We have recently welcomed a new student to Crew Finch – welcome, Kobe!
Kobe joined us at a time when we’ve been busy preparing for SLCs, so I was conscious that – three weeks on – he doesn’t really understand the concept of crew, or why it’s so crucial to us as a school. This was confirmed to me when I asked him if he felt like he was part of crew yet, and he answered: “Almost.”
Now, I know it’s a difficult transition for any student joining a new school and making new friends, but to join an already formed, tight-knit crew, who have literally and metaphorically climbed mountains together for 2 years, must be doubly difficult.
“Almost” made we realise that we haven’t done enough over the past 3 weeks to make sure that Kobe is Crew and gets Crew.
We took Kobe right back to the beginning of Crew Finch by showing him this video (cue goosebumps!)
It made us all remember what it was like on that very first day, and the feelings we had about joining a new school and making new friends: anxiousness, worried, scared, excited… But by the end of that day, we had become crew.
It’s true that our shared experiences have made us crew, but we’re excited that Kobe has now joined us just in time for the next stage of our journey: Year 9! And I hope that when I ask him at the end of term if he feels like crew yet, he will reply with a resounding “Yes!”
One last thing (well done if you’ve got this far!)
A few weeks ago I had the absolute privilege and pleasure of facilitating a workshop for the Trusts’ annual XPosé conference, looking at the power of relationships in crew. This session was led by Y7 and Y8 students who spoke confidently and passionately about what crew means to them. As part of this, the workshop participants had been asked to do a mind mapping activity where they had to write down what they thought crew was and I thought these were worth reviewing with crew today.
They looked at the sheets and picked out the words/phrases which really illustrated or reminded them what crew was about. I was worried that we have forgotten – or become complacent about – the power of crew. Maybe an “outsiders” perspective would remind us, and give Kobe a better understanding, too.
We had a really interesting conversation afterwards about the impressions of crew from these sheets, and we made a list of the ones that were most important to us.
The most powerful one being this:
XP wouldn’t be XP without Crew.
Say no more 🙂