C26 (Y10) & C25 (Y11) – what a cracking start!

What an absolutely cracking start to the year. Both year groups across both schools have been absolutely on it! Some of our Y10 students are already getting smart by creating revision resources to help them over the next 2 years, whilst our Y11s have come back ready to work hard for their GCSEs.

This week we held our first year group community meetings and, as you can see from the slides below, we already have lots to celebrate!

Year 10 Appreciation Slides:

Year 11 Appreciation Slides:

Crew blogs:

Your child’s Crew Leader will keep you up to date with what’s happening in crew via their crew blogs. You can find these here:

X26E26
Crew Blessed Crew Frank
Crew KahloCrew Obama
Crew PankhurstCrew Mercury
Crew ThunbergCrew Rowling
X25 E25
Crew PiperCrew Ali
Crew Rosa ParkesCrew Anoa’i
Crew Stan LeeCrew Parkinson
Crew TomlinsonCrew Turing

A couple of reminders:

We have asked all students to re-familiarise themselves with our dress code policy. We understand that our lack of uniform allows students to express themselves, however we do still have guidelines. If students persistently break the dress code guidelines, they will be challenged and required to complete after school reflections. We want to avoid this, so they can attend revision sessions instead to achieve their best grades at GCSE level!

Could we also ask for your support please in ensuring your child comes to school every day with appropriate equipment. This should include a pen, pencil, ruler, water bottle, and fully charged device (we don’t allow students to work on mobile phones). In Y10/Y11 we find devices are used a lot more, so please make sure students are bringing their chargers to school too! It’s vital that they have access to these devices to achieve their full potential through work in sessions and revision. Students may find it beneficial to have a notebook for revision material too, but that’s personal preference!

As ever, please feel free to contact us if you have any questions and we look forward to meeting some of our Y11 parents at our work experience launch on Wednesday 14th September 🙂

Mrs Parker (E25/E26 Phase Lead, XP East) and Miss Cocliff (X25/X26 Phase Lead, XP)

Crew Anoa’i: It’s The Last Chapter!

How time has flown for Crew Anoa’i and E25. It feels like it was only yesterday I met the crazy bunch of kids who would change my life forever. We’ve had many ups and downs along the way but we’ve made it! I can’t believe that in only a few months time Crew Anoa’i will be fledging the nest and venturing into the big wide world. 

For the first few days of Year 11, we spent time refocusing and coming together as a crew once again. We reflected on our time here at XP East, looking back through photos and reminiscing the journey we’ve had so far. 

On Tuesday, we travelled to Flamborough Head, where we walked from North landing to South Landing. Whilst faced with a beautiful landscape, we were given the opportunity to catch up with one another after a long 5 weeks off. It was a great way to start the week, tiring but great.

On Wednesday, we spent the day in crews. We started with a check in regarding the summer holidays then completed several tasks as individuals: tasks such as ‘We Can Be Heroes’, an activity that involves each student designing a fancy dress costume. The designs are then swapped over and a background is created to set the scene of someone’s car breaking down whilst dressed in the costume. This naturally is the worst place imaginable. Then the designs are swapped over again and students have to design a superhero, the saviour of the person stranded in their party outfit. A superhero name is given and powers are selected wisely, all relating back to our XP character traits. All designs are then revealed to each other, here are some examples.

Crew Anoa’i then focused on completing their letters to their year 7 self. Everyone took their time and thought very carefully about their individual journeys at XP East and composed some great letters offering guidance to their younger selves.

We then moved onto our last task of the day, our GCSE Roadmap. We were given instructions to create a journey that resembled our last year at XP East, including Mock Exams and revision techniques. Our aim was to create a roadmap but in a theme of our choice. All designs are then judged and the winning design would secure the prize cake for their crew to share. (We will update you on this next week, fingers crossed we win!)

On Thursday, Crew Anoa’i and the rest of C25 took part in countless activities organised by Wise Up. We worked together to complete a number of team building tasks, including ‘Flip It’, ‘Giant Nails’, ‘Crazy Maze’ and ‘Say What You See’. We were given the job of scoring ourselves in the following categories – Planning, Communication, Motivation, Teamwork and Completing The Task. During this process we showed integrity with our marking. After we completed as many tasks as we could in the time given, we calculated the average of our scores. We came SECOND out of 8 crews, with an average of 21.8! This was a huge achievement for us and we are very proud of ourselves for doing so well with the team activities, something we have previously struggled with.

On Friday, we celebrated our success with some sweet treats and then focused our attention on answering the guiding question: 

“How can we get everyone to the top of their mountain?”

We created a short video showing our journey from year 7 to present day and how we have come together, as a crew, in this past week. We presented this video to the other crews in E25 and shared our answers to the guiding question. 

What a start to the year we’ve had. I can’t wait to see what Crew Anoa’i do in their final year at XP East. I’m looking forward to spending these last few months together, creating memories that will last a lifetime!

– Miss Mitchell

#LastChapter

GCSE Geographers in the Great Outdoors!

 

C26 and C25 GCSE geography students had a lovely time on Friday at the Longshaw Estate in the Peak District. They were collecting data on the width, depth and velocity of the river at two sites so they could analyse whether there were changes downstream to support Bradshaw’s Model.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In our lessons preparing for the fieldwork, students had to select our hypotheses, consider the suitability of the site and any risks involved as well as justify our sampling and data collection methods. But, we’re only half way through!  Next steps in our upcoming lessons after the fieldwork are to present and explain our methods of data presentation and evaluate the enquiry. During our evaluation of the enquiry, students have to consider any problems with their data collection methods, limitations of the data and suggestions for improvement. Finally, they will evaluate the extent to which conclusions are reliable.

 

No wonder Dylan, Rosie and Marcus fell asleep on Friday and Rihanna needed a hot chocolate boost – all this hard work is tiring!

Y9 & Y10 GCSE Geography Fieldwork

On Friday 1st July, Y9 and Y10 GCSE Geography students (Common Mission/Leading our Own Learning) will be going on fieldwork to Burbage Brook at the Longshaw Estate, Peak District. 

This is a required part of the GCSE and we will be studying changes downstream along the river.  If your child is in year 9, this is similar to the fieldwork they have undertaken as part of their expedition –  but the GCSE version and at a different location! 

Please find attached the kit list which details everything students need to be prepared. 

Students need to be at school by 8:15, ready for a quick briefing and ready to leave promptly at 8:45. We should be back at the end of the school day, traffic depending, and students will keep home updated with the travel progress. 

Any questions, please email me at [email protected] 

Burbage Brook in a pretty valley, Longshaw Estate - Photo

Common Mission Music Fieldwork

Year 10 and Year 11 Common Mission Music students will be going to CAST Theatre on Wednesday 27th April to watch ‘Footloose’ the musical as part of their Arts Award qualification.

We will be walking from school at 1:30pm to watch the afternoon performance which will finish at 4:45pm approx.

Suitable clothing for waking to CAST Theatre will be needed depending on the weather (a coat if it looks like rain etc.) and students attending will be required to organise transport home from the theatre after the show. This will be communicated with parents and carers before Wednesday.

Any further question please feel free to email Mr Robins at [email protected]

XP East Laying down the Law!

What a fantastic two days students across XP and XP East have had!

On Tuesday, Citizenship students, who have been studying the role of the police, and their year group were involved in 3 seminars from Doncaster Police and South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue. These included Road Safety, Gun and Knives and Exploitation. 


After a fantastic Tuesday, things only got more exciting here at XPE today…
Students listened to a talk regarding Dog Handling and were introduced to not one, but two real life police dogs! Isn’t Hudson wonderful?
If that wasn’t enough, students were given time to ask all their pressing questions in a Q&A session. Students also experienced all the equipment police officers are trained to use, including riot gear and operating police cars.
A fantastic two days had by all students and staff! #WeAreCrew

Marvellous Mocks!

It seems like a lifetime ago when we first started to prepare for the Year 10 History mock exams and finally now the whole process is complete and I am really proud of how the students conducted themselves through the process. It all started after October half term with weekly revision being set and the start of after school revision classes – it was great to see so many students taking responsibility for their learning and putting in the effort to prepare for their exams. In our lessons we spent time going through exam technique and what to expect from each style of question and it was clear to see that this advice had been absorbed and acted upon. After the mocks had been marked, students spent their time FIXing the assessments, responding to feedback to improve their answers to the questions and I am confident that they will do themselves proud if they continue. It also highlighted the importance of revision, with some students who maybe didn’t put enough work in being disappointed by their result, I hope this acts as a lesson to learn from and not make these same mistakes as we continue through their GCSE content – as we keep saying, if you don’t know the content you can’t write an answer!

A massive well done to all students who achieved their target grade and a special mention to students who did exceptionally well: Lewis, Zach H, Harvey, Rosie, Mollie and Ava – we are so proud of you and all your hard work has paid off! Keep going and you’ll smash your final exams in year 11.

A reminder as well to keep revising using both the Nazi and Vikings textbooks and to attend the after school revision sessions on Monday and Tuesday with myself and Mrs Elliott.

Busy morning at D6!

Absolutely fantastic to see so many Y11s here at D6 this morning, especially as it meant dragging themselves out of their warm and cosy beds on such a cold and frosty Saturday morning!

We’ve got about 20 students here either undertaking independent study or taking advantage of the support on offer from our Student Coaches to produce some high quality revision notes.

Some of the boys have even snuck in a game of chess during a ‘brain break’ – still developing their mathematical and critical thinking skills 😉

D6 runs every Saturday morning during term time, 9am-12.30pm, over at XP. East. It is open to all Y10 and Y11 students.

Working hard and getting smart – that’s what we like to see!

Keep up the fantastic work, Y11, we’re so proud of you!f

Mrs Parker & Miss Cocliff x

1 DAY TO GO C24 & 25 Parents Evening – Post 16 Provision. Wednesday 8th December 2021 at XP East 5.30pm to 7.30pm.

XP & XP East are proud to announce our Post 16 Evening and would like to extend the invitation to parents/carers and students in years 10 & 11 at both schools. FXP have kindly offered to support so refreshments will be available on the night and all funds raised will support our students across both schools. As you will be aware opportunities to attend potential provisions have been difficult to arrange so at XP we decided to invite providers to come and meet our students.

6th form providers have been invited to give a short presentation and will be available with stalls for the rest of the evening to answer any question you may have about their Post 16 provision. We are delighted with the response so far from providers and are looking forward to supporting our students in making informed choices as they come to the end of their XP journey. Please complete the form in the link below if you will be attending.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdEMK2-Gyx2y90anT01mGV31pyVwohWZ1BU2zxmXr9754m23Q/viewform

Clear Space, Clear Mind!

Last week Crew Anoa’i, with the help of some of our friends from Crew Ali, took on the task of degunging our school. We had a week of cleaning up, making sure our school was clear of rubbish and ready for session time.

On Monday morning, we took our turn to litter pick around the school grounds. We quickly gathered the equipment from reception and headed out to the back field. The grass was wet and there was a chill in the air. The whole crew took turns to use the pickers and collect as much rubbish as possible. We moved with great pace and found many different things on our journey around the field, including a large tub of ice cream!

Throughout the week, we ensured our crew room was spotless for others to use. We tucked the chairs under after using them and we sanitised the tables. We also cleared the room of any lost property and bits of rubbish left from the previous day.

On Friday morning, we went into ‘degunge mode’. This included us carrying out our weekly class pack check. Everyone in our crew has a ‘degunge’ duty, where they count and check all of the equipment in our crew’s class pack. 

Once this was complete, we then moved onto tidying up our library. A handful of our crew took charge with this task, ensuring all of the portfolio folders were stacked appropriately in neat rows. They finished this task in record time and joined the rest of us in our crew room, to help sort the lost property. 

Sorting the lost property included us taking all of the lost items out of the box, taking a photograph of the items and then folding them back up to be placed in the box once again. As there were a lot of lost items this past week, all hands were on deck. We even had a system in place to speed up the process. We had Jacob, Woody, James, Fin and Denim on unpacking duty. Then Nikodem, April and Thea on photograph duty. Moving onto the next step, we had Zach H, Faith, Lucie-Mae and Zach M on folding duty. To finish the process, we had our friends from Crew Ali (Ruby, Ruben, Charlie and Caiden) on packing duty. With this amazing team, we managed to complete all of our degunge duties in just 15 minutes! That’s a record for Crew Anao’i. 

The last step of our degunge process was to sanitise the tables and put the chairs up on to the tables. This then allowed Miss Mitchell to hoover the room after we had gone home. Then our crew room was truly spotless!

We have thoroughly enjoyed the degunge process and wish to continue this next term.

Don’t forget to check the latest Lost Property post on our website to see all of the lost items. Remember to claim your lost belongings before Friday 5th November.

Thank you!

#LeaveNoTrace