We’d like to say a massive thank you to parents, carers, and our community for supporting the crowdfunder, and we look forward to launching it with students and those involved with the expedition.
If your son/daughter is in C26 (Year 9) and you would like to attend the event to celebrate its launch with us, please join us – feel free to email [email protected] if you have any questions about the grand reveal.
It’s been a wonderful lunch time today spent with Y11 (and other years!) at Embrace in the library at XPE. Some Y11s were revising in study groups ready for this afternoon’s maths exam, but the highlight for me was seeing Tom, Hollymay, Frida, Mia, Ruby and Eleanor play Twister with students from Y7! [I’m not sure how Mia managed to stand back up, though!!] What a fantastic example of Crew – and a good laugh, too!
After returning from half term we have been busy in Crew, alongside our additional Common Mission and Duke of Edinburgh sessions, which are new for this year and it is great to see.
Before breaking up for the half term, Year 9 were introduced to ‘Passage’. This is something we will be working on in our Crew sessions and Common Mission sessions in order to demonstrate why each individual is GCSE ready. As part of this we began to think about careers and what our hopes and dreams for the future were. This led to a fantastic afternoon of Crew researching careers, and job roles they may be interested in.
Last Wednesday was the first session working on our Passage presentation scripts and I have to say that we were blown away with how hard each person worked and how seriously they took the task.
Since starting the Duke of Edinburgh bronze award Crew have been learning the skill of First Aid and have worked on specific topics each week which have included, practical skills, completing a workbook, posters and diagrams. It has been great to see how the Crew have helped and supported each other in these sessions when completing tasks and produced some beautiful work.
We also don’t want you to think we have forgotten about our charity we selected to help at the end of Year 8, as this certainly is not the case. As a Crew we emailed ‘Big C Little Warrior’ at the start of last term asking how we could best help them. They were so grateful we had selected them as our charity and were keen for us to be able to help. They had a team meeting where our offer of help was discussed and they came back to us asking if we could raise money, as this would be used towards the cost of making hair accessories for those undergoing cancer treatment. How we can raise money is something we are currently looking into and organising in Crew.
As we have moved Crew rooms this year this meant that we were able to redesign the Crew wall. This is something Crew Rowling pride themselves on and take very seriously. Our plan is to continue to add to this throughout this year’s journey and move it with us if we relocate again next year. Just like the photos from the Year 7 Outward Bound week have!
We have already begun thinking of how we can decorate the Crew room at Christmas!
We can’t wait to show you more beautiful work and keep you up to date on all things Crew Rowling.
Mrs Barnes and Miss Johnson 🙂
Due to the fantastic efforts of our incredible staff, we are delighted to be able to offer so many extra curricular opportunities to our wonderful students!
Please see attached an updated version of our enrichment timetable. On here, you’ll find sports clubs/fixtures, Arts clubs (including our new Vocaleles!) and KS4 Revision sessions with staff. We would encourage our students to attend as many of these sessions as possible to secure their GCSE grades and achieve their potential!
I can also share with you that D6 will begin again this coming Saturday, November 13th. D6 is our Saturday provision where students are able to come and work with coaches in school from 9am – 12:30pm. For the time being, D6 is open to year 11 only.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the staff running any extra-curricular activities, or myself at [email protected].
Thank you for your continued support – we look forward to seeing many of our students in these sessions!
Mel Cocliff
XP Y11 Phase Lead
Crew Macmillan Crew Leader
Year 11 will be sitting mock exams over a 2 week period, starting on Monday 8th November:
Please note that Wednesday 10th November may be subject to change due to the school nurses being in to administer Covid Vaccines.
Students have been given revision resources to help them prepare for these mocks, as well as having access to Seneca (science), Hegarty (maths) and all their previous session slides on google classrooms.
It was Crew Obama’s turn this week to take on some Monday morning litter picking duties. The weather was rather dull and overcast but at least we weren’t rained on! Pupils found a surprising amount of rubbish which may have blown onto the school site from elsewhere such as KFC chip cartons, but there were no complaints about clearing up after others. I was really impressed by the tenacity and determination of some Crew members to collect old items which had likely been hidden in the hedges until the leaves dropped.
Please check the school’s homepage to see the lost property for this week. Remember to claim what belongs to you!
Crew Finch have spent the week preparing for the first Student Led Conferences of Y11. They will be reflecting on their Y10 mock exam results and sharing how they are preparing for the next round of mocks in November. Their presentations will also be focussing on the bigger picture of what they need to achieve in order to move onto the next stage of their learning journey, post-16 – and how they’re going to get there.
I’m really looking forward to welcoming Crew parents back into school for the first face-to-face SLCs in over a year. I sent out an email with the booking form link last week; if you’ve yet to book your slot please do so.
With the next round of mocks just a few weeks away, it is encouraging to hear that some students have already started revising. We will spend time in Crew looking at different revision techniques to find out what works best for everyone. Meanwhile, Crew have shared their revision tips with each other: the most popular method so far seems to be watching videos to reinforce learning.
I think that the time spent reflecting on their Y10 mock exam results along with last week’s taster day at New College has motivated Crew to really think more about how they are going to succeed, and this has been reflected in how they’ve been working in class. I’m pleased to see lots of praises for working hard and getting smart being put on the praise form from subject teachers for all Crew members.
It’s been a fantastic start to the year and our Y11 learning journey is right on track. Let’s hope it stays that way 🙂
Students this week have been given their own copy of the revision guide for our History exam board OCR B SHP History. All students should have named their copy so that if they are misplaced they can be returned. Students are encouraged to annotate and highlight the guide as they carry out their revision.
The revision guide has a number of different topics, however, students will need to focus on the following sections for revision:
The locations of these topics can be found in the contents page. We would recommend in general students start by revising The People’s Health as well as focusing on page 88 in order to prepare for the upcoming assessment in lessons.
If any student has been absent when these revision guides were handed out, they can see myself or Mrs Hannam directly and we will make sure they get their copy.
A further revision guide focusing on the Viking Expansion will be issued to students in the coming weeks.
Crew Obama spent Tranquil Tuesday updating their books, and catching up on some private reading. Reading is one of the most effective ways to raise performance in humanities, so AR time is highly valued here. We also worked in teams to apply our reading skills to a set of instructions to construct some new furniture for our crew room, which turned out to be trickier than expected!
C26 (Y9) across both schools have made a the first steps toward achieving their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award!
Students, with the support and guidance of dedicated DofE Leaders and Crew Leaders, will spend time each week working on a programme of activities which include:
By the end of the academic year students should have done enough to have achieved their Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award. Students are expected to achieve all sections of their Bronze award programme unless they have a valid reason not to.
The DofE programme forms a crucial part of the Trust’s Outdoor Curriculum, and we are extremely grateful to the FXP for their continued support and fundraising efforts to ensure that we are able to purchase the Bronze welcome packs and enrol every student onto the DofE award scheme. The welcome packs will be delivered to your home addresses after students have registered on the eDofE app and include a handy discount card for outdoor specialist shops!
If you have any questions specifically about the Bronze award, please contact your child’s Crew Leader, or you can contact me (Angella Parker) direct: [email protected]
*Just a note to add we have plans in place for C24 and C25 to complete the expedition element of their DofE award later this year!
