Last Friday Crew Young started their bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award skill section with a spot of gardening – or rather seed propagation. The sowing of seeds and harvesting of crops is rather limited by the time of year, although we still aim to grow cress, parsley, basil and oregano. One of these plants, we learned, has strong medicinal uses in some parts of the world….and was even used as a cure for snake bites!
The weather may have scuppered our normal plans today but it didn’t dampen our spirits. We took the opportunity to run our first inter-crew competition of the year. E25 students competed fiercely in their Danish Longball contest (a mixture of cricket and dodgeball). Points were up for grabs for good sportsmanship, good individual play and, of course, for winning games. Crew Turing ultimately emerged victorious after some outstanding play by all!
During the past week Crew 7HMI and 7BBU planned and carried out a bake sale to raise money for the Sick Children’s Trust in Sheffield. This was suggested by a crew member to help one of our students whose family is being supported by this fantastic charity due to an unwell sibling.
Crew members planned the whole thing with very little help! This included what day the bake sale would be on, who was going to bake what, pricing and setting up of the bake sale.
It was a crazy 15 minutes but we sold out of all our homemade sweet treats and raised an amazing £100!!! This highlights the power of crew and compassion that our students have… this is what XP is all about.
Myself and Mr Burke could not be any prouder of our crews… it was the highlight of both our weeks!
We may only have 1 song and no tour bus but that didn’t stop us performing at 4 venues around the XP. site.
We received some really positive feedback that has helped our confidence as Crew Ukes. Look out Donny XP. Ukes are coming!
It’s been a busy week in both E25 (Year 8) and E26 (Year 7)!
Here are some of the highlights…
On Wednesday, an expert visited E25 and talked about the plight of refugees and the long, arduous journey they face when seeking asylum. Our expert, Nick, from the Conversation Club in Doncaster, engaged students in a game where they had to overcome many obstacles to arrive safely in a different country.
E25 also spent quality time reading the anchor text ‘Of Mice and Men’ for their expedition, ‘Should I stay or should I go?’ Students were introduced to the characters of George and Lennie, with Mr. Portman lending his amazing vocal talents when reading dialogue between the two!
Meanwhile, in E26 students listened attentively as Ethan, who is enlisitng in the army in March, spoke with great passion about how he became inspired to join the army and what his new job and training will involve. E26 asked thoughtful questions such as ‘If you are an army medic, do you still need to fire a gun?’ and ‘What sort of food do you eat in the army?’
Thank you, Ethan, for taking the time to share your experiences with us!
Finally, it has been wonderful to hear about the high levels of engagement and productivity of all students this week. Here are a few entries from our praise logs…
Year 7s (E26):
‘Harvey has written an excellent WW1 job description which shows high levels of engagement and craftsmanship and quality. A pleasure to read, Harvey!’
‘Excellent purple polishing to up-level his WW1 job description. Shawn thought carefully about which other persuasive devices he could add to help add impact to his work. Brill!’
‘Cerrina was ON IT today in Hums – always offering to contribute and made super quotation annotations.’
‘Faith showed great courage when delivering a speech to the crew about what would make her a good ambassador.’
Year 8s (E25):
‘Alice challenged herself to use new vocabulary in her writing in Spanish today.’
‘Dylan answered questions with great maturity and a keen eye for detail in Music.’
‘Ruben was a fantastic ambassador for 8Explorer at the Conversation Club, maturely asking questions to migrants in Doncaster in a way which was polite and respectful.’
‘A beautiful example of how books should be laid out! It is amazingly neat and it absolutely made my day that Ava takes such pride in her work.’
Well done, everyone! Keep up the amazing work!
As I’m sure you are aware there will be lots of rolling or full road closures this coming Friday due to the UCI Road World Championships.
It may be a good idea to check your usual route to school to see if it will affect you and your journey.
If you go to Doncaster Council website it gives you the full route and the times of closure
Today in HUMAN, 7Explorer were lucky enough to have a visit from a particularly special expert! Ethan, who is one of XP’s first cohort of students to take their GCSEs, came to speak to us about applying for jobs in the army and the qualities needed to be a successful soldier.
Ethan is joining the army in March when he will start his training as a soldier in the Royal Engineers.
Ethan talked to us about what inspired him to join the army, what his roles and responsibilities will be and what his daily routine will be like. He also explained what duties the role of being both a medic and an engineer would include.
We were fascinated to hear that he will have to share a dormitory with 11 other soldiers and get up at 5am! We were shocked to hear that you can have one hour on your X Box each evening to help you unwind!
Ethan spoke clearly about needing qualities such as compassion, respect and craftsmanship and quality. Shawn said, ‘It’s just like crew!’
We then shared examples of our job descriptions and asked Ethan to choose a job to apply for. Ethan said he would apply for all of them as he was impressed with persuasive devices used, such as Sam’s rhetorical questions, and the clear explanations of the character traits that are needed.
7Explorer would like to appreciate Ethan for taking his time to talk us. We have invited him back once he has started his training to let us know how he is getting on.
Good luck, Ethan!
Today in HUMAN, 7Explorer have been working extremely hard writing their final copy of a World War 1 job description.
Students’ task was to compose a piece of persuasive writing to encourage men to enlist in the army. They had to include a range of persuasive literary devices such as rhetorical questions, alliteration and powerful vocabulary to make their adverts appealing.
All students were focussed in sessions and were praised and appreciated for their sustained levels of concentration and productivity.
Take a look at what working hard and getting smart in 7Explorer looked like!
This year started on such a positive for Crew Turing after ending the year on a high. We are seeking to further our self improvement this coming year as my crew recognise they are no longer the youngest in the school and will be stepping up to the plate as role models for E26.
One student who had fantastic news to share with crew who I’d really like to spotlight in this post is our very own Lexi, who has made impressive amounts of progress in her gymnastics training since starting at XP East a year ago. She has continuously moved up into more advanced classes and is competing regularly. Check out her skills:
I love it when members of crew bring in items to crew for us to celebrate! Another member of crew whose achievements we’ve loved hearing about is Torran, who is currently top of his football league and who has scored in the past few games.
One item we really reflected on rebooting was reading now we’re all back from summer. It was heartening to hear that so many of my crew had enjoyed books over the holidays – Jessie deserves a special mention for reading 8+ during the break! We know there is a correlation between grades and reading, but more importantly, it’s so important to invest time in reading for your wellbeing.
My crew stated that they want to up the stakes for the reading challenge this year. I hoped all 13 of us would read 100 books be December 2019 – I personally have read 16 so far! They suggested various ideas for prizes or competitions for those who were reading. I have taken their ideas into account and have ordered these badges. Anyone in my crew, or beyond for that matter, who reads 8 books between now and Christmas break will earn themselves a Lifetime Book Lovers Club Member enamel pin. I will also take the book length into consideration, but I’d love to hand a few of these out come December time.
To track our progress some members of my crew have created goodreads accounts, where they can review books they have read, track their reading progress, and set themselves targets. This website is also fantastic for book recommendations, lots of students were able to find curated lists of books they’d like based on genres they enjoyed.
I’ve ordered 5 badges for now, let’s see how many I’ll be handing out!
Here’s quick check-in to review what’s been happening with Crew Finch!
Well, at the moment it’s all about preparing for Passage Presentation, where students have to present their reflections on their XPE experience so far, how they’re developed as a learner, and why they think they are ready to embark on their GCSE studies. This is such a pivotal moment in their school life, and we’ve been having some really interesting conversations and reflections based on not only where they want to go, but also on how far they’ve come since Year 7. A letter invitation will be being sent out to parents/carers/community members soon. Having sat in a few last year, I would recommend bringing tissues!
However, there have been opportunities to break off from our intense Passage presentation with a bit of a ‘friendly’ basketball competition with Crew Mandela. I’m pleased to say that we held on to our title as Basketball champs 🙂
The highlight of the year so far for me though has been our fieldwork to Alton Towers, where students got to consolidate their learning on forces and speed, as well as having a go at designing their own rollercoaster… We also spent time as a Crew going on some of the rides: Smiler, Nemesis, Gravity and Oblivion to name a few! I was happy to take on the role of Chief Bag and Coat Holder so didn’t get to go on any of the rides (nothing to do with me being scared stiff, honest!) but I absolutely loved seeing the pure joy (and terror!) on the faces of my Crew before and after each ride.
As I said in my last blog post, students are working so hard at the moment across Crew and all their lessons, and we’re enjoying riding the rollercoaster of Y9 (and Passage!) together. Some of the twists and turns are scarier than others, but we’ll always get off with a big smile on our faces. Scream if you want to go faster 🙂
