E24 Pioneer/Explorer Extended Study: Sustainable building design write-up

By J Townson11th October 2018

Both 8 Pioneer and 8 Explorer have an extended writing task for which the deadline is next Thursday 18th October.  The question is How was XP East sustainably designed around the principle of…? – the students complete the title by including their personal area of interest following the visit from XP East’s architect, Leanne Stamp, last week. 

All the resources to support this task, including the assessment rubric, are available on Google Classroom and students have been given time in a number of sessions this week to begin their writing, with peer-critique of their work and class-critique of WAGOLLs to support their development of ideas.

The majority of students will type their final draft, but if they have limited access at home to devices they will be permitted to handwrite their work in their book.

Please do email me if you have any questions.

Mrs Townson

C24 Expert visit from architect, Leanne Stamp

By J Townson7th October 2018

Last week we had the pleasure of welcoming Leanne Stamp, the architect who designed our school, to XP East.  It was not the first time Leanne had visited the school, but she expressed her joy at finally seeing the school full of students, staff and furniture and being used just as she had envisaged!

Both 8Pioneer and 8Explorer demonstrated excellent focus during each of her two hour sessions, in which she detailed her role as an architect and explained where it fitted into a wider team; she also shared with our students the design principles behind developing a building from concept to actual use, before setting up a group activity for them to apply these principles to the design of XP East.

This week we have followed up Leanne’s visit by consolidating our notes, using marketplace activities to share our learning from the group work sessions.  8Pioneer students have each chosen an area of the design principles which interests them and 8Explorer will identify their own areas of interest next week.  Each student will use this area of interest as the focus for a piece of extended writing on how XP East was sustainably designed and how we could develop it in the future.

Many thanks to all of our students for their questions, keen interest and for demonstrating the Character Traits during Leanne’s visit, particularly those of Respect and Craftsmanship and Quality.  I really enjoyed the day and I know it was a turning point in the expedition for many of our students, as it really brought the importance of sustainability to the fore.

C24 expert visit from Leanne Stamp, Architect

By J Townson1st October 2018

On Tuesday 2nd October C24 will work with Leanne Stamp, the architect who designed XP East and who is the expert for the next learning target in our Expedition, A Place Of Our Own.  We have prepared for her visit by learning new key words such as ‘innovation’ and ‘sustainability’; considered how emotion could be linked to different architectural styles; discussed heating and lighting techniques to minimise energy consumption and have written questions about her role and rationale for the design of XP East.

Watch this space to hear more after her visit!

Energy, homes and cheese puffs: C24 STEAM

15th September 2018J Townson

C24 have kicked off their Expedition ‘A Place of Our Own’ by considering energy use in the home (including the energy stored in a single cheese puff snack!).Our students used calorimetry to calculate the energy transferred from a cheese puff when it burns…we wonder how many joules of energy are needed to power appliances in the home? They also ‘grappled‘ with some challenging questions to give them a flavour of what we will be studying next week.

We look forward to welcoming a mystery expert to school on Wednesday 26th September to help us dig deeper into the Learning Target: I can explain how the Earth’s resources are used in a domestic context.