Fight the Power!

By Katie Haughey30th November 2020

The year 8 students across XP School and XP East are working towards part of their final product for the ”Fight the Power’ expedition. C26 have been learning about the power of protest, and the impact activists have had on the rights and freedoms we enjoy today. The goal is to commemorate this work, both in a plaque that will live proudly in Doncaster train station, and through works of art that we will be curating celebrating local activism across Donny, should we raise the funds.

Check out our crowdfunder here!

With only 19 days left to reach their crowdfunder goal, students will be pushing to make the final £800 over the coming weeks with their fundraising efforts. We have arranged raffle prizes, because our busking plans were unfortunately no longer feasible due to lockdown restrictions, but we’re not letting it stop us!

Students have recently had an expert visit from Olivia from Black Lives Matter Doncaster, who shared with the groups about the protests earlier this year. Her insights into structural racism and her experiences of micro-aggressions helped open up a dialogue in our school on difficult but deeply important topics.

I would like to thank her for the work she continues to do and we look forward to working with her in future.

Students also have a hangout / expert visit arranged this Friday morning, where they will be learning about the impact of the local Suffragette movement, and the impact Doncastrian suffragettes had on women’s rights across the UK.

We were shocked earlier in the expedition to learn that of the 500+ statues in the UK, only 80 were of historical women. We wanted to do something to address this imbalance, so we feel that commemorating the work of Doncastrian women’s rights activists is a great place to start.

Students will be coming round over the coming weeks to sell raffle tickets, prizes include

  1. A chocolate hamper (worth over £30)

  2. A McDonalds meal of your choice (+ McFlurry), delivered to you during dinner time

  3. A pass to skip the dinner queue for an entire week

We appreciate all donations, and ask that if you can continue to share this if you are unable to donate to hopefully spread the word!

X25 & E25 are producing some fabulous oil pastel studies in their Art sessions

By Emily Jones19th January 2020

Year 8 students have been experimenting with oil pastels this term in their art sessions to create some beautiful sunset inspired blends. Can’t wait to see the finished pieces.

Pioneer Are So Socratic!

By A Brown31st January 2019

What an afternoon with year 8 Pioneer! We headed over to use the seminar tables in the music room and had a full session of discussion using the Socratic Seminar protocol. Amazing contributions from the whole class – focussed, attentive, respectful.

And the session was so successful because of the hard work they’ve been putting in leading up to it, and being persistent when challenging themselves to investigate and understand Shakespeare’s language.

We explored 3 questions:

  1. Was Macbeth’s imaginary dagger an invitation or a warning?
  2. Was Macbeth free to choose whether to kill Duncan?
  3. Was the murder of Duncan Macbeth’s peripeteia?

Take a look at a brief moment from this afternoon.

 

All hail Macbeth!

By A Brown24th January 2019

Last Friday we invited three very talented actors from Box Clever to deliver our own personal performance of Macbeth, complete with interactive workshop. And what a performance it was!

Year 8 were amazing and were fully immersed in the experience – a real credit to the school! They made such a positive impact on our visitors, who decided to join us for lunch to soak up some of the XP East ethos and chat to the students.

Take a look…

Painting the town

By Katie Haughey29th November 2018

C24’s X-Block product has finally become a reality thanks to help from our expert Hannah from Sheffield Print Club, and I am delighted to say I absolutely love how they have turned out!

This Monday and Tuesday the Year 8 groups have been in a screen printing workshop, picking up new skills and creating more beautiful work to contribute to their final product. Their learning target for this term has been ‘I can create a 2 layer screen print of a Doncastrian building’ and it has required weeks of preparation. Our product started in immersion week, where we took a gallery walk to check out the local architecture, taking pictures as we went.

Since then, in Art C24 have been creating detailed drawings and fact files of a building of their choice. Seven images were then shortlisted to be the top layer in our screen print designs for the product. We took inspiration from Andy Warhol’s screen prints, and his fascination with creating artwork from the everyday, from items such as soup cans and brillo pads. We used this theme to bring some old, and in some cases rather rundown and underappreciated buildings across Donny back to life.

I’d like to say a huge thank you to Hannah, who was with us for the two days and managed to pull off a small miracle, creating 250 prints, with 49 students in the short 3 hour workshops. It couldn’t have been pulled off without everyone pitching in during de-gunge. All three sessions were a delight to supervise, and I was immensely appreciative of the year 8s for making this such a success.

It’s felt impossible choosing which prints ended up on this blog post, I was so happy with all the work that has been created. Seeing C24 produce such high quality work just goes to show how many budding artists we have here at XP East.

Also, getting to specialise in a digital-free and rather uncommon trade, in an age where technology is involved in most of our everyday processes has been really refreshing. We discussed how unique each students 5 prints truly were, and that if we’d done this using computer aided design or manufacture, the work wouldn’t be as special.

I’ve always dreamed of owning my own Warhol pop art print, but I have got to say, that I think I’d rather hang a few of these up in my living room instead.

We have been working towards answering our guiding question ‘What does it take to build a place of our own?’ Part of that consists of looking at what we already have. Doncaster is rich in cultural and architectural history, and it has been wonderful being able to appreciate that in this expedition.

Stay tuned for more info on what’s coming up next for C24 and their final product launch!

 

 

Taking inspiration from the everyday

By Katie Haughey9th November 2018

In X-Block this week the year 8 classes have taken advantage of the seasonal transition and how this can inspire our art practices.

We did a session on creating a still life composition, firstly by looking at how some professional artists create flat lay photographs using inspiration from the everyday (https://www.haarkon.co.uk/portfolio-still-life/):

The class were given 5 minutes in small groups to select their autumnal artifacts to create an aesthetically pleasing flat lay, and I have got to say, I think that they are christmas card worthy!

The classes were also given some time to work on a still life in lesson, they each selected a leaf and were allowed 5 minutes with a drawing pen to complete a short sketch, followed by a further 10 minutes to do a second draft in pencil. The discussions that arose from working with the two media (pen and pencil) were really interesting, and the focus and attention to detail in what was produced was fantastic, great job year 8!

Here’s an example of how, in just a short space of time, Theone was able to produce some really proportionally accurate and well shaded pieces of work. I can’t wait to move onto using colours next week so we can capture what truly makes autumn so magnificent!

 

Inspired by Doncaster’s Architecture

By Katie Haughey1st October 2018

This week in X-Block, C24 are starting draft one of their screen print designs:

After researching the local architecture across Doncaster, the classes each created an outline of the local museum in the session today. Over the past two weeks we have been delving into the rich history of the town and its many desolate buildings. We’ve made some incredible discoveries, for instance, that the Beatles played a gig in the old Gaumont Cinema which sadly no longer exists!

I loved how some students adopted a minimalist style in their artwork today, while others worked hard to show the detail and intricacies of the museum’s architecture.

Here’s examples of Theonie’s, Aran’s, George’s and Holly’s work from the session:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love how unique they are, and I can’t wait to see what each student picks for their final design next week and to continue through this drafting process!

Miss Haughey