Find out more here!
We are entering into the 7th week of online learning at XPE- with seemingly, no end in sight, and so our community meeting was focused around strategies to beat the screen fatigue, and a challenge to to get us all out of the house this weekend!
We started off with a brilliant check in of superhero names, based on dates of birth- some absolute, moving then onto apologies, appreciation and stands. Some fantastic work going on- as shown by the appreciation from staff and students within crew Churchill, for the work around student led crew sessions.
See all E24 apologies, appreciations and Stands made below on the Padlet
Scan this QR code or see applications here
Community meeting Photography Challenge
To encourage us as staff and students to get time away from the screen, a challenge was set for students to over the weekend take photos whilst out on walks out of the house, to be entered in the following categories, entries must be original, and be taken over the weekend whilst out of the house- see some of the entries posted on the challenge by students in E24-
Voting for category winners will take place in week 7 community meeting.
The categories…
1) Architecture
2) Near and Far
3) Nature
4) Food
5) Frozen
6) Technology
E24 Original photos, submitted by Alfie C, Chloe T, Summer, Keisha
Your art could be on display at the Royal Academy in 2021 as part of the Young Artists’ Summer Show!
The Young Artists’ Summer Show is a free, open submission exhibition for students aged 5 – 19. Artworks are judged by artists and arts professionals with selected artworks displayed online and on-site at the Royal Academy of Arts.
Submitting artwork is completely free and is done online. I have registered our school so your artwork can be submitted.
If you’re 12 or under, a teacher or parent/guardian will need to enter for you; if you’re 13 or over you can submit artworks yourself.
Each student can submit up to three artworks of any type and there is no theme. When you enter, you will be asked for images of your artwork plus some information about the piece such as title, size, and a little text about the artwork and why you made it.
The artwork can be made using any medium (a word for the materials you’ve used to create your piece). It can be a painting, sculpture, photograph, installation, video, drawing, or a combination. There is no theme so artworks can be of any subject and they don’t mind when you made the artwork as long as you are between 5-19 when you submit it. They also welcome collaborative pieces made by more than one student, a whole class, or even a whole year group! If you are doing art at GCSE, A Level or BTEC level, they suggest entering artworks that won’t be part of your exams.
Prizes are awarded each year for two inspiring artworks from each key stage, as chosen by the President of the Royal Academy, and you can also vote for your favourite artwork in the annual People’s Choice Award.
Please find below important information related to our school calendar.
Schools across XP Trust (including our Primary and Infant schools) have recently gone through a process to revise our school calendars. The rationale that has underpinned this are three fold:
- Shared staff days – We need 10 staff days throughout the year. This is to ensure the quality of our teachers and the quality of our expeditions. We cannot lose these, and we must have them aligned across all school phases. If we don’t have these, we cannot be XP schools.
- The calendar must underpin the delivery of learning expeditions.
- All schools in our Trust must have the same holiday pattern, across both Secondary and Primary. Again, this is for our staff to work together across all school phases and develop even further.
The Doncaster Local Authority calendar has moved much closer to XP’s calendar, copying our October two week holiday, so the holiday pattern was only different during February, March, April and May, with only three weeks of difference. Therefore, after modelling various options, we found that the best fit to the above three things for our schools was actually a calendar that best aligned with the Local Authority calendar.
The new calendar can be accessed here.
At this stage it is important to state that we will honour any holidays already booked by parents.
We welcome feedback from staff, parents and community stakeholders, so please complete this Google form.
For reference:
Best wishes,
Jamie Portman.
Parents of children eligible for Free School Meals can apply for help towards their energy costs (e.g. Gas and Electricity) through the Covid Winter Grant at Doncaster Council.
For more information and how to apply please use this link.
Please note, if you have already applied you will not be able to apply again.
Good luck!
Dear Crew Finch,
After almost a year of bubbles, online learning, lockdowns, tiers – and tears! – I just wanted to send you this Valentine’s Day message to tell you how much I admire you all.
I admire your resilience.
I admire your courage.
I admire your motivation.
I admire your positivity.
I admire your humour (or at least humouring me!)
I admire your hard work.
I admire your compassion.
I admire that you are still working hard to become the best versions of yourselves.
I admire you for checking in every morning in Crew.
I admire that even through the toughest of times (or should that be especially through the toughest of times?) we are, first and foremost, Crew.
So, this Valentine’s Day I want you to take some time to send some love to the most important person in your life: YOU.
Love yourself. Appreciate yourself. Do something that makes you feel good.
(You definitely deserve chocolates and flowers, too.)
Because, as me and my mate RuPaul always like to remind you:
Come and join our #Crew! Find out more here!
This week has seen the start of Crew Finch’s Y10 Student-Led Conferences. A massive well done to this week’s presenters – Ali, Noah, Mackenzie, Tom and Bryn – for the hard work and integrity evident in all their presentations, which went ahead online with only a few technical glitches! I am one very proud Crew Leader this week (even more so than usual!)
I’m looking forward to more of the same next week. I did email all Crew parents last week with the link to the booking form so if you haven’t already booked, please can I politely remind you to do so before next Thursday (11th Feb) – just email me if you’ve lost the link.
The first SLCs of Y10 are also the first time since the Y9 Passage Presentations that students have had chance to reflect on their academic progress and character growth, as well as presenting examples of their beautiful work. This process has been made easier by the information analysis sheets provided by Mr Allen (thank you, Sir!) They have really made our discussions and reflections much more meaningful, and have helped Crew to come up with some really pertinent pledges and targets.
(ICYMI: I spoke about how we’re using the information analysis and crew narratives to help us frame our pledges for the academic year in this post.)
There has been a new addition to our SLC agenda this time round. Crew have been asked to reflect on their work from home experience, including their online attendance, engagement and productivity. This has meant that we have had some difficult conversations (with more to come during next week’s conferences) but Crew’s self-awareness and honesty around the challenges they are overcoming have been truly humbling. Although I am a little bit heartbroken that one of my Crew thinks that the lockdown period will cause a ‘hinderance’ to his future prospects, despite his absolutely outstanding work ethic and attendance at every single session…
On the subject of attendance…
I’m disappointed to report that I’ve only had 50% attendance at Crew sessions this week. Even more disappointing is the fact that our Crew also have the lowest attendance and engagement levels in online sessions across the whole year group.
However, I don’t want this to overshadow how immensely proud I am of those who are turning up on time to Crew and daily lessons every single day: Tom, Thomas, Ali, Noah, Dakota and Kobe deserve a special mention and we’ll have to think about how we can celebrate your lockdown learning achievements once we’re back in school 🙂
So, I’ll just let Noah have the final word with his perfect explanation of why every day at school matters:
Here is the second installment of the expeditionary arts gallery to show the beautiful work that pupils at XP and XPE are creating at home.
Absolutely amazing work!