We had the pleasure of holding our Y10 Awesomeness community meeting this week – and what a week it’s been for Year 10!
It took us AGES to get through all of the appreciations, along with a bit of a ‘cultural reset’ focusing on apologies and stands this week, too. Some Y10s showed great courage and integrity!
Check out the masses of praise postcards below – a special shout out to this week’s crew superstars!
We’re proud of you, C26!
Miss Cocliff & Mrs Parker x
Hello, we are Dufton Crew! This is our first blog post and we want to share with you some stories from our first half term at XP East.
When we first joined XP, we were all nervous and shy but our experience at Outward Bound prepared us for the challenges and adventures we would face.
In our first week, we jumped straight into immersion, where we went on our first fieldwork trip to the National Coal Mining Museum. At this point, we did not know our Guiding Question or Expedition Title, so it came as a shock when we were plunged 240 feet underground in a rickety elevator. We faced anxieties and fear, due to the depth of the tunnels and confined space, but we were able to spend some time underground before we rapidly rose to the surface again.
This allowed us to get to know our classes, Explorer and Pioneer, that we would be spending the next 5 years together throughout our time at XP. Our expedition is called: From the Ground Up and our Guiding Question is: What does the community of Doncaster owe to mining? We have looked at the mining strike, women’s roles during the time and how Britain changed and developed as a result of the Industrial Revolution.
We have analysed the musical, Billy Elliot, to help us understand what it was like during the 1980’s. We also had an expert from Reading University who shared with us some stories of local women who protested and fought for the miners of Doncaster.
We are currently planning and preparing for our Presentation of Learning – but we can’t reveal to you the fun details that are about to unfold… just yet.
Stay tuned for more action!
We are incredibly lucky to have the Carlton Main Frickley Colliery Band returning to XP on Thursday 17th November.
All of Year 7 from both XP & XP East are invited to attend on the XP Stairs from 7:30 – 8:30pm to watch the band rehearse. Parents / guardians of students are encouraged to attend with them and also watch the hour rehearsal.
It will be another great opportunity for our students to see these world class musicians as they prepare for their annual performance at the Sage concert hall in Gateshead.
Students will need to go home with a known and responsible adult at the end of the evening. Please ensure suitable transport has been organised.
Any questions please email Mr Robins ([email protected]).
C28 have spent several HUMS lessons this week learning about the life of and impact of Malcolm X. We have compared his life and ideas to that of Martin Luther King. Students are really grappling with the complexity of Malcolm X’s ‘Ballot or Bullet’ speech. They have really developed their analysis skills, pulling meaning from the text and considering how and why a range of language techniques have been used. Great work on a very sensitive and complex topic. We are really starting to see what it means to be human!
In ‘Wise Wednesday’ recently, Crew Obama learned about the importance of sleep. Most of us already knew that sleep helped to recharge our batteries and repair our bodies. However, we were surprised to find how vital sleep is in helping us to remember things and that it is a vital part of committing our learning to our long term memory. We were really pleased to have Ms Ivy with us, as she is an expert in psychology. Ms Ivy explained that our suggestion of having afternoon naps in school might not actually help us to remember what the teacher has taught us. Apparently, a short nap wouldn’t be long enough to allow our learning to be transferred out of our short term memories. Oh well, it was worth a try!
At the end of the session, we discussed our own experiences of the Circadian Rhythms. It was really interesting to hear Ms Ivy explain that the stress hormones produced by our body in response to playing Fifa before bed are the same those produced in response to danger, so it’s not a good idea to game right before trying to sleep. We also wondered if there could be a link between problems with short term memories and migraines.
After all that neuroscience, we were pleased to have the chance to feed our brains with a taste of South African culture. Ms Ivy very kindly brought a selection of snacks back from a recent trip home to Cape Town for us to try. This idea was born in an earlier crew session where we introduced Ms Ivy to a range of delicacies such as Refreshers, Sherbet DipDabs, Earl Grey tea and Parma Violets. It was great fun getting her to try some of our favourites for the first time, but we think she had the last laugh when she brought us some ostrich biltong and antelope sausages to try! The overall favourite was the ‘Peppermint Crisp’ which reminded us of a mint aero. It had a completely different texture in the middle; a bit like a boiled sweet!
Crew White took advantage of a break in the rain to read ‘Kit’s Wilderness’ outside. Our crew book links into our expedition ‘From the ground up.’ There is something really tranquil about being outdoors, we all enjoyed this experience and hope to get out again soon.
Mrs Fowler
Crew Spencer have been making a great start to our Crew wall. We are hoping to have this completed for the end of this term.
Here is some beautiful work Crew Spencer have produced so far. We can not wait for you to see the final outcome.
Miss Dickinson
This week year 7 got the chance to work with Prof. Natalie Thomlinson from Reading University. Natalie is a historian (originally from Donny!) and specialises in feminism and gender in modern Britain and is currently a co-investigator on AHRC project ‘Women in the miners’ strike, 1984-5’. Natalie gave a lecture on the miners strike and explained the importance and role of ‘oral histories’ in understanding the impact the miners strike had on our local communities as well as the role of women during this time period. Our students got to see how historians like Natalie find out about the past and inspired us at XP/XPE to conduct our own research about the Miners’ Strike by speaking to our own family members about this very significant and emotive part of our history in Doncaster.
Mondays are by far our favourite day at XP – Out and about in the fresh air.
This week our activity was orienteering with a twist!
We brushed up and gained many skills during our session, from map reading, listening and speaking, riddle solving, XPD protocols, teamwork and embedding crew norms and expectations.
Here we are embarking on a mini orienteering session around the school grounds. It was awesome to see class crews remembering our fundamentals, circling up, listening to each other, showing courage and compassion, working together and stepping up and stepping back to allow others to shine, and all being crew not passengers!
These are some of the riddles we had to solve – They all absolutely smashed it! Awesome work C29!
Next week’s session is another outdoor session – so please remember to wrap up warm. Looking forward to this already!
XPD Outdoors Crew!
