E24/Year 10 Day 6 Invite

By J Smith11th April 2021


D6 is our voluntary sixth day of school which will take place each Saturday during term time. D6 is led by ex-students of XP who are returning to provide our current students with peer to peer academic study support. There will be additional support from our school learning coaches and members of the Leadership Team. Existing students in Year 10 will be able to come into school on a voluntary basis on a Saturday morning from 10.00-12.00 each week to access this additional support.

The long-term plan is to open this up to students in all year groups, but in light of the recent lockdown, we are currently only extending this invitation to students in Year 10 as an additional layer of support in response to the previous lockdown. Whilst we understand that there may be some concerns around coming into school on a weekend, we feel it is justified in light of ensuring our students are able to access the education and additional support they deserve. Therefore, all Year 10 students are welcome at XP from this Saturday 17th April. Sessions will usually begin at 10.00 until 12.00 for the time being.

Appropriate risk assessments and protocols around safe and hygienic working have been prepared, and we will ensure that rooms used in the school have been sanitised before and after use. Refreshments will also be provided.

We hope students in Year 10 along with XP and year 10s and year 11s can join us this Saturday! If there are any questions or concerns please email Mr Smith at [email protected]

Crew Mercury’s ‘screens off, well being on’

By Rachael Rothwell9th April 2021

Crew Mercury have been working extremely hard during remote learning sessions and we all welcomed some ‘screens off, well being on’ time. As a crew we decided which activities we would like to complete. These ranged from spending quality time with our families and pets, to building dens.

Here are a few pics sharing our highlights of this time…

 

E24/Y10 Mock Exams

By J Smith9th April 2021

Year 10 will begin their first set of GCSE mock exams from the week commencing 10th of May over the following two weeks. This first round of mocks will be over two weeks to all the students.

 

The following exams will be taken by students in E24/Y10:

AQA citizenship (Cit students only)

AQA Spanish Writing (GCSE Spanish students only) 

AQA Spanish Speaking (GCSE Spanish students only) 

OCR B SHP History The People’s Health / Living under Nazi Rule 

AQA Geography Paper 2 (Common Mission students only) 

Eduqas English Language Component 1

Eduqas English Literature XP made paper from a combination of Comp1 and 2 

AQA Business Paper 1 (Common Mission students only)

AQA Maths Paper 1 Non Calculator

AQA Maths Paper 2 Calculator

AQA Science Paper 1 – Communicable and non Communicable diseases

AQA Science Paper 2 – Mag/electro mag/Hydrocarbons/alternative sources energy

 

All exams will take place during a normal school day, and will take place in the sports hall with appropriate CV-19 safety adjustments in school. 

Together Again!

By S Mitchell2nd April 2021

After 3 long months of lockdown and online learning, Crew Anoa’i were reunited!! To say they were excited to be back would be an understatement. Crew Anoa’i are back and ready for the term ahead, full of hard work and possibilities. This term is the term for change!

For the past week and a half, Crew Anoa’i have spent the mornings getting to know each other again. We spoke to each other about how lockdown has affected us and how we felt about it. Being around people, other than your family, was daunting for some but as a crew we overcame those fears and settled back into our tribe life. We have bonded once again and enjoyed each other’s company. This helped us to feel comfortable at school, as some of our crew felt very anxious about being back in the building. 

There have been many hilarious conversations about random topics, resulting in tears of pure joy. We’ve been able to open up and talk about personal things, which we haven’t done before. Crew Anoa’i have also played some games where we worked in teams, something we would have struggled with previously.

We then took a journey down memory lane and started to create a memory board for our crew room. We rediscovered images of each other that display togetherness and demonstrate how we are a family. Crew Anoa’i will continue to add to this as the year goes on. We wish to capture all of the best moments with each other, memories that will last a lifetime. 

Crew Anoa’i have come together and really bonded this past week and a half. I can’t wait to spend more time with them!

#ComingBackStronger

Reconnecting in Crew

By A Parker2nd April 2021

I’ve lost count of the number of ‘Crew Finch are back!’ style blogs I’ve written, but here’s another one!  We are (finally) back together in Crew for – can you believe it – the first time in 2021!! Fingers crossed that this time, we are back for good…

What’s struck me this time round are the good vibes coming from Crew who seem genuinely happy to be back at school with their friends and are even, dare I say it, enjoying being back in ‘proper’ lessons.  Although I can’t praise the quality of our online provision and our students’ engagement during these challenging times enough, there’s nothing like the real thing!

Understandably, some of our Crew were anxious about being back in school so we spent the first couple of days together just doing what we do best: pulling together to help alleviate some of those worries, giving each other a safe space in Crew to talk about how we feel about things (with no judgement) and just generally helping each other settle back in to our new school routine.

We also reconnected with some speed dating! After not seeing each other for over 3 months, it was good to spend 1:1 time with everyone, finding out more about what makes us tick by asking deep, probing, philosophical questions 😉 such as:

  • If you had a warning label… what would it say? (most were spot on!)
  • Who is the most intelligent person you know (Kobe was outraged that nobody named him!)
  • What’s your favourite fizzy drink? (Dr Pepper caused some controversy…)
  • Would you rather be really good looking, or super intelligent? (always a tough one to answer, that one!)

I won’t be looking at some of our Crew in quite the same way after the answers they gave to some of the questions!

I enjoyed taking a step back and just watching them all interact during this speed dating activity.  It made me smile to see them laughing with – or, in some cases, at –  each other and I feel reassured that, whatever life throws at us, we always find our way back to Crew.

Mood Monsters

31st March 2021Web Blogger

Crew Obama returned to school with a mixture of enthusiasm and trepidation. We spent our first day back in Crew and used the time to share any worries we had. An overall sense of tiredness told us that we needed to get back into the routine of having earlier bedtimes! 

This week we spent Mindful Monday reflecting on our own feelings and emotions. We used the ‘Colour Monster’ to help us to visualise our mood, and to convey it to others. There were some really good discussions about the connotations of colours such as blue or green, and whether they should be used to represent feelings of calmness, sadness or happiness. 

The completed colour monsters were used to illustrate just how varied our moods and feelings can be at any given time. Not just within our Crew, but within individuals too. I don’t think there was a single member of Crew Obama who used just one colour for their mood monster. The activity showed how important our character traits of kindness and compassion really are in order to look after ourselves and each other. 

Enjoy the Bank Holiday,

Miss Cross

X27 and E27 and their first art expert!

By Emily Jones28th March 2021

On Thursday, all our Year 7 students had a hangout with their first art expert.

Their expert was called Derek Robertson who was speaking to our pupils about his ‘Migrations‘ exhibition.

These pieces of artwork that Derek created fitted in perfectly with Y7’s current expedition called ‘Wherever I lay my hat’ where they are answering the guiding question of ‘Is migration worth the risk?’

Our expert was able to give our students information about his experiences when visiting refugee camps around the world and insights into the lives of the people he met.

Mr. Wilmot made loads of notes!

Mrs. Marshall was on fire with the anchor charts.

Miss Hickson was busy making notes on the board.

Manveer and Maisie shared the notes that they wrote during the hangout.

Keegan even recorded the whole hangout as a voice note on his iPad and sent it to me!

I was so impressed with our Year 7’s. They were respectful and inquisitive. They asked some fantastic questions and wrote brilliant notes.

Well done Y7!

E24 Beautiful Work – Spanish Product Term 3

By D Pearson28th March 2021

Last term, XP School’s C24 GCSE Spanish students grappled to answer our Guiding Question: “¿Tecnología – somos sus servidores o sus maestros? (“Technology – are we its servants or its masters?”). Whilst some might have found it difficult to articulate a response in English, imagine doing so during lockdown and in a modern foreign language!

This formed part of an expedition culminating in a Final Product centred around the family, expressing their own and their family’s reading habits and preferences, and uses of social media at home. Students collaborated to create a challenging rubric designed to encourage extended responses – including making an argument in favour of digital books or paperbacks – that was then used as the framework for our Final Product…..a monologue spoken in Spanish with accompanying slide presentation that evidenced standards ranging from beginning to excellence across a range of learning targets, such as: “I can compare and contrast reading books digitally with paper-based formats, making an argument in favour of one of these”.