A fantastic afternoon of practising some creative writing skills and noticing some of the cultural heritage of Doncaster.
Have a read of some of the brilliant work written and shared by Theone, Dom, Holly and George in year 8 Pioneer…
Great work class!
Read Aron, Aaron and Ben’s work on Steinbeck’s use of symbolism in Of Mice and Men from today. Great work!
Needless to say, a spontaneous round of applause was enjoyed by all!
Keep up the brilliant work Explorer!
Miss Hickson and I would like to say a huge thank you to our crew members for such an exciting game of dodgeball this morning during crew!
We spoke about the importance of showing the character trait of integrity during friendly games. Our crew members gave us specific examples of when what integrity looked like, for instance, if you were hit, you had to be honest about it.
Not only was it a lot of fun, it was a great way to start our day and get our 30 minutes of exercise! We can’t wait for the rematch…
8 Pioneer have been working on the first draft of their essays, where they will answer the following question:
“The Dust Bowl was the most significant factors in the Great Depression. How far do you agree with this statement?”
Our students are encouraged to peer critique each other’s work as it forms an important part of the redrafting process, before they go on to submit their essay for assessment. Students are always encouraged to be kind, specific and helpful with their feedback.
Today, Tom and Aden both shared their first drafts with the rest of the class for critique.
Tom explained why he finds peer critique so useful: “It’s easy to miss mistakes when you’re reading your own work over and over again. Also, other students have offered me some really useful suggestions on how I can improve my work.”
An update from the newly christened Crew Shackleton!
I am delighted to announce the new name of our crew, as nominated, researched and voted upon by each member of our crew.
There were some brilliant nominations: Crew Hamilton (Lewis Hamilton), Crew Columbus (Christoper Columbus), Crew Spencer (Princess Diana), and Crew Edison (Thomas Edison). Presentations were carefully planned, and confidently delivered to the rest of the crew, but in the end, Crew Shackleton won!
Sir Ernest Shackleton was a courageous and bold adventurer who was famed for his dramatically failed expedition to the Antarctic. His vessel, The Endurance, became stuck in thick ice, and eventually gave way to the immense pressure of the shifting ice packs and sank.
Shackleton, The Boss, was credited for his determination, leadership and positivity in the face of adversity, which enabled him to launch a daring a treacherous rescue mission to save all 22 members of his crew.
There’s more to that story, but anyone from Crew Shackleton can fill you in with the amazing details…
I was delighted for the reasons our crew voted for this individual. As it was the name of our crew given to use during our Outward Bounds expedition, we felt it would be a great opportunity to forever remember the challenges we faced and the mountains we climbed on our first week of school together. And what a week!
Also, his courage, respect and compassion shown before his crew embodies everything we believe here at XP East.
We’ve already spent a little bit of time looking at a famous advert he placed in the newspaper to understand about the type of man he was:
Our new name marks the beginning of what has already been a fantastic start to XP East. We’ve tackled our challenges head on every day from day 1, and long may it continue!
Great work, Crew Shackleton.
Update from Crew Turing, formerly known as Crew Haughey (KHA)
This week, our crew voted on the name that we would be adopting for the next 5 years. We had a very large selection of inspirational people’s names (over 50!), for instance: Obama, Henry Ford, Anne frank, Aneurin Bevan, J. K. Rowling, Alan Sugar, JFK, Churchill, George Washington, Steve Jobs, Lincoln, MLK, Mary Shelley, Queen Elizabeth, Bob Marley, Frida Kahlo, Ben Parkinson, Newton, Edison….
Firstly, we did some research at home for our own choice that we were to present to crew in the morning sessions. We each found out key facts, quotes and prepared a piece on how they had embodied the character traits during their lifetimes.
Once we had all presented, we all voted to see who would be our crew name. After one round of voting we ended up with a tie, so we did a second vote of our top two selections, Enid Blyton and Alan Turing, and Alan Turing was chosen in the 2nd round of votes.
Alan Turing was a very gifted mathematician, some even argue that he was a math genius, who studied at Cambridge University where he made some amazing breakthroughs.
We chose Alan Turing because he showed the character traits of courage for telling people he was gay in a time when being gay was illegal. He showed craftsmanship and quality for managing to crack the Nazi’s enigma code using his invention, ‘the Bombe’ (if he didn’t it is predicted that World War 2 would have lasted 2 more years!) as well as building the first machine that is considered to be the first modern computer – Turing’s machine. He showed commitment to working hard and getting smart (the HOWLs), by riding his bike 60 miles just to get to the first day of school!
He also was the father of the modern computer science. Sadly, Turing committed suicide after his employers found out about his homosexuality, he was prescribed a hormone treatment and was sent to prison. He inspired Steve jobs so much he used the icon of the apple laced with cyanide as the Apple logo. He was awarded the Smiths prize and an OBE for cracking the enigma code and decoding the messages the Nazis were sending, but this remained a secret until 50 years after his death.
Alan Turing played a crucial role in winning the Second World War, he was a pioneer of modern computing and mathematics. Despite being a war hero and revolutionary, his life had a tragic ending.
We felt that Turing was not given the dignity and respect for his achievements during his lifetime, and this is why we’d like to acknowledge his greatness by honouring his name as our crew name. We know that at XP East, we will always reward hard work, efforts in getting smart, and kindness and compassion, as well as make stands against all forms of prejudice, such as the homophobia Turing faced, and the way he brought down the Nazis.
We’d like to finish our blog post with a quote from The Imitation Game (a biopic made about Turing’s life):
“Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine”
We are Crew Turing, and we will continue on our journey through education, doing the things that no one could imagine we are capable of.
Crew HHI (as we were known until now) have been busy deciding on our Crew name over the last week.
We started with about 25 suggestions of inspirational people, before narrowing it down to Charles Darwin, Rosa Parks, Steven Spielberg and Ben Parkinson.
The pupils then researched these 4 people and presented their argument for why we should vote for the person they wanted our Crew to be named after. Well done to all crew members who presented with confidence and clarity.
Then came our confidential vote – the moment of truth!
It was very close, with Parkinson winning by 1 vote.
So, why Ben Parkinson?
Paratrooper Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson is regarded as one of the most injured soldiers to survive the war in Afghanistan. In 2006 the vehicle he was in detonated an anti-tank mine, which caused Ben to have over 40 injuries. He suffered brain damage, which impacted his speech, and needed both legs amputated due to his injuries. It was thought he wouldn’t walk, talk or even survive his injuries but the sheer determination shown by Ben has meant that he has achieved this. Ben has been awarded an MBE and has taken part in a variety of challenges and charity work to raise awareness and gain support for other injured service personnel.
Our Crew have been learning about WW1 in their expedition ‘Over the Top’ and they have explored the qualities and characteristics associated with soldiers. Courage, determination, defying all odds, loyalty and compassion are all qualities shown by Ben and are characteristics valued by XP East. Therefore, the majority of the Crew felt Ben was the best inspirational person to name our Crew after, as he embodies the characteristics that we value as individuals and as a school.
He really is an inspiration to us all – and also a Donny lad!
There were several candidates for our Crew name, but Ruben’s nomination of the boxer, activist and philanthropist, Muhammad Ali, was a clear winner when the votes were cast in a secret ballot.
He demonstrated relentless courage to keep going, even against huge odds; he was compassionate, being named one of the first United Nations Messengers of Peace for his humanitarian work and campaigns against apartheid, illustrating his respect for people around the world; he trained and fought with such craftsmanship and quality that he was widely considered to be the greatest boxer in his heavyweight class; his integrity was such that even though he stood to lose his titles, he held true to his beliefs and refused to fight in the Vietnam war, even when he was drafted by the US government.
In response to the question, “What would you like people to think of you when you’re gone?“, Muhammad Ali said: “I’d like for them to say he took a few cups of love. He took one tablespoon of patience, one teaspoon of generosity, one pint of kindness; he took one quart of laughter, one pinch of concern. And then, he mixed willingness with happiness, he added lots of faith and he stirred it up well. Then he spread it over a span of a life time and he served it to each and every deserving person he met.”
Just like Muhammad Ali, our Crew have already demonstrated huge amounts of courage by stepping out of their Familiar Zones and into the Learning Zone at XP East. Our Outward Bound adventures built a strong foundation for us and we will continue to be courageous together as Crew Ali.
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.
