XP East

Students have embraced their new expeditions this week – revealing their guiding questions and unpicking their learning journey for the next 12 weeks. We are excited to see the final products and presentations of learning later this term. 

New Friends of XP and XPE

We’re looking for parents to join our New FXP group and support with fundraising, events and activities which will benefit our whole school community. For further information or to express your interest please complete the form below.

https://forms.gle/Zk2LVqtmYajVrBdW9

Coming up this week

ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES

Our enrichment timetable has been launched, including lots of activities at lunchtime and after school for students in all year groups to engage with. 

If your child attends after school enrichment, please ensure you sign up to the blog where we communicate fixture times, return from fixture updates and any cancellations to parents. 

C30 parents

All C30 students should have brought home their parent pay log-ins and also parents should have received an update about iPads last week. If you haven;t received either of these please let the school office know. [email protected] and [email protected] 

Check out the clips of Aberdovey and Austerfield on this blog post https://xpschool.org/sharing-our-stories-08-09-2023/ 

C26 parents

You should have received the weekly WOOP for C26 at the end of last week – if you didn’t please email Miss Cocliff (for XP) or Mrs Parker (for XPE) and they will reshare. 

We would like to invite all Y11  (C26) parents to our Y11 GCSE Information Evening at XP East on Tuesday, 12th September from 5:00-6:15pm. 

The evening will focus on providing information about exam layout/content, exam dates, revision/work required for each exam and component. This was a really useful evening last year to ensure parents knew how to best support our wonderful Y11s throughout their GCSEs. Subject leads and teachers will also be around if you have any questions. 

As always if you have any questions please contact your child’s crew leader in the first instance. 

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Claira Salter 

Principal

Y11 Parents/Carers – we will share our weekly planner with you all so that you are aware of any important dates/events and can keep up to date with the latest Learning Lab schedule (targeted revision session).

Highlights for this week include:

• GCSE Information Evening on Tuesday
• Launch of Learning Lab sessions

Y11 have had such a strong start to the year – they are focussed, engaged, on-board with our revision plans and we have had so much positive feedback from their subject teachers!

We look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday.

Angella and Mel.

Please find attached photographs of lost property from Outward Bound. Please note the brown walking boots have the name Sam written in them and we also have a square black lunch bag too. If you recognise any of the property please ask your son/daughter to go to XP School reception to collect.

Beautiful Work This Week – Double Edition!

#C30Aberdovey – Our Reflections

Last week our new Year 7s were the 9th cohort of students from XP to head off to the Aberdovey Outward Bound centre to answer the guiding question ‘What does it mean to be Crew?’. These are their reflections after just three days of their secondary school journey…

Orchestra in residence at XP

XP is now the official new home of the Doncaster Youth Jazz Association.

Fifty years ago John Ellis MBE created the Doncaster Youth Jazz Association (DYJA). 

Over the next half century, with three bands and a fourth ensemble made up of alumni, the organisation was to become internationally renowned.

The Doncaster Youth Jazz Orchestra has played at some of the awesome venues in the world, from the Royal Albert Hall to Buckingham Palace, the United Nations in New York to Ronnie Scott’s in London. Always delighting audiences and showcasing the young people of Doncaster’s talent and virtuosity.

Now, after many years at Beckett Road, DYJA are moving into our XP school, which will become their base. Their office, rehearsal and teaching rooms and music library – as well as full band rehearsal space will be here with us at Middle Bank.

Andy, our Chief Academic officer commented:

“We are absolutely delighted, across the XP Trust, that the Doncaster Youth Jazz Association is now based at our founding school, XP.

To support and be associated with an organisation that has travelled the world, sharing its music and the amazing talent of Doncaster’s young musicians, is very exciting and part of our ongoing commitment to the local community.

As we look forward to celebrating 10 years of XP in 2024, this feels like another landmark moment in our story – and we hope this is so for DYJA too as they continue their decades-long journey.”

Charlotte Arrowsmith, Chair of the Board of Trustees added:

“This feels like a new and exciting chapter for us at DYJA as we enter our 51st year. We’re delighted to have moved into XP School – and we’re looking forward to working and creating here, in such an inspiring place.”

#C30Austerfield

Plover’s Colour Run

Acts of Service: C28’s Sine FM Adverts for Moorends Foodbank

X28, X27 and X26 Building Crew

Top of the Blogs

BBK/Chotting @ Carcroft School

Weekly update for families @ XP Gateshead

Student Ambassadors – First meeting of the year @ Plover

Stay and Challenge @ Norton Infants

Class 12: Crew Reading @ Green Top

Act of Kindness @ Norton Juniors

XP Outdoors – a (number) minefield! @ XP

Sports Day 2023 Video @ XP East

Dear Parents and Families of students in Year 11,

Now that we have welcomed students in the class of ’26 back as Year 11, it is time to start thinking about how we prepare them for their final GCSE examinations later this academic year. Starting next week we’ll be running additional academic support sessions known as ‘Learning Labs’ which will take place after school.

Learning Lab is an additional study session which will provide students with targeted instruction from teachers in order to ensure that students are as prepared as possible for their final exams. Learning Labs will take place on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 15.30-16.30. Your child’s Crew Leader will, today, share with you a letter which details the after school sessions that your child must attend. This Term, Learning Labs will focus on Core Subjects: English, Maths and Science. We will be rotating provision each half term, with next term focusing on History, Art, Ethics, Geography, Spanish and PE. If there is a blank space on one of the days on the letter, this means that your child is not required to stay on that evening.

We’re looking forward to getting going this year and thank you again for your support!

Best wishes,

Year 11 Team

Y7 had their first XP Outdoors session this week and what a cracking start the term it was!

We used the session to continue to build on the crew fundamentals introduced during the first week back. We did this by introducing Y7 to Number Minefield – a crew building activity which relies on communication and collaboration, with the aim to complete the task in the quickest time and not incur any penalty points.

Of course there were some frustrations along the way, Crews didn’t always work together (especially during the first attempt of the activity), but it was great to see how all the students reflected on how they could improve before their next try and they did all see an improvement in times! We also appreciated how some of the natural leaders in crew stepped back and allowed others to express their thoughts and ideas.

Looking ahead, we have some fantastic sessions planned for the rest of this term. We have included the weekly session details below (we are on Week 3 next week so will be out walking):

Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Week 6	Week 7
28/08/23	06/09/23	13/09/23	20/09/23	27/09/23	4/10/23	11/10/23
FWB  Outward Bound	Getting to know you session with crew building activities	Local Walk	Fire Pit Gardening	Fire Pit Gardening	Orienteering  Route planning and map reading	Local Walk using map reading skills

It is important that students come appropriately dressed for these sessions. In the winter months the outdoor area can be wet, cold and sludgy and in the summer months hot so please make sure the following items are provided.

Autumn/Winter kit:

• Long sleeved jumper
• Long trousers – waterproof if possible
• Warm hat and gloves
• Waterproof coat

Spring/Summer kit:

• Sunscreen
• Sun hat
• Water bottle
• Waterproof coat

We are really looking forward to the year ahead with Y7. The XP Outdoors curriculum is absolutely essential to helping our students to continue to focus on the importance of Crew, to help them learn outside of the classroom, to help them learn new skills, to build resilience and help them become the best versions of themselves.

If you have any questions or concerns please contact our XP Outdoors lead, Miss Watson: [email protected] or your child’s Crew Leader.

Thank you from the XP Outdoors Team: Mrs Watson, Mrs Parker and Miss Dickinson

We would like to invite all Y11 parents to our Y11 GCSE Information Evening at XP East on Tuesday, 12th September from 5:00-6:15pm. 

This evening will focus on providing information about exam layout/content, exam dates, revision/work required for each exam and component. This was a really useful evening last year to ensure parents knew how to best support our wonderful Y11s throughout their GCSEs. Subject leads and teachers will also be around if you have any questions. 

We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday!

Mel & Angella

I would like to take this opportunity to remind parents about our system for using Car Park 3 to pick up and drop off students.

Please could parents observe the speed limits so that students aren’t put at risk and can we be patient with one another as the car park does get congested, particularly at the end of the day.

If parents could use the proposed routes as suggested on the picture below then we should be able to ensure a steady flow through the car park.

In addition, please could we ask that you switch your engine off whilst you wait, in the interests of keeping the environment as healthy as possible for our students and the wider community.

Once again many thanks for your support.

Check out the video below from Sports Day 2023. I think you will agree… we have a great day that included a range of traditional and non traditional sporting activities which allowed all of our students to take part. Thank you to the PE team for organising such a fantastic event!

Crew Marx had a great return to school last week resetting and carrying out acts of service!

We started the week with crew activities and back to bickering, we then did some baking and delivered the goods to a local care home. We sat and chatted to residents and Alfie (our most competitive member of crew) was beat at dominoes by a resident. He says he let him win, I think otherwise! We then took a trip up to Monsal Trail where we completed some activities to earn points for crew and as always we WON! As well as some crew members facing fears and completing the abseiling, well done Arina, Brooke P, Tammy, Alfie!

We finished the week completing crew pledges and Presenting to the rest of the year group!

Year 10 – HERE WE COME!