Christmas Jumper Day Friday 11th December 2020

By Emily Jones2nd December 2020

This year, as a school, we are once again taking part in the Christmas Jumper Day in support of Save The Children.  Millions of people across the UK and Ireland will be taking part in this day to celebrate being silly and getting into the festive spirit! On Friday 11th December, we would like you to come to school in your most Christmassy attire! It might be a lovely Christmas jumper, or maybe just a bit of tinsel, but we’d love it if you could make a £1 donation to Save The Children.

We’ve looked at the amazing work Save the Children do, in Crew. But just in case you’ve forgotten, here’s a reminder:

  • Here in the UK, they provide families with books and toys, who might otherwise be struggling. The pandemic this year will mean that eve more families may be facing this grim reality.
  • In parts of the globe where Covid-19 rips through communities because sanitation and health care is severely lacking, Save the Children can provide face masks for health workers and hand sanitiser to help slow the spread.
  • Save the Children can provide five children with antibiotics, that help fight malnutrition, using just £10.

Staff have kicked off the fundraising for Save the Children, with a socially-distanced Christmas market, on their Staff Day on Monday 30th November. They raised £338 pounds to help this fantastic cause!

So please come to school on Friday 11th December wearing something Christmassy and give a donation of £1- this small gesture could make a big difference to children most in need, around the world.

XP16 Art & Design Course

2nd December 2020XP East

XP16 is currently offering the following courses:

Art & Design
Music Technology
Creative Media

Each pathway can be studied to Level 3 National Extended Diploma, which is equivalent to three A Levels.

Here is some further information about our Art & Design course.

If you would like more information about studying at XP16 please use this link to our XP16 information site or email Kate ap Harri [email protected]

 

XP16 Mock Exams

By XP East1st December 2020

XP16 Mock Exams December 2020

Below is the process for the XP16 mock exams.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Any specific questions about individual exams I will forward to the subject teacher or you can email them directly.

 

Mock Exams take place Week beginning 7th & 14th December
Mock Exam marking completed Completed by Friday 8th January
Exam review with students Completed by Friday  15th January
Mock Data Analysis:

(Crew leader & parental contact)

 Completed by Friday 15th January: 
Grade cards to parents

SLC’s

 Week beginning: 18th January  

 

POST 16 Exam Timetable – December 2020

Please note this may be subject to change due to current staffing issues with Covid.

 

Day Exam Time Invigilator
Monday 7th December Spanish AS Paper 2 Listening, Reading & Translation

Mathematics Paper 1

 10.30 – 12.30

13.00 – 14.30

 VCO

TBL
Tuesday 8th December English Paper 1

Telling Stories

 9.15 – 11.30 TBL
Wednesday 9th December Sociology Paper 1

Physics Paper 1

 9.15 – 11.15

13.00 – 

 TBL

TBL
Thursday 10th December History Paper 1

Biology Paper 1

 9.15 – 11.45

13.00 – 

 KAP

KAP
Friday 11th December English Paper 2 

Exploring Conflict

 9.15 – 11.45 KAP
Monday 14th December Sociology Paper 2 (half a paper 2) Culture and Identity

History Paper 2

 9.15 – 10.15

13.00 – 15:30

 TBL

TBL
Tuesday 15th December Spanish AS

Paper 3 Response to Film

Politics Paper 

 10.30 – 12.10

13.00 – 15:00

 TBL/VCO

KAP
Wednesday 16th December Mathematics Paper 2

Physics Paper 2

 9.15 – 10.45

13.00 – 

 TBL

TBL
Thursday 17th December Biology Paper 2 9.15 –  KAP
Friday 18th December

 

Apart from Spanish:

AM Exams to start at 9.15

PM Exams to start at 13.00

 

Best Wishes

Kate

Fight the Power!

By Katie Haughey30th November 2020

The year 8 students across XP School and XP East are working towards part of their final product for the ”Fight the Power’ expedition. C26 have been learning about the power of protest, and the impact activists have had on the rights and freedoms we enjoy today. The goal is to commemorate this work, both in a plaque that will live proudly in Doncaster train station, and through works of art that we will be curating celebrating local activism across Donny, should we raise the funds.

Check out our crowdfunder here!

With only 19 days left to reach their crowdfunder goal, students will be pushing to make the final £800 over the coming weeks with their fundraising efforts. We have arranged raffle prizes, because our busking plans were unfortunately no longer feasible due to lockdown restrictions, but we’re not letting it stop us!

Students have recently had an expert visit from Olivia from Black Lives Matter Doncaster, who shared with the groups about the protests earlier this year. Her insights into structural racism and her experiences of micro-aggressions helped open up a dialogue in our school on difficult but deeply important topics.

I would like to thank her for the work she continues to do and we look forward to working with her in future.

Students also have a hangout / expert visit arranged this Friday morning, where they will be learning about the impact of the local Suffragette movement, and the impact Doncastrian suffragettes had on women’s rights across the UK.

We were shocked earlier in the expedition to learn that of the 500+ statues in the UK, only 80 were of historical women. We wanted to do something to address this imbalance, so we feel that commemorating the work of Doncastrian women’s rights activists is a great place to start.

Students will be coming round over the coming weeks to sell raffle tickets, prizes include

  1. A chocolate hamper (worth over £30)

  2. A McDonalds meal of your choice (+ McFlurry), delivered to you during dinner time

  3. A pass to skip the dinner queue for an entire week

We appreciate all donations, and ask that if you can continue to share this if you are unable to donate to hopefully spread the word!

Crew Young on the steps to success!

By D Pearson28th November 2020

A series of six at first perhaps seemingly disconnected words: thoughts, words, actions, habits, character and destiny should be read from bottom to top and not, as is convention, from top to bottom.

Just over three years ago Crew Young and their E24 / Y7 year group would join a weekly Community Meeting by sitting amongst their peers on the bottom row of steps in the heart of our school. As they then progressed through the year, and up the steps into Y8, they were encouraged to turn their thoughts into words, by making public apologies, appreciations and stands, and upwards and onto the Y9 step then their words became actions as they honoured their pledges, held each other to account, acted on kind, specific and helpful feedback, and strived not to be passengers in classes.

Due to Covid-19 we’ve not yet been able to meet as a whole school community, but if we were able to do so then Crew Young would now routinely occupy the fourth row of steps – habits – in our Community Meetings.

The focus of recent work in Academic Crew on “Thoughtful Thursdays” has been to support our students’ ownership of their first round of HOWLs “snapshot” data, and their analysis and interpretation of how their Habits of Work and Learning have been assessed by teaching and support staff. We began the process whilst in self-isolation, by completing a “HOWLs predictions” chart. This was then compared with students’ actual HOWLs grades data, and some of their reflections were captured on a Padlet wall.

 

The next steps will be to work collaboratively to collate student and Crew Leader pledges, that will then facilitate the creation of a Crew Narrative for success. As you can see, Crew Young averages out at around 75% OK or higher rating for work hard and get smart, and a really pleasing 81.8% rating for “be kind”. For Crew Young compassion remains above all.

We are now in a position to begin to ask: “what is the data telling us?” around the 27.3% rated concern in work hard and get smart, and to explore the correlation between Habits of Work and Learning and academic success, as we continue to grow in character and ultimately seek to fulfil our destiny. This process has begun……

 

 

Y10/E24 Christmas food hampers

By A Parker27th November 2020

Our Y10 Silver DofE students have been unable to undertake their usual charity fundraising activities this year, so they’ve decided to create food hampers for our local food banks.

We’re all very aware of the financial impact the various lockdown/tier 3 restrictions have had on our community, especially on those who have been furloughed or are self employed and unable to work.  So, in addition to the staple non-perishable items (cereals; tinned and packeted foods; tea/coffee/juice) we are specifically asking for donations of those ‘treat’ items that some families may have to go without this year.

For example:

  • nice biscuits
  • chocolates/selection boxes
  • Christmas crackers
  • mince pies, cakes, etc.
  • small gift sets (e.g. hand cream/deodorant)

If you are able to contribute, please can you send items in to be passed on to your child’s Crew Leader by Monday 15th December.

The hampers will be donated to St John The Evangelist Church in Balby and The Trussell Trust at Christ Church during the last week of term.

Thank you in advance for your generosity.

Kindness boxes:

The school are also collecting items for our kindness boxes, which we’ll be putting together to support families within our XP Trust. See this blog post for more information and, again, please donate if you can.

Thank you.

#aboveallcompassion

XP16 HoWLs Analysis

24th November 2020XP East

Since last Friday students have been analysing their Habits of work and Learning (HoWLS). This forms part of our Narrative for success, together with our attendance and academic progress. (Academic progress data will be out early December).

Our HoWLS (Habits of work & learning) are:
Work Hard:
I arrive for each class on time and prepared
I participate fully and mindfully in class
I complete all work in a timely manner to the best of my ability

Get Smart:
I take responsibility for my learning by asking questions and seeking help when needed.
I assess my work based on established criteria and rubrics
I welcome feedback and revise my work

Be Kind:
I communicate politely and kindly
I work cooperatively with others
I take care of resources and materials and act as a steward of our community

Teachers assess students on their HoWLS at set times during the academic year and are graded between 1 to 4.5.

< 2.5 Serious 2.5 – 2.9: Concern 3 – 3.4: ok / secure 3.5 – 3.9: Great > 4: Awesome

Students should be achieving at least a 3!

This data is then analysed by students during crew so they can identify areas of success that can be celebrated and areas that need to be improved on. By doing this students take accountability and ownership of their learning.

I’d like to mention there were a number of students that achieved 4’s across all their subjects so Mr Portman offered to buy them a KFC as a treat to say well done!

Well done to Ethan booth, Maisey Sutherland and Klaudia Bieszczad!!!!

This is us last week analysing our CREW HoWLS together

Once students have analysed their data they make pledges on what they are going to improve on. This is then supported by a crew leader pledge of how we can support them further.

We will be displaying this information in our XP16 area so that we are continuously reminded of where we are and where we want to be and what pledges we have made.

Our next session, Friday 4th December, students will be sending a copy of their HoWLS analysis home for you to see. We will also be spending some of crew doing ‘an act of Christmas Kindness’ by serving out hot chocolate and mince pies to staff around both schools.

XP16 Students will be sitting Mock exams in the final 2 weeks of this term. Next week I will share our Mock Exam process with you so you know when to expect Mock results in January and when the student led conferences will take place.

Please can I remind parents to sign up to the XP East Website to receive automatic web posts so that you don’t miss any important information to do with XP16.

Best wishes,

Kate
XP16 Lead
XP Trust Outdoor Expedition Lead

Mi Rutina!

By XP East24th November 2020

¡Hola amigos!

Ever been to Spain or a Spanish speaking country? Would you like to learn some Spanish? Well, Year 8 at XP and XP East have created some beautiful work to help you out!
Students have been learning to describe their morning routine, and how to explain when or where they do something in our expedition “La rutina”. They also recorded their work in Spanish and English, to help you follow the words through sound. Take a look at their very first product!
Inspired? Then use the slides to create your own storyboard, it would be amazing for Year 8 to enjoy and critique your work too!

Don’t go breaking my heart! (Please look away if you’re squeamish!)

By Web Blogger22nd November 2020

Before the October break, year 8 in XP and XP East had a brilliant time completing some heart dissections!

This was all to help with the science part of their cross subject expedition “Fight the Power!”. This expedition has the guiding question “Where does real power exist, in the heart, body or mind?”

In science we have been covering several aspects of the human body (skeleton, muscles, digestive system and the heart) and the students have been working really hard as there was a lot of content and key words involved.

When learning about the heart, diagrams can only tell you so much. It’s made a lot more real when you can see them in real life! Needless to say, year 8 got stuck in and I was amazed and staggered by their maturity as this is usually a higher level GCSE practical!

The best part of the practical was hearing them all correctly identifying the atriums, ventricles and vessels for themselves! It gives me confidence for future practicals with this lot!

Enjoy some pictures of the dissections (or not, if you don’t like blood!)

XP16 Crew Day

By XP East14th November 2020

What an amazing day we had on Tuesday!

We started the day with a check in, by looking at images of friends gathered around fires, images of marshmallow being toasted over campfires and commenting on the feelings these images evoke. Most students thought of friendship, happiness, and a sense of togetherness. And this is exactly what I was hoping to achieve by bringing all the XP16 students together for the day as crew.

Our task for the day was to build XP & XP East’s very own fire circle. An outdoor area where crews (staff & students) can come together to engage in shared experiences outdoors.

Our aim for the day was to have FUN! I wanted the students to work together, communicate, grapple, and grow in ways other than just academically but that are just as important.

2020 has been tough for A Level students and it doesn’t look like its going to get any easier as we get closer to the final exams. There’s a sense amongst them that the road ahead is a long and tough one and with the added pressure of the pandemic, feelings of isolation and loneliness and in some cases, what’s the point?

So the reset button was pressed. The student got a day to recharge, laugh, learn new skills, play with their friends and sit around a campfire that they designed and built, drinking hot chocolate and toasting marshmallows.

And what a fire circle they built! A legacy for the XP16 students to say they helped creat the beginning of Forest School for staff and students of XP & XP East schools. Well done guys, I enjoyed every minute with you all, and look forward to spending more crew time with you.

We even had some of their teachers come and join us for a brew and a chat.

Check out the photos below which really sum up our day.