E24/Y11 history exam skills

Earlier this week, I posted Y11’s mock exam timetable.

We are using time in lessons to prepare for the mocks by making sure students not only have the subject knowledge, but also the skills to apply this knowledge to exam questions.

In today’s history session Y11 worked on building these key exam skills by working together to create model answers to questions from past papers, before testing out their exam skills by working independently on another question.

Practise makes perfect!

Aiming high in all we do!

As you may remember, before Christmas Crew Rowling were raising money for our chosen local charity Big C Little Warrior and Rhys volunteered to cut his hair to raise funds for them to go towards hair accessories for those going through cancer treatment and potential hair loss from this.

A few weeks ago, Crew were surprised and humbled to receive a sweet parcel each from Big C Little Warrior as a thank you along with a lovely card which now is pride of place on our Crew wall.

This week we were so pleased to be able to welcome Annette Powell into our Crew at XP East for a short visit. Annette wanted to come and personally thank Crew Rowling for the amazing fundraising achievement and we were very proud to be able to present Annette with the money we raised which totalled £720! It’s amazing to think how many people this will support, making a very difficult time that little bit more bearable.

We can’t wait to continue supporting Big C Little Warrior even more in the future.

Meanwhile, time is ticking closer and closer to Crew getting the chance to share their Passage Presentations. It’s been great to hear snippets of conversations regarding their thoughts on what they may want to do after their GCSEs. They have all given each other so much support throughout this process and this for us as their Crew leaders makes us very proud. They have all worked so hard on these and I can’t wait to watch the final polished products.

We look forward to seeing you all soon!

Mrs Barnes and Miss Johnson

C24/Y11 Mock Exam Timetable

Y11 will be sitting their second round of mocks when they return to school after the half-term break. This timetable should help students to plan and manage their revision.

More revision resources and general information for parents can be found on our C24 Revision Support Website.

Subject teachers have also uploaded revision tasks onto their google classrooms, so students have plenty of resources to help them.

C24/Y11 Science Update

Yesterday we received the exam board guidance on what the “major focus” will be in each of the exam papers in Combined Science. The exam board has made it clear that the students may be examined on other content in “low tariff and linked content” questions. It is also worth noting that the Physics exams use around 20% multiple choice questions, and therefore a broad knowledge base is useful in determining wrong options. Students are still expected to apply their knowledge in unfamiliar contexts. 

Our guidance is that our students should revise as broadly as they can, whilst ensuring that they have deep knowledge of the content highlighted by the exam board. This is highlighted in the table below for each paper. Please note that the content may be different for foundation and higher levels.  

The exam board guidance can be found here 

Any queries regarding this please contact dmead@xpschool.org 

E24/Y11 Friday Focus

It might be Friday, but Y11 are definitely not winding down for the weekend – yet!

From revisiting ‘A Christmas Carol’ in English…

To working through past GCSE papers in maths…

Study+ revision groups…

Before finishing the week off with a much needed PE session to work their bodies as hard as they’ve been working their brains!

And I’m ending my Friday feeling super proud of the fantastic work and focus from Y11 🙂

C24 (Y11) Community Meeting

We say this all the time, but Y11 really are doing us both proud! We had some wonderful praise postcards yet again as part of this week’s community meeting, and it’s lovely to see some different names this week.

Well done Y11 – keep working hard, getting smart and being kind. We’re really impressed!

Miss Cocliff & Mrs Parker x

Y11’s amazing art!

We’ve had some absolutely amazing focus and some beautiful work created in today’s art session!

Y11s are working really hard to complete their coursework as they prepare to start planning and producing their final exam piece.

The theme for their coursework is ‘identity’ and it’s been really interesting to see what students have created to reflect their own identity.

Massive appreciation to Miss Dickinson for her support in these lessons and helping to keep everyone on track!

C24 (Y11): key dates and information update

Just a quick update on some key information and upcoming dates for our Y11 students (including those all important GCSE dates!)

Firstly, we’d like to massively appreciate those students who are attending in-school and after-school revision sessions, including D6 on Saturday. There is no doubt that this level of commitment to their learning will be reflected in their final grades. Our current revision session timetable is here, but is being updated with more sessions which we’ll publish once finalised.

Although these are optional at the moment, we are targeting specific students to attend and we ask that parents support this. Teachers will be in touch with students and their parents with details of when they need to attend extra revision sessions.

In addition to focussed revision sessions, we are pleased to announce that Extended Study is back up and running for Y11 students Monday-Thursdays, 3.15-4.30. This means that students can stay for an extra hour after school to complete any extended study that’s been set or work on revision tasks with support from staff, away from any potential distractions at home. Please note that this is just for our Y11 students at the moment, but we’re hoping to offer to other year groups soon.

Here’s a quick look at some key upcoming dates – further information about each of these events will be published in separate blog posts:

1st Feb – 11th FebStudent led conferences
3rd February GCSE revision information evening for Y11 parents
21st Feb – 4th MarchMock exams 2
16th May – 24th JuneGCSEs (full timetable will be published at a later date!)
w/b 27th June (tbc)Final Word and celebrating Crew

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us:

Angella Parker (Y11 Phase Lead XP. East): aparker@xpeast.org

Mel Cocliff (Y11 Phase Lead, XP): mcocliff@xpschool.org

With thanks, as ever, for your continued support.

Crew Rowling’s XPionage

Over the past couple of weeks E26 have been tasked with a secret mission. Their mission was to collect information on a member of their class (pioneer or explorer) and to produce a positive statement about them which would remain anonymous. The aim of this was to reboot crew after the Christmas holidays.

Here is what the secret spies observed…

‘Logan has worked really hard throughout the week in all sessions. Mainly quietly getting on with his work, showing respect, and occasionally helping people who are stuck on the work, showing compassion. In Art especially, he shows Craftsmanship and Quality in all areas of the work and his book.’

‘Lydia worked well in HUMS lessons on Wednesday, she always gets on with her work and is good at partner work. Even though she may be quiet she is always ready if anyone else needs help.’

‘Lily worked hard in all sessions this week. During the week, she has had an excellent work ethic and worked hard. She got most, if not all, work done and to a high degree. I believe this is a great start to the term and the year of 2022.’

‘Harvey has shown respect to everyone and he is not scared to tell you if you did something wrong he is always there to help people. For example, today he helped clean the classroom after doing art and he always has got time to play a game of chess with anyone during break and sometimes lunch.’

‘Ben has worked incredibly hard during these couple of weeks, without particularly being noticed for it. In HUMs, Ben created some beautiful work regarding annotating texts. During active lunch, Ben worked very hard in Dodge-ball, and did very well. And of course, Ben always works hard and always creates great work!’

‘Thomas has worked very hard in maths this week. He has also been very attentive in lessons such as Spanish and HUMS. In Maths, Thomas has shown compassion as he was helping others once he had finished his own work.’

‘Shawn has worked hard in all lessons this week. In class, Shawn answers a lot of questions, which shows courage. In Maths, he has worked hard and completed the work to get onto and finish the pushing for 4 and above worksheets. In HUMs, he produces a good quality of work, all the time, and is very compassionate as he helps others with their work in lessons such as Spanish where others get confused. Others around him are always laughing, which shows that he is a great person to be around.’

‘Cerrina has been helpful in Crew. She always has my back and tries to help me. She participates in most sessions and is kind.’

‘Charlotte has knuckled down in passage and has been asking older years to help her with it. In maths I feel she has also been working really hard with our new teacher Mr Hamilton, she’s working really hard with getting on with her GCSE work.’

‘Rhys has been trying harder in lessons to get the work done as every time i look up he has been having his head down. I haven’t heard anything negative about Rhys’ behaviour in sessions which is amazing and an outstanding improvement.’

‘Faith has worked really hard by writing a lot of notes down when told to .She has also been really respectful in most sessions by always listening to the person who is speaking. Faith has shown craftsmanship and quality by keeping her book neat.’

‘Layton worked really hard in HUMs this week. We were learning about diseases in the past and he ‘got smart’ by asking questions and talking to his partner, Robert. In art, Layton showed craftsmanship and quality by keeping his art book and work tidy. In PE, Layton showed respect by listening and following instructions.’

It has been great to see all of the positive comments for each person.

I also wanted to congratulate Faith and Harvey on successfully gaining places on the Doncaster Youth Council where they will be representing XP and XPE. I am very proud that 3 out of the 5 candidates were from our crew, they all did a great job!

Mrs Barnes and Miss Johnson