Let’s Unite راځئ چې یو شو E25 X Block Drama

By J Townson11th December 2018

E25 have been working hard creating original choreography to accompany a piece of poetry for their Presentation of Learning next week.  The poem is called ‘Let’s Unite’ and was originally written in Pashto, although we are using a translation from the Poetry Translation Centre.

Here is a taster of the first few lines of the poem for you – written in the original language of course – we can’t ruin the surprise!

راځئ چې یو شو

په دی ښایسته دنیا کې
په دی یوه دنیا کې
مونږه جدا جدا یو
مونږه تنها تنها یو
لکه د لاس د ګوتو
لکه د لمر د وړانګو
زمونږه پښو نه لاندې

Students considered the imagery in the poem, identified the patterns of repetition that we could build on and used Kind, Specific and Helpful critique to hone their ideas into movements which enhance the spoken text.  Last week we even had an extra special guest in the Civic Mayor of Doncaster, Councillor Majid Khan, who witnessed rehearsals during a tour of XP East.

I can’t wait to see the finished product when all three X Block groups bring their work together.  The students have taken the lead in idea generation and directing, using the skills and techniques we have been studying in Drama since the beginning of term.  I’m really proud of what they have achieved so far, well done E25!

Grappling with adjectives in E25 Pioneer Spanish

5th December 2018D Pearson

Recently, our E25 students left the room to work in mini-Crews on a group grapple involving describing members of staff, using correct Spanish grammar and word order. In a best-of-three between the teacher and our Learning Coach’s groups, it was hats off to Mrs Duffield’s Crew …… we’ll win next time! Mr Pearson.

What has maths got to do with WW1?

By Katie Haughey25th November 2018

This week, C25 have been exploring local data of the soldiers that fell in their postcode in the First World War. They have been using the following source from the Imperial War Museum, an interactive map (A Street Near You), which presents fact files about the soldiers, their death, their rank, and any other records that are on file.

The year 7 classes have then been populating their own personal data set with information on the soldiers in their area, which we will be using this week to calculate averages, create frequency graphs and bar charts.

There were some really fruitful discussions about why some streets did not have any records, and some students noticed that they may have found brothers, or soldiers who had died just days apart. Seeing the map made us all reflect on how devastating the war must have been on our community.

Florence even found one of her ancestors at an address near her current one. We also found records for Arthur and Ernest Hickson, Miss Hickson is going to do a little research to find out if she is related to them.

I’d just like to appreciate C25 for being so respectful and working hard on this, and I’d like to remind Explorer to have it completed by our next lesson on Tuesday so we can start our research.

E25 Explorer and Pioneer using ICT in Spanish

By D Pearson8th November 2018

This week our E25 students started working on their second expedition in Spanish – my school. Eventually they will be able to express and justify positive and negative opinions about their subjects and teachers, and understand and give information about their school. Here they are using ICT to work independently and to self-assess against the session rubric.

An introduction to WW1 poetry

By H Hickson26th September 2018

Pioneer have started working towards their second learning target today: ‘I can compose a piece of poetry using specific language choices and structures’

We kicked the lessons off by analysing the language used in WW1 poetry. Extracts from Dulce et Decorum est, The Soldiers, Dreamers and In Flanders Fields were analysed and discussed and the pupils explored how powerful language can create imagery. This was followed by the pupils choosing a line from one of the poems that particularly stood out to them due to the imagery that the language created. Using this quotation, the pupils then illustrated their work by drawing the image that was inspired by the poetry.

 

Here’s Pioneer working hard!

 

 

Here’s Charlotte, Torran, Marcus, Dylan, Ava, Jess, Junia and Bob – look at how focused they are on their work!

  

Drafts, Peer Critique and Rubrics – what’s it all about?

By H Hickson22nd September 2018

7 Pioneer have had their first experience of drafting, peer critique and rubrics at XP East.

Step 1 – The pupils wrote their first draft a job advertisement for WW1 forces role, for example a Royal Engineer or an Army Medic. We discussed why we write drafts and the benefit this has to improving our work. We text coded a WAGOLL job advertisement (What A Good One Looks Like) to analyse the content and language devices used so that Pioneer could use this as inspiration in their own writing. Next, rubrics were introduced – this is how work is assessed for different targeted features and at different levels. The pupils would use this to know how to achieve the highest they could in each of the target areas.

Step 2 – peer critique! A special mention to Aaron, Ava and Charlie who had made a great start and had their first draft peer critiqued by the class. Pioneer discussed what they had done well and how they could make their work even better if …..

Well done to Pioneer for being Kind, Specific and Helpful with their critique and to Aaron, Ava and Charlie who responded well to this critique and used it to improved their work.

Step 3 – all pupils had their work critiqued by another member of the class and each person wrote Kind, Specific and Helpful feedback for their peers to use. There was some great feedback given and even better responses to this feedback, with the drafts significantly improving after this process.

Step 4 – final draft! Once drafts had been written and peer critique given, Pioneer were ready to write their final draft. It was important that the pupils showed craftsmanship and quality with this in order for them to create beautiful work. The pupils worked hard when writing this and they should all be proud of the work they have produced – I know I am!

Here’s an example of Pioneer’s beautiful work- this is Jacob’s, Ava’s, Abi’s and Zach’s.