Students | XP East

E25 Sponsored Walk for the Conversation Club

By H Hickson11th November 2019

On the 26/11/19, E25 will be taking part in a 5km sponsored walk or run. This will be part of their HUMAN expedition ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go?’ and will take place during their PE session.

We will be raising money for the Conversation Club, a charity in Doncaster who supports asylum seekers and refugees. This charity is vital in creating a support network for people who have had to flee their country due to political and religious persecution.

Earlier in the expedition, we were lucky enough to be visited by a group of asylum seekers who are supported by the Conversation Club. It was lovely to see the students so engrossed in listening to the stories of each of the asylum seekers but also sharing a laugh with them too! The students were shocked by some of the reasons why our visitors had to flee, what would’ve happened to them if they had stayed and were moved by the stories of being separated from their family and the emotional impact this has. It was also interesting to hear how many misconceptions there are in society about asylum seekers and by speaking to our visitors we all learnt a lot about this.

We were pleased to hear our visitors enjoyed the experience of visiting our school as much as we enjoyed having them!

Asylum seekers have to live on only £37.75 a week and any support they receive from the Conversation Club is funded through charity and the kindness of volunteers. E25 and X25 will be taking part in this event (separately) so we have the potential to raise a lot for this charity. We will be taking part in other fundraising activities throughout this term to raise more money towards this cause. If each student can be sponsored £1 then it will be a massive help in reaching our target amount for the charity, but feel free give as little, or as much as you can.

Students were handed a sponsor form last week in crew but if they have lost it then they can ask myself or Miss Johnson for another one.

Without wanting to get political it is important to remember instead that these are people who just want to secure their safety. Our character traits of respect and compassion ring out in the students when they get involved with members of our community in this way and I am be proud to work with such mature and compassionate students at XP EAST.

ABOVE ALL, COMPASSION.

E24/Y9 Fieldwork Short Walk Monday 11th

By J Smith10th November 2019

Year 9 will be taking part in fieldwork for expedition ‘Slow down’ for STEAM on Monday 11th of November. This will be a 40 min walk from and back to school to identify road conditions in the local area around XP East.

Students will need to ensure they bring a warm coat (waterproof) and comfortable shoes suitable for light walking.

Start the day with gratitude

By A Brown8th November 2019

So this week in Crew we’ve been focusing on gratitude and appreciation. How can we be more grateful for the things we take for granted? How can we remind ourselves of all the positivity around us when there are so many negative images forced upon us each day? How can we use gratitude to shift our feelings from negative to positive?

We started with some appreciations, then looked at this meme and discussed what resonated with each of us in Crew?

It was really interesting that our discussion took us into a way of realising that actually even in really difficult, sad, troubling or depressing situations, gratitude and spending a moment to think about either the positives in an apparently negative situation, or even looking for the things we are grateful for can help to lift us into better spirits: more contentment and happiness.

We explored the language of “cultivating a shift” – how can we take control of our emotions and feelings, to not ignore them (it’s ok to be sad, feel down, have a tough day!) – but we can choose whether we let those emotions control our mind, or whether we want to try and shift our minds into a more positive state.

We can dwell on situations out of our control. For instance, Fin showed courage and talked about his bad knee, and how it prevents him from doing activities and being as physical as he’d like to be, but he realises there is little he can do about the situation.

We discussed how this could be really frustrating or depressing. But with a shift in thinking about what good has come out of his injury – what he has to be grateful about – he could see that his friends really step up and look after him when he’s in pain, rallying around him; his friendships are strengthened by his injury!

We ended the session by writing down as many things as possible on a post-it note that we are grateful for.

Try it at home? What are you grateful for today? Can you acknowledge the things that make us depressed or sad or down, and “cultivate a shift” towards using out emotional energy to be grateful and feel positive about what we DO have?

E26 HUMAN Fieldwork

By H Hickson7th November 2019

E26 will be going on fieldwork on Tuesday 19/11/19.

We will be visiting a mystery location approximately 45 minutes away from school.

Students will need to arrive at school at normal time and should be back by the end of the school day.

More details will be released next week – so keep checking the website!

Our Year 9 Pledges

By A Parker17th October 2019

As we come to the end of the first term of Y9, Crew Finch took time to reflect on their progress so far and made pledges for next term.

We focussed on three specific areas:

Attendance:

We are tracking attendance because, as our board says, every day at school matters! When we mapped this on the board we soon noticed that our overall attendance needs improvement: only 4 out of 12 Crew members have achieved 100% attendance this term! It was a bit of a wake up call to realise that if you’re around the 96% attendance mark (which sounds quite high) you’ve actually missed 7 days of school per year, which equates to a whopping 35 lessons!

Accelerated reader:

All our students sit STAR Reading tests at the beginning and end of the school year to track progress in reading ability. I’m pleased to report that the latest results shows that all Crew Finch have improved their reading levels. We all know that reading improves comprehension and vocabulary, which in turn helps us to understand texts and write more creatively in other sessions. Well done Crew Finch! We still have one dedicated reading session per week, and Crew will also be helping Y7 students out by listening to them read for 15 minutes a week.

Crew HOWLs:

Crew are assessed on their Crew Habits of Work and Learning. I have shared the data with Crew and they agreed that I have been fair. There are a few students hitting 4.0 across the board, but I have had to take into account those students who let Crew down by consistently not completing extended study, or by not coming to school with the right equipment, or by appearing on the conduct form. This has been reflected in scores.

Our pledges:

So – after all that discussion Crew have set themselves targets for each of these areas for the next term. These range from “I will aim for at least 98% attendance” to “I pledge to read at least 3 books to end without skipping any pages” (!!)

This lot are so focussed so I know that they’ll smash their targets by the end of next term!

“I was only foolin’, George. I don’t want no ketchup.”

By H Hickson13th October 2019

8 Pioneer have been busy working incredibly hard over the last couple of weeks towards their English Learning Target:

I can evaluate texts critically explaining and analysing how they use language and structure to achieve effects and influence the reader.

We have been understanding how Lennie is presented by acting out extracts from Of Mice and Men, undertaking quotation explosions, zooming in on the meanings of words, making inferences and understanding how Steinbeck’s language choices affect the reader. This has been a step up from last year and at times has been a struggle for some in Pioneer – but they persevered and I’m so proud of the work they produced and their attitude towards their learning.

Mrs Poncia gave us a visit during our lesson and she was so pleased with what she saw she wrote this on the praise sheet:

“Superb focus in HUMAN when completing their first assessed piece of writing. Well done, Everyone!”

We’re moving onto our History learning target now looking at the question:

“The most significant cause of The Great Depression was the Dust Bowl.

How far do you agree with this statement?”

We began to identify and explain the numerous causes which lead up to the Great Depression, such as the First World War, overproduction of goods and the unequal distribution of wealth. We’ll continue analysing these causes to come to a conclusion about whether the Dust Bowl was the most significant cause of the Great Depression.

Keep up the hard work 8Pioneer!

It’s good to talk (to yourself!)

By A Parker13th October 2019

On Thursday Crew Finch shared a lovely breakfast together whilst using the time to talk about being kinder. But this session wasn’t about being kinder to others; it was about being kinder to ourselves.

A recent State of the Nation report explored the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people, and indicated that 1 in 5 young people aged between 10-24 years are not happy.

Of course, there are lots of contributing factors towards this, but I thought it would be good to sit with Crew and talk more about what it means to be kind to ourselves, and make them realise that the voice inside our head – i.e. our own self perception – often tells us lies.

I asked Crew to consider this: is it OK to talk to other people the way we often talk to ourselves?

They answered with a unanimous ‘No.’

We ended the session by writing down 3 things we loved about ourselves. We’re going to have these on display for a few days and I’ve asked Crew to add more good things as and when they want to (either more about themselves or about others.)

I also asked Crew to write down a burden – one thing that is making them feel unhappy about themselves at the moment – and these have been passed to me rather than shared, unless they were happy to do so. I’ve pledged to spend a some time with each member of Crew individually over the next week, just to have a quick discussion about their burden. Hopefully it will lighten the load for them and make them understand that it is indeed good to talk: to ourselves and to others!

How does your garden grow?

By Thomas Dawson11th October 2019

Crew Young are learning gardening skills as their first activity going towards their Bronze DofE award, by getting down and dirty planting new crops for a delicious salad. The crew split in half to make a new addition to the XP East garden. One group was busy working on a flower bed, the other groups onions, cress plants, parsley and basil. At this time of year these miniature plants are quite easy to grow because they are resilient to the wintry breeze.

E24 Explorer working hard in Art

By Heather Cross11th October 2019

We are working on the guiding question ‘Why do we still need charity?’ Today we looked at the artist Kathe Kollwitz and had to put together a jigsaw in pairs. We then used the protocol ‘silent conversation’ to analyse visual material and answer questions relating to the art work we are interpreting.

Afterwards we all presented our analysis to the class. Students wowed me with how sensitive they were with the art work they were discussing. Corey commented on his image that: “It looks as if the hands are dragging him away from life to death”.

Analysing artwork is a difficult skill to master but Explorer really unpicked what they were looking at and most importantly in a sensitive way. Well done!