Crew Young’s SLCs – a window into our world
“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).
When Ron Berger captured in his definitive EL book “Leaders of their Own Learning” the essence of Student-Led Conferences, he could not possibly have foreseen the challenges of delivering these remotely during a global pandemic!
I’ve been very pleased with and proud of Crew Young recently as they prepared and delivered their latest round of SLCs, this time to a remote audience, selecting examples of work that they were proud of, showed their mastery or indeed require improvement, all without physically having them to touch in their hands.
The depth of their reflections on their learning, the correlations that they articulated between their attendance, their HOWLs, and their Assessment Point 1 data, all self-assessed against their Minimum Expectations were thoughtful and well-considered throughout. I particularly like how Isabel invited and then acted on Eleanor’s critique to improve her first draft before then presenting this to her audience, and how both Aaron and Dominic chose to include photos of their HOWLs trackers to evidence demonstrable improvements in working hard and getting smart over time.
I would like to appreciate students and their parents for arriving promptly to these events, and especially those students who kindly agreed to having their SLCs video-recorded for critique and modelling purposes. Crew Young have consented to sharing some of their work, showcased in their SLCs, below.
Find out more here!
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, KeishaÂ
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.Â
- 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.Â
We welcome feedback from staff, parents and community stakeholders, so please complete this Google form.
For reference:
Best wishes,Â
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.Â
(You definitely deserve chocolates and flowers, too.)
Because, as me and my mate RuPaul always like to remind you:
