Phew! We’ve made it to our first half-term break – and what a journey it’s been!
You’ll know by now that our crew sessions are an essential part of our day at XP. East. Every morning we crew up for our daily check-in, and this term we’ve mostly been focussing on teamwork, relationships and character building, using our character traits and HoWLS (Habits of Work and Learning) as the foundation.
During our last crew session of the term, we all reflected on how far we’d come since starting at XP. East. What became clear is that I now have twelve very different children to the ones I met when we first crewed up together in Malham… But then again, my crew have a very different Crew Leader now, too. In the words of Fat Boy Slim (ask your parents, kids!) “We’ve come a long long way together.”
I’ve seen my crew really develop in confidence and find their voices (especially Megan R and Ali M). I’ve seen improvements in behaviour (and we’re getting better at not swinging on our chairs, eh, Bryn W 😉) We spoke about where we feel like we need to work harder to improve and, just like Tom D, I want to improve in STEAM! Brendan K spoke about how much he’s enjoying HUMANS and, I have to say, that is evident in the quality of work he’s producing.
But it hasn’t always been easy for us. We’ve had some difficult conversations around being kind, building friendships, and appropriate behaviour/language. We’ve had to make apologies and stands. My crew have held each other accountable and publicly challenge the behaviour of their peers (which shows great courage!)
We’ve all had bad days, but we’ve supported one another – just like we did when we had to jump into the freezing cold water at Malham and climb up Jacob’s Ladder at Kingswood. In other words…
We’ve become Crew.
Have a wonderful holiday, stay safe, and I’ll see you all in two weeks.
Mrs Parker
P.S. I pledge to post more crew blogs next term!