PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE OF DATE FOR THIS EVENT (now on Tuesday 17th December, not Thursday 19th as previously stated)

E26 (Year 7) will be holding the Presentation of Learning for their current expedition ‘Over the Top!’ on Tuesday 17th December, 5.30-6:30pm at XP East.

Students have been working extremely hard throughout their expedition and have been working on answering the guiding question: ‘Does war unite or divide?’

This will be their first formal opportunity at XP East to share their learning with parents, carers and visitors and we very much look forward to seeing you there.

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!

What has maths got to do with WW1?

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.

STEAM C25 Peer Assessment

After a number of practical sessions and conducting a circus of experiments in STEAM, C25 have started the write up of the particle model using rubrics to peer assess their work. All students have worked hard during the session however outstanding feedback was given by Ruben, Sami and Ruby. They really helped other students to include key scientific words in their write ups to move towards excellence!

 

Next week we will be investigating how gas was used as a weapon in the trenches of WW1!