Unfortunately we have had to cancel this due to transport issues but practice is still on 3.15 – 4.30pm
Any questions please speak with Mr Stables or Mr Currie
Crew Rowling’s XPionage
Over the past couple of weeks E26 have been tasked with a secret mission. Their mission was to collect information on a member of their class (pioneer or explorer) and to produce a positive statement about them which would remain anonymous. The aim of this was to reboot crew after the Christmas holidays.
Here is what the secret spies observed…
‘Logan has worked really hard throughout the week in all sessions. Mainly quietly getting on with his work, showing respect, and occasionally helping people who are stuck on the work, showing compassion. In Art especially, he shows Craftsmanship and Quality in all areas of the work and his book.’
‘Lydia worked well in HUMS lessons on Wednesday, she always gets on with her work and is good at partner work. Even though she may be quiet she is always ready if anyone else needs help.’
‘Lily worked hard in all sessions this week. During the week, she has had an excellent work ethic and worked hard. She got most, if not all, work done and to a high degree. I believe this is a great start to the term and the year of 2022.’
‘Harvey has shown respect to everyone and he is not scared to tell you if you did something wrong he is always there to help people. For example, today he helped clean the classroom after doing art and he always has got time to play a game of chess with anyone during break and sometimes lunch.’
‘Ben has worked incredibly hard during these couple of weeks, without particularly being noticed for it. In HUMs, Ben created some beautiful work regarding annotating texts. During active lunch, Ben worked very hard in Dodge-ball, and did very well. And of course, Ben always works hard and always creates great work!’
‘Thomas has worked very hard in maths this week. He has also been very attentive in lessons such as Spanish and HUMS. In Maths, Thomas has shown compassion as he was helping others once he had finished his own work.’
‘Shawn has worked hard in all lessons this week. In class, Shawn answers a lot of questions, which shows courage. In Maths, he has worked hard and completed the work to get onto and finish the pushing for 4 and above worksheets. In HUMs, he produces a good quality of work, all the time, and is very compassionate as he helps others with their work in lessons such as Spanish where others get confused. Others around him are always laughing, which shows that he is a great person to be around.’
‘Cerrina has been helpful in Crew. She always has my back and tries to help me. She participates in most sessions and is kind.’
‘Charlotte has knuckled down in passage and has been asking older years to help her with it. In maths I feel she has also been working really hard with our new teacher Mr Hamilton, she’s working really hard with getting on with her GCSE work.’
‘Rhys has been trying harder in lessons to get the work done as every time i look up he has been having his head down. I haven’t heard anything negative about Rhys’ behaviour in sessions which is amazing and an outstanding improvement.’
‘Faith has worked really hard by writing a lot of notes down when told to .She has also been really respectful in most sessions by always listening to the person who is speaking. Faith has shown craftsmanship and quality by keeping her book neat.’
‘Layton worked really hard in HUMs this week. We were learning about diseases in the past and he ‘got smart’ by asking questions and talking to his partner, Robert. In art, Layton showed craftsmanship and quality by keeping his art book and work tidy. In PE, Layton showed respect by listening and following instructions.’
It has been great to see all of the positive comments for each person.
I also wanted to congratulate Faith and Harvey on successfully gaining places on the Doncaster Youth Council where they will be representing XP and XPE. I am very proud that 3 out of the 5 candidates were from our crew, they all did a great job!
Mrs Barnes and Miss Johnson
Crew Finch: Giving Back
Crew Finch, along with other Y11 Crews, have been giving back to the school community by offering their help and expertise to their “buddy” Crews.
This has involved running Crew sessions for Y7 and Y8 focussing on Crew team building and character traits. For example, Dakota and MacKenzie led activities in the sportshall for Mr Currie’s Crew:
Meanwhile, Noah, Ali and Callie have been helping Y9 Crew Mercury prepare for their upcoming Passage Presentations.
Here’s Noah’s explanation of how they have supported in these sessions, by drawing on their own experiences of Passage:
“These sessions have consisted of individual peer critique and how it could be improved. Whilst others may have seen a fishbowl activity, where somebody would read out a piece of work for everyone to hear, which would then be critiqued by ourselves and others in the crew. This ultimately prepares them the best they can so that they have the best key points to make and that they have already built up the confidence to speak in front of an audience.”
Moving on – we will be focussing on how we can give back to our wider community. Crew Finch have already done some amazing fundraising for Firefly and collected items for our local foodbank, so we are looking forward to being able to make more positive impacts throughout the rest of our time together.
Busy morning at D6!
We’ve got about 20 students here either undertaking independent study or taking advantage of the support on offer from our Student Coaches to produce some high quality revision notes.
Some of the boys have even snuck in a game of chess during a ‘brain break’ – still developing their mathematical and critical thinking skills 😉
D6 runs every Saturday morning during term time, 9am-12.30pm, over at XP. East. It is open to all Y10 and Y11 students.
Working hard and getting smart – that’s what we like to see!
Keep up the fantastic work, Y11, we’re so proud of you!f
Mrs Parker & Miss Cocliff x
What’s on our Plate – This Term
Student Led Conference
“Student-led conferences require and empower students to take the lead role in communicating their learning. The practice helps to build dispositions and skills—such as adapting speech to the appropriate context and organising and presenting information—that will be vital for students in college and careers…..” (Ron Berger)
Crew Rashford will be preparing for their SLC’s next term, if last year is anything to go by it’s going to be brilliant.
This is a chance for students to showcase the work they have done since September. By presenting to parents and carers face to face (fingers crossed).
SLC’s will start WC 31/01/22 – parents look out for the invitation in your mail boxes soon.
Becoming book worms!
This term we are committed and determined to become more engaged with reading. Tranquil Tuesdays is an opportunity for students to sit and read independently, 1:1 and or as a group and enjoy some quiet time during crew. All while improving their reading skills.
Wise up! – Wise Wednesday
This term we are looking at e-safety and why it matters.
As a crew we enjoy our in depth discussions and I expect these sessions will allow us to explore further.
Academic Success! –
This term we are focusing on pledges and ensuring we uphold them. Also, we will be continuing on with our ‘catch me, praise me’ where students praise each other for their efforts, identifying HoWLs and XP character traits.
Community Work and Being Mindful
With the up and coming SLC’s most of our Friday sessions will involve preparing for this.
Additionally, as you can see from our previous blog our visit to Age Well Doncaster was a brilliant success, we hope to return in February spreading Valentines joy 💜.
Alongside this we like to get out and around the school grounds, armed with our litter pickers to make sure XP/XPE grounds are clean and fresh!
XPionage and First Aid
Crews across the E26 phase have been taking part in ‘XPionage’ recently. This involved pupils keeping a beady eye on their classmates (targets) during sessions and then reporting their findings on a top secret document. Some pupils felt more comfortable writing their appreciations down rather than verbalising them publicly in a community meeting. The activity was organised in a way to encourage pupils to focus on peers they might not ordinarily work closely with, or make appreciations of. Here are a couple of the positive comments Crew Obama are delighted to have received:
“My target not only worked hard in all sessions but also showed craftsmanship and quality when given their new book. They showed all of the character values by putting their hand up and showed courage in maths when there was a question.”
“My target showed compassion when giving me more of an insight on the passage work in crew by saying what order I could do things in. They also showed courage by speaking up and voicing their opinions which I know can be difficult for some people.”
We have also been continuing with our Duke of Edinburgh Award skills. Last week, pupils worked in small groups to work out how to deal with a range of first aid situations they might encounter whilst on outdoors expeditions. Some groups opted to use their amazing drama skills to re-enact the case studies, which was great! We then paired up with Crew Mercury this afternoon for everyone to present their work to an audience.
Bus Driver Shortages
Communication Received from SYPTE
First bus service changes – from Monday 17 January 2022
We have been advised that, as a result of bus driver shortages due to COVID-19, First South Yorkshire will be introducing a number of short term journey cancellations, from Monday 17 January 2022, to help prevent on-the-day cancellations and provide a more reliable timetable.
To enable customers to plan their travel, First South Yorkshire intend to publicise the impacted journeys for the following week each Wednesday the week prior to the changes being implemented. The operator has endeavoured to maintain the first and last journeys for each service, cover school movements and maintain evening frequencies.
First will review the situation each week in line with their forecast driver availability and if the situation improves during the week, additional journeys will be restored as resource allows.
Up to date information is available at https://www.firstbus.co.uk/sheffield/plan-journey/timetables/suspended-journeys and https://www.firstbus.co.uk/doncaster/plan-journey/timetables/suspended-journeys
Please see the communication below confirming how this will be communicated… if you are concerned by this please speak with your child’s crew leader or contact the school office.
How will this information be communicated to customers?
First South Yorkshire will be tweeting service changes and cancellations via @FirstSouthYorks which we will retweet on our @TSYalerts Twitter feed, as well as sharing overall messages from first via @TravelSYorks. They will also be keeping customers updated of these suspended journeys via their web pages https://www.firstbus.co.uk/sheffield/plan-journey/timetables/suspended-journeys and https://www.firstbus.co.uk/doncaster/plan-journey/timetables/suspended-journeys
To ensure customers can stay up to date with the latest changes, we will create a news story at https://www.travelsouthyorkshire.com/en-gb/newsupdates/latest-news directing customers to the First web pages, as well as updating our Service Changes and Journey Planner pages to direct customers to the latest information. We will also include a story on the service changes in our email newsletter sent to subscribed Travel South Yorkshire customers directing them to our news story for more information.
We will continue to update our Disruptions page to reflect any short notice service cancellations attravelsouthyorkshire.com/Disruptions.
Our live departure screens at bus stops and within our interchanges will advise customers of the journey cancellations and direct them to the latest information.
In the first instance it is recommended that customers check service availability via the above links before they travel and make alternative arrangements where required.
Alternatively, customers who do not have access to the internet or social media can call Traveline on 01709 51 51 51 for the latest information.
Y11 Learn2Earn revision rewards
Today we launched our Learn2Earn Revision Rewards scheme to Y11 as a way of recognising the hard work and commitment of those students who are attending our lunchtime and after-school GCSE revision sessions (and perhaps encourage some of our other students to attend, too!)
So, what is Learn2Earn?
- A rewards ‘loyalty’ scheme for revision – the more sessions students attend, the more points they earn!
- After 5 sessions, students receive a small ‘reward’…
- After 10 sessions, students receive a medium ‘reward’…
All completed cards will be entered into a ‘big CREW reward’ prize draw – so the more crew participate in sessions, the more chance their crew have of winning the bigger prize at the end of Y11!
Here is our current revision timetable. Please note this is currently under review and we’ll be adding more sessions soon:
Don’t forget that Y11 – and Y10 – students can also attend D6 on a Saturday morning, from 9am – 12:30pm, which is back up and running this weekend (15th January). D6 provides students with a relaxed and informal study space working alongside our expert Student Coaches. We are expecting these to get busier as GCSEs get closer (16th May – 24th June.)
Phase 2 of the COVID programme
The RDaSH vaccination team have been asked to return to schools to deliver phase 2 of the COVID programme to 12 -15 year olds. The dates of which are not confirmed but are to be arranged in the next few weeks. The vaccination team will return to school to administer second dose vaccines to students who are due or first vaccines to children who may have missed the vaccine, and students who have now turned 12.
Once we have confirmed the dates for vaccination in school, we will give out letters, consent forms and information leaflets, these will be distributed to those students aged 12 -15 (16-year-olds in year 11 can also be included).
We’re looking for an Emotional Wellbeing Coordinator at XP Gateshead
We’re looking for an Emotional Wellbeing Coordinator at XP Gateshead – find out more here
