I am really pleased to write that we are going to be taking E27 on their first fieldwork at XP East on Monday (7th June) and Tuesday (8th June) to Sandall Beat Wood as part of our expedition “No one is too small to make a difference” which has an environmental focus. Due to Covid, we haven’t been able to do this sooner so I am really excited they are finally getting the opportunity.
Explorer will be going on Monday and Pioneer will be going on Tuesday. We will be leaving school at 9.30am by minibus and be back in school for 1.15 pm.
Students are advised to wear appropriate clothing for the weather that day as we will be outside for the entire time – suncream will be a definite if the weather is like it has been during the holiday! Hopefully we won’t get any rain but if it is forecast make sure students bring waterproofs. Sensible shoes such as trainers will need to be worn as we will be walking and on our feet for most of the time.
Students will need to bring a packed lunch and make sure they have plenty to drink if it is warm (unless on Free School Meals where one will be provided).
Normal school equipment (pens/pencils/device etc) should still be brought to school as the students will have their normal school lessons in the afternoon, iPads etc will be left in the classroom when on fieldwork which will be locked.
Our C25 / Year 9 GCSE Spanish students have been working hard to promote a charity fundraising initiative in aid of Save The Children, as part of our current work on Fair Trade, social equity and child poverty in Latin America. This involved students producing and displaying posters in both schools, and visiting Crew rooms to invite their peers to guess the number of Fair Trade chocolates in a jar. At £1.00 a go, the winner with the closest guess to the actual number of chocolates would get to keep them and the jar.
This morning we can reveal that Mrs Cunningham and Crew Rosa won the chocolates in XP School, and Mrs Newrick correctly guessed that there were 99 chocolates in XP East’s jar. As a result of our students’ activism, they helped towards fulfilling the volunteering element of their Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award, but more importantly (and with the odd extra donation) they raised a total of £122.55 for Save The Children.
A huge appreciation goes to C25 students and Crew Leaders for helping to raise a three figure sum for charity.
Recent work covered by E26 Explorer Spanish students is centred on describing clothes using colours and other adjectives. Having played picture bingo to consolidate the correct position and spelling of colours, our students then completed a clothing wardrobe graphic to show learning, before applying it to celebrities to describe what they usually and sometimes wear. It was really pleasing to see students getting smart by using several sources of reference material to work independently. Special appreciation goes to Imogen for being our impromptu bingo caller!
As I sit here reflecting on the past week, Crew Young are in the middle of their last mock exam sitting a science paper based on hydrocarbons and electromagnetism. It’s been a very challenging week for Crew, and at times they’ve had to dig deep and support each other; whether it be through the vagaries of a GCSE Spanish speaking exam, the intricacies of communicable and non-communicable diseases, or the concept of living under Nazi rule, they’ve coped with everything in their stride and with consistently secure HOWLs.
Here they are inputting their penultimate self-assessed HOWLs grades, prepared to be cold-called and to share work that substantiates the grades that they are entering. A busy last week as we “wind up”, rather than “wind down” towards the end of their term. Well done Crew Young – you make me very proud of you all!
This expedition we have been studying Nazi Germany and have read our anchor text, Number The Stars, about the Nazi occupation of Denmark and how Danish Jews were smuggled to safety from Denmark to Sweden. However, many European Jews were victims of the Holocaust. For our fireldwork, we are attending the National Holocaust Centre in Newark. As well as speaking to experts and looking at the exhibitions, we will also hopefully be priveleged enough to receive a talk by a Holocaust survivor.
Students will need to arrive at school at the normal time and attend Crew to be registered. We advise students to dress appropriately should there be unpleasant weather, when travelling to and from the coaches. Students will also need a packed lunch and sufficient water for the day. Please don’t pack any products containing nuts in packed lunches as we are a nut-free school! The journey to and from Newark is only expected to take around 40-60 minutes, so snacks and drinks without lids are not permitted on the coaches.
We aim to arrive back at school at around 3.15pm, however due to the unpredictability of traffic, we may be slightly later than 3.15pm.
Mock exams are in full flow and Crew Finch have been working so very hard! We’ve been trying to keep our Crew time quite relaxed this week but it has, of course, been dominated with exam talk – be it comparing answers or discussing how easy or hard the previous days exams were.
We’re always up for finding ways to make revision a bit more fun, so today we played History Hangman. The usual rules applied but with an added twist: whoever chose the word had to end their turn by explaining how that word or phrase linked in with either of our two History exam topics: The People’s Health or Living under Nazi Rule.
Top Marks to Kenzie for ‘hanging’ the rest of Crew with his choice, John Snow. Kenzie then went on to remind us that Snow was responsible for identifying the water source responsible for a major Cholera outbreak in Broad Street in 1854, by plotting cases on a map of the area. The water pump was removed and cholera infections immediately dropped.
Crew have been absolutely amazing throughout this first week of mock exams. This is their first experience of sitting in an exam room and having to work under exam conditions. Having to stay still and quiet for up to 1 hour 45 minutes at a time is probably more difficult for them to manage than the exam content itself! As ever, they are making me proud 🙂
As most of you are aware unfortunately one of our Crew members’ bike was stolen a few weeks back and in our mindful Monday session as a Crew it was decided that a fundraising page was a way of helping the community, very close to home by raising money for a new bike. We were blown away by the generosity of so many people and quickly reached the target.Â
With bikes being a sort after item at the minute, sourcing one, in stock locally could have proved a challenge, but an amazing local company Cycle Supreme stepped in to help us out. Â
So with everyone’s hard work and kindness, Crew were able to surprise Logan with a new bike last friday in front of his family. We also raised enough money to purchase a diamond standard lock, to hopefully prevent such an awful event happening again.
In true Crew spirit, we tackled the issue of how best to use the new bike lock. This took a few attempts and many different ideas but they pulled together and Logan’s new bike was safely locked up.
Crew were asked how it made them feel to do something good or a good deed for someone else and some of the responses were:-Â
‘It makes me feel good as I feel like I’m making a difference even if its small’
‘I feel happy’
‘A sense of pride’
‘I’m just glad I can help someone else and make their day better’
There was a real excitement and buzz in Crew and the afternoon really highlighted the bonds and togetherness within Crew Rowling.
Crew Turing have loved being outside during Monday’s crew sessions to do check in, catching 45 minutes of sun before we go back to session. Now that lockdown restrictions are lifting slightly the check-ins are far more interesting. Everyone seems cheerier now they’re able to see friends and family, and carry on with the sports they’re involved in.
We’ve also managed to get booked into the sports hall during crew a couple of weeks back, we enjoyed a rather competitive game of dodgeball. We mixed crew to random teams, and even Miss Narey and I played.
As mentioned in my previous post, as a crew we’ve been self-assessing HoWLs leading up to the actual data drop, which finally got released last week. We spent the crew session adding our updated HoWLs to our crew narrative, gains were made across the board. We then compared the new data with our previous crew targets that were made in November 2020. Those targets were:
– Improve extended study record as a crew, aiming for 95%+:Â we greened this target as this has massively improved thanks to daily reminders in crew and students working together to support each other on any work they’re unsure about
– Improve HoWLs in art and HUMAN, aiming for at least secure in all HoWLs grades: this is partially completed, as HoWLs in these subjects have gone up across the board, however we’ve not 100% met the ‘secure’ section of the rubric or above in these subjects. I’ve got to appreciate Dylan, Callum, Torran, Mollie and Sami for smashing these targets, some of whom even received HoWLs in the excellence category!
In the coming weeks, we’ll be looking at where we can be making improvements using Crew Turing’s HoWL improvement project. Every student in my crew has identified a subject in which their HoWLs could do with some work. I then asked students to write a rationale explaining why they’d chosen that particular subject and a SMART target that another member of our crew could peer-asses them on.
I then gave each student someone to peer assess on a mini HoWL tracker. Every student gave at least a secure on the peer assessment, and knowing that someone was tracking engagement, meant that members of my crew really pushed themselves in those sessions to contribute and ask clarifying questions. I’m going to try this again in a few weeks to get snapshots of what is going on in sessions.
To celebrate our successes, Dylan treated us to homemade sponge cake with custard and Torran bought in a chocolate birthday cake. Not only this, Miss Narey who has been with us over the past few months prepared a quiz for us to enjoy! Big appreciations to those who made Friday’s crew session so fun, and congratulations to Mollie, Charlotte, Dylan, Callum, Sami and Jess for winning the quiz.
This is just a reminder that on the last day of this term, Friday 21st May 2021, the school will be closing for all students at 1:30pm after Crew. This is for staff to prepare for the new term. There will not be any provision for students to stay after this time so all students must leave at 1:30pm.
Posted on behalf of Mrs Vayro (Assistant Principal – Y7 Phase)
In light of the announcement concerning the closure of the E27 year bubble at XPE the following arrangements have been made to support students whilst working at home:
All Crew sessions and lessons will take place LIVE via Google Hangout and the timetable is highlighted below.
Students are registered in Crew (8.30am), at the beginning of the morning session (9.15am) and afternoon (1.15pm).
Work will be set by the Teacher on Google Classroom as part of the lesson.
All students are expected to join each session. If a student is absent, Crew Leaders will contact home to ascertain the reason why. If a student is unable to join a session, for example, they are unwell, we ask parents to please contact the office. Crew Leaders and Subject teachers will send Google Hangout invitations to their classes.
