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!

The Problem with Communication – Crew Shackleton

By A Brown10th April 2019

After watching a viral video about how simple messages can quickly become distorted over time, we decided to give it a go ourselves. Take a look at our video below.

I particularly like Fin’s ability to dig like a dog, despite the fact he was supposed to be getting some eggs out of a cupboard!

We had a lot of fun doing this, but Shackleton picked out some really important messages that we learnt from this activity:

  1. Even simple messages can change in a very short space of time;
  2. The quality of the message can be affected by people’s ability and skill in communicating;
  3. As soon as we began to lose focus, the message changed and became unclear;
  4. Perception of the original message is vital – your viewpoint can change how you receive and deliver the message;
  5. Even unintentional mistakes cause significant changes.

This was particularly powerful as we’ve been discussing a lot about rumours in school recently. I think we got an important message from this: rumours are spread easily and change easily each time it gets passed on.

We found the best way to stop rumours is to stop talking about them.

Well done, Crew Shackleton. A fun activity with an important message, executed maturely.

HOW are Crew Ali doing in their HOWLs?

By J Townson6th April 2019

At XP East, not only are students given grades by their teachers which indicate how they are progressing relative to their Minimum Expected Grade (MEG), they are also graded on their Habits of Work and Learning (HOWLs).  Mr Portman has shared the league tables with us this week and students spent time in Community Meeting dissecting the data, drawing conclusions as to how much and why each Crew may have improved in their average HOWLs.

I’m proud to say Crew Ali are doing exceptionally well and are consistently high in the league tables, just as earlier in the year.  Since the last data drop we have made improvements overall and part of this is due to an increased awareness and working knowledge of how we can develop these Habits in and out of school.

This week Crew Ali have been digging into the data to consider how our HOWLs might have had an impact on our grades.  The table below gives you a flavour of where we are as a Crew.  Each column represents Work Hard, Get Smart or Be Kind in each of HUMAN (WHH, GSH, BKH), Maths (WHM, GSM, BKM) and Science (WHS, GSS, BKS):

The Crew data above has been sorted according to the total HOWLs average for each student, with our lowest average of 3.0 still within the ‘secure’ range expected of all students – well done Crew Ali!  We noticed that although we have some HOWLs which are below expectations, in the orange range, these are only slightly below and those students are determined to pull them up as we go forward, identifying what they need to do to improve.  Another Crew member compared this with the huge number of green or ‘excellent’ HOWL grades which have contributed to those students meeting or even significantly exceeding their MEGs.  Those who are struggling with their Work Hard, Get Smart of Be Kind HOWLs grades are being supported and we really do encourage dialogue between all members of the Crew as to how we can improve, regardless of where we are in our HOWLs learning journey.

Well done Crew Ali – I’m looking forward to more discussion and analysis in next week’s Academic Crew session!

#Winning!

By Katie Haughey5th April 2019

I’ve really struggled deciding what makes the cut in terms of our crew blog after a week of highlights during crew and in session. After all the banter between Callum and Torran, I’d be doing them a disservice not to congratulate Torran and his team for winning the league! I was also delighted to hear that Lexi had achieved her goal of performing her back flip during her floor routine! I love starting the week celebrating our crew’s successes, and luckily for me, there have been many causes for celebration this week!

A definite highlight was the wonderful presentation of learning from C25’s STEAM expedition. I was blown away by my crew member’s hard work, and how they articulated their learning to me as I passed through the lab. It is wonderful to see them stepping up to the challenge, answering tricky questions and doing so in a really mature and professional manner.

This week, we have been analyzing the data of our subject grades and HOWLs. I was worried that the last data set for my crew had been so high we would struggle to top it, but it seems that we haven’t lost momentum. We are top of the leaderboard across all year groups for the be kind and work hard HOWLS, which is wonderful news. For get smart however, we’re in 3rd place (bearing in mind that we have had to compare digits in the hundredths in order for us to calculate the year 7 average)! It really got me thinking about how we can support one another in getting smarter.

Those three criteria have been the focus for our learning, and will be until the next data drop. I decided to set a little extra extended study last weekend, to get my crew to go above and beyond, and do some ‘explore further’ work that was related to their expedition but not something they had necessarily learned about in lesson, as a way of my crew taking responsibility for their learning. I encouraged them to use their expedition sites that have been set up by their teachers to support them with this. They were then asked to feedback to us in the form of a mini masterclass. Here’s some of their findings:

Lexi, Charlotte, Abi, Callum and Sami did some research into slavery in America, looking into Harriet Jacob’s account of her experience as a slave in the 1800s and famous slave traders. It was fascinating to hear her account and how she’d escaped the deep south and wrote a book detailing her mistreatment. Alice expanded our spanish vocabulary with some mythical creatures she had been researching that weekend – I am determined to somehow drop ‘unicorn/llama’ into conversation on my next trip to Spain!

Reece took us through the specialised cells in the body, and ran an activity where each pair had to identify and act as those cells in accordance to their roles. Lewis and Dylan had prepared fantastic slides on the anatomy of the digestive system and the role various organs had to play in processing food. Torran did a brilliant interactive maths recap of conversion, which included mini-whiteboard questions, and Dylan even printed a questionnaire for us to complete at the end of his session!

I’m sending my crew home with another small and optional piece of extended learning tonight, to try a little digital detoxing this weekend. I want them to try and spend a little bit of additional time that they may spend on devices doing some reading, some ‘explore further’ work, cooking or getting out now the weather is nicer! We’re going to debrief on Monday to see how it goes, myself included!

 

Shackleton #FlashbackFriday

By A Brown1st April 2019

As part of our push to try and reflect on our learning, we’ve been doing #FlashbackFriday for a few weeks now. It’s been great to really focus on what crew members have been learning and reflect purposefully on our learning each week.

I particularly liked how April focused on character growth and life skills in this week’s #FlashbackFriday; and Denim’s focus on really important social skills.

The task is simple: share one specific thing you have learnt (in or out of school) in the last week.

Yet, the purpose is much more powerful.

It’s important to ensure we focus on what we’ve learnt to identify our strengths and areas for improvement, but also to make sure we begin to move the things we’ve learnt into our long-term memory, from our short-term memory.

This week we added a self-critique of HOWLs to keep us focused on our own progress each week and reflect on HOW we learn.

Lots more to come on this! Keep reflecting Crew Shackleton!

How do we best learn?

By Katie Haughey25th March 2019

It’s safe to say that Crew Turing had all missed one another after enjoying a restful couple of weeks off! We started the week with pancakes, after I promised we’d make them on pancake day, having failed to realise we weren’t in school. As per usual, everyone pitched in with preparing and de-gungeing, and were ready to hit the ground running in session 1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A significant deadline that we decided to dedicate time to last week was the STEAM assessment. We used Tuesday’s crew to revise some of the content that would appear on the assessment. I was delighted to see so many members of my crew had already made great progress with this, and they had been working at home and in extended study by using the expedition site and all the other amazing resources Mrs Townsend had provided. However, revision is one of those often difficult tasks to execute well, so I decided to direct my crew to look into how we learned. During the session on Tuesday, we examined the following:

Now, I am not suggesting this pyramid and the percentages it is suggesting are totally accurate, however, it was a great way of getting crew to think about how they learned best. We were particularly interested in being able to retain knowledge and be able to recall it. What we see above rang true to crew members, we are more likely to remember something if we have been participating in the learning, and if we can teach someone else, then we have definitely learned it!

It was fantastic to see Reece putting this into practice by drawing specialised cells on mini-whiteboards for others to identify during extended study on Wednesday night. I advised all my crew that as long as you remain on-task, revising with someone else can really improve retention.

I set my crew the challenge of going away and doing some ‘explore further’ work that they need to prepare and share with crew this week. The topic is chosen by them, and I’ve advised they use the expedition sites to help them decide if they are unsure on what they would like to research. They are to prepare a no more than 5 minute master class for crew on what they have learned, which should not be something they have already done in class, but related to what they have been doing. I’ve had some amazing suggestions for topics so far – Alice is building her spanish vocabulary and Callum and Charlotte are researching case studies of slave traders. I can’t wait to hear what they have to share!

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!