieces of work describing the Mansion House in Doncaster using literary devices they have been learning about whilst studying ‘Of Mice and Men’.

Theone was also extremely proud of this piece of work.  Take a look:

Aran’s highlight of HUMAN work was her piece of writing about symbolism and how this links to Steinbeck’s use of this literary device throughout ‘Of Mice and Men’.

Aran also received a spontaneous round of applause for her wonderful example of textcoding.  

Well done, Crew Churchill, for your wonderful work so far!

Crew Takeover – Ali and Noah

As part of our crew takeover, me and Noah led a crew session based on integrity. We played some music and passed a chocolate bar round, similar to pass the parcel, when the music stopped a crew member had to eat the chocolate as fast as they could. A catch was that they had to eat it with a knife and fork, which made it even more challenging!

This was linked to integrity because there was a prize involved for whoever ate the most chocolate. Crew needed to show integrity to admit if they had eaten the amount they said they had.

Well done to our big winner, Dakota, who ate a whopping thirteen pieces!

Blog post by Ali and Noah 🙂

STAR Reading Tests

Just look at that focus!

Crew Finch did their STAR reading test – a once-a-term reading assessment to track progress on our Accelerated Reader programme.  We dedicate one Crew session to reading every week, on top of the 30 minutes daily allocated during lesson time.  We also expect students to read for at least 30 minutes at home.

Reading for pleasure is so important for academic growth – you can read why here in this previous blog post.

Accelerated Reader

Crew have started Accelerated Reader now. They have taken their STAR reader test and now Tuesdays in Crew are dedicated to reading and taking the AR quizzes.

Reading is so important for building vocabulary and stretching the imagination – as well as reading in Crew and during school hours, pupils should also be reading for 2 hours at home over the course of a week.

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies…the man who never reads lives only one.”

George R. R. Martin

What mountain will you climb this week?

When Crew Ali circled up for the first time, it was on the first of four days at Outward Bound in Wales.  Now four weeks into the academic term at XP East, we spent this morning’s Crew answering the question ‘What mountain will you climb this week?’  Our answers were both personal and academic, but what we can be sure of is that the mountain we climbed in Wales was the first of many mountains we will climb as a Crew, supporting one another, holding each other accountable and making sure we reflect on how we got to the top.

Here is another taste of what we got up to in Wales, at the start of our journey together: