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:
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.
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…
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.”
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
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):
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:
Spring/Summer kit:
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!
Crew Rashford have enjoyed a fabulous first week back which has focussed on us reconnecting as crew, performing acts of service and giving back to the community. As we prepare for the next stage of our journey into Y10 and the start of our GCSE studies, these activities have helped us realise how important it is for us to support each other through.
Here’s an overview of what we’ve done this week:
Crew building (overview by Jorja)
On Tuesday we had crew building day. To start our day off we did some crew activities with other crews. After this we went for a walk around the lake and we did litter picking as an act of stewardship. In the afternoon we played crew dodgeball. All of these activities brought us closer together.
Ivy Court Care Home (by Tammy, Emma, Manveer, Sofiya)
On Wednesday, we all made cornflake/rice crispy treats within crew. After lunch, we went to the Ivy Court Care Home in Balby where we met the residents that live there. We were all quite anxious to talk to the people however when we first got into the building all our nerves went away. One woman that affected most of us was called Sheila. She was very affectionate and showed a lot of compassion and was telling us about how much she enjoyed her childhood and told us repeatedly to live our lives to the fullest and enjoy ourselves while we’re young. After this, we gave our treats to the residents and they were all so full of joy. We were singing with them and dancing with them and it made us look at life from a different perspective and it just goes to show that we don’t appreciate it enough. We were all quite upset when we had to leave but we’ll be back to see them all at Christmas.
Millers Dale (overview by Callum, Holly, Jayden, Keegan, Sam, Zak)
On Thursday we went to Millers Dale where we took part in a variety of games and situations we had to figure out.We did orienteering (even though we went the wrong way), teamwork games and ab-sailing. In ab-sailing a lot of people were very scared but as a crew we came together to help each other overcome their fears and when most people set off after they got over the first bit of fear they were able to Get to the bottom very easily. People showed courage when doing it.
We then went on to attempt an activity that involved multiple gutter pieces and a ball, the objective was to align the pieces to make a bridge for the ball as it rolled into the gutter pieces. This game used a lot of teamwork and communication between each other. we had to take pieces from the back and align them in the front so the ball could keep moving, we made it quite far when unfortunately we ended up dropping the ball on the floor and we failed. We tried using teamwork to make sure that we got further and further each time. We also did a number game where we had to not get into the zone and not touch the wrong numbers where we had to have good communication skills with each other and make sure we weren’t going into the zone when somebody else was and tell eachother where the next number is and after our turn we had a discussion at the end to say how we can do better and use teamwork to help each other.
The week has ended in us presenting our pledges to the rest of Y10 and sharing how we are going to help each other get to the top of our Y10 mountain.
We know it’s going to be challenging and we have already shared some of our worries around this, but we will get through it as a Crew 🙂
