E25 (Year 8) STEAM Presentation of Learning

By Katie Haughey29th November 2019

The Year 8 STEAM presentation of learnings will be held on:

  • Pioneer: Wednesday 18th December, 5-6PM at XP East

  • Explorer: Thursday 19th December 5-6PM at XP East

The students look forward to sharing the work they’ve been studying in the STEAM expedition, where they have been working towards the guiding question “What is the state of the nation’s health and what should we do about it?”

We welcome you to invite family and friends to the event, sign in will begin at 4:45PM on both nights. We also ask that students remain in school from 3:15PM until the event, if there’s an issue with this don’t hesitate to drop me an email: [email protected]

Building Circuits

By J Smith26th May 2019

The crew have conducted their own revision session on current resistance and voltage today. Corey and Raven led the revision session where students were asked to construct series and parallel circuits and compare the difference between current drops. 

Raven noticed that when a component in a parallel circuit is removed, other bulbs and components still allow for electrons to flow, Raven also noted that this is why houses use parallel circuits and not series!

Almost Complete!

By J Smith16th May 2019

This week Crew Mandela have been completing their final products for expedition High Voltage. This has needed a number of high level skills from the crew including soldering, drilling, scoring and shaping the wood. 

Outstanding crew support has come from Raven who has helped the entire crew to finish their designs and complete the base of the boxes. See the image below for a sneak preview of the final games.

Final Product Progress: High Voltage

By J Smith13th May 2019

8/E24 Have been working hard this week building their final products. We have used a number of new tools and equipment in our brand new building. As a crew we need to have all work completed by Thursday 16th of May. If any students have any game work unfinished we will be running a product lab in extended study for everyone to get caught up.

Y8/E24 Assessment reminder

By J Smith15th April 2019

Students in C24 have their end of case study assessment on Wednesday 17/04/19 this week. This will be an exam of 1-6 mark questions and a combination of the work we have been doing on:

  • Magnets
  • Voltage, current and resistance
  • Building circuits
  • Electricity and how it works
  • Static Electricity
  • National Grid

For revision students will be able to use the Case Study 2 resources on the expedition website and the explore further page on the website also.

Expedition Website High Voltage 

 

 

 

 

Crew Mandela update!

By J Smith12th April 2019

Crew Mandela have had a great week in terms of HOWLS. The whole crew have made huge improvements with working towards 4.0 in work hard. We had a weekly crew focus to ensure that all students get their hand up in sessions as much as possible! We then had a session with a focus on how messages can be misinterpreted by others, even when students are trying their hardest to pass on the correct information. Watch the video below to get a feel of the topic of discussion had.

Passing on the Message!

 

In addition we also had a joint crew session with crew Turing who were fantastic with taking part in a crew led table tennis tournament.

 

Thanks to crew Turing for showing so much sportsmanship!

 

Gruesome STEAM

By J Smith12th April 2019

C24 have linked in the immersion week of capital punishment via electric chair and their knowledge of how electricity works. We investigated how electricity can result in death and how this occurs. We found that water can make the skin 100x less resistant to electrical current, which is why they use a wet sponge when sending people to the electric chair!

The habits of work and learning in C24 Explorer have been outstanding this week and this in an example of the craftsmanship and quality that has been produced from Lewis Dawson.

 

Well done Explorer!

My most enjoyable time as a teacher!

By J Smith24th March 2019

Below are a few highlights of the last STEAM expedition ‘Why am I me?’
This has been by far my most enjoyable time whilst teaching in secondary.
All thanks to the hard work put in by C24 students and learning coaches of XP East.

Fieldwork: Leeds University

 

Presentation of learning and Final product: Student led experiment demo

 

Expedition Wall Curation: Photo of students at various stages of their life

Academic Research Diary- Extended Study

By J Smith24th March 2019

Crew Mandela have a new protocol for Academic Crew!

All students have their own Academic Research book, each week a topic will be selected by a crew member for students to take home and lead their own learning on extended study tasks set by crew.

This week I chose the first topic and this was based around the STEAM expedition ‘Is knowledge power?’ and static electricity!

The research books have been taken by all members of crew and will form our academic check in on Tuesday. Raven was particularly excited about leading his own research into how lighting can strike in the same place twice and how electrical storms form.

Is Knowledge Power?

By J Smith24th March 2019

Following on from a successful POL of ‘Why am I me?’, students in Year 8 started this week a STEAM expedition called ‘High Voltage’  Over the following two months, we will explore the guiding question:

‘Is Knowledge Power?’

  

Immersion

The immersion for our expedition focused on the key themes of ‘Where is it from?’ and ‘What’s so shocking about it?’, including: gallery walks, BBK, notice, wonder questions and silent conversation. This suggested and provided clues to the content of the expedition before the guiding question was revealed. We investigated a murder that resulted in a criminal being put to death via the Electric chair!