X28 – Yorkshire Sculpture Park Fieldwork

Students in X28/Year 8 will be visiting Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Wakefield.

This will form part of their immersion for their first expedition of Year 8. 

Students will be visiting on Wednesday – 7th September 2022.

We will be travelling by coach, departing at around 9:15 AM and returning at approximately 15:00 PM.

Students will need to bring a packed lunch unless they access free school meals, in which case school will provide one for them. 

This is an outdoor site so students will be required to take a waterproof jacket/coat in case of wet weather, and wear suitable footwear (old trainers).

Usual school rules will apply in terms of mobile phones and these should not be used by students on the bus. Students may wish to take devices such as iPads to take any photographs or to make notes.

If your child needs to take any medication, please inform their Crew Leader so that any necessary arrangements can be made. 

All medication should be labelled with their name, and passed to a member of staff.

If you have any questions about the day, feel free to contact [email protected]

C27 Fieldwork to Shrewsbury

Year 8 across both XP and XPE will be attending fieldwork to Shrewsbury Prison. This is an opportunity for them to get inside a prison and experience what life would be like. Shrewsbury is a Victorian prison which is now used as a museum and is no longer a working prison.
We will be leaving school at 7:30 on Thursday 30th June. Please can students arrive no later than 7:30. We aim to arrive back at school between 3:30-4 traffic pending.

A busy couple of weeks for crew Kahlo

Well, it’s been a busy couple of weeks in crew. We have been working hard and cracking on.

This week, crew Kahlo has been looking at ‘British Values’ as part of our crew curriculum. We have been learning about how British Values teach us tolerance and respect for others.

We even made a display in our crew room.

We then moved onto looking at the difference between weather and climate. Pupils carried out research into causes of climate change.

I wanted to highlight this beautiful work by Bryan and Jessy. For our current Y8 expedition ‘Wherever I Lay my Hat’ where we have been looking at the artist Luke Dixon for inspiration. Pupils have practiced adding lines and patterns to simplified copies of his work and also using a viewfinder to zoom in on details. I don’t know about you, but I think Jessy’s pencil-tone portrait is absolutely amazing! I only asked for a line drawing – but she went for it! We didn’t want to add any lines (like Luke Dixon does) over this drawing – so we have photocopied her work and she is adding lines to a copy so she has not one but two beautiful pieces of work!

On Thursdays, crew Kahlo has started to think about the HoWLs grades that they would give themselves for that week in each subject area and crew. Pupils critiqued each other’s grades and commented on whether they agreed with them or not. This led to loads of discussion about what ‘work hard’ looks like and how they could try and improve their own ‘get smart’ in lessons. It has been really great to have Mr. Challen in crew with us as he has been able to comment on pupils’ work in their maths lessons.

A very productive couple of weeks crew! Keep up the good work.

Hi all,

Here is a rundown of some of the beautiful artwork that has been produced by our wonderful XP and XPE students during lockdown 3.0.

As a team, we have been blown away by the effort and resilience that our pupils are showing.

I hope you enjoy having a flick through their work as much as we have.

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On Friday, I had the pleasure of hosting our weekly community meeting for X26. I wanted to take the opportunity to speak to my crew and their peers about seeing the positives in life at the moment.

I started our online hangout by asking pupils to have a think about what this quote means:

One of the explanations from a student was ‘When you’re unhappy you don’t feel like doing anything but when you’re more positive you have more energy and you’re happier ‘. I have to say that I agree with this. 

I described my own feelings about lockdown 3.0 and the fact that we are working in a very different way. We are all going to have good days and bad days but we must remind ourselves of the positives.

It’s very easy to think negatively about ourselves, about a situation, or about an event that has happened or is about to happen. However, it’s really important that we find positive thoughts to keep us happy and feeling good. 

Finding the positives isn’t easy and is a skill that we definitely have to work on.

Last week, I asked all the teachers of Year 8 to give me some feedback about how pupils are getting on with their online learning.

I was so impressed and it genuinely gave me a warm fuzzy feeling being able to share this feedback with X26 and especially crew Kahlo.

Look at this lot!

#wearecrew

He’s taken on Piers Morgan, but can Jon McClure- lead singer of the band Reverend and the Makers- handle grillings by X26 and E26?

They may only be Year 8s, but they’re the next generation to challenge injustice and support when it’s right to ‘Fight the Power’. As well as curently raising funds to commerorate the Doncaster Suffragettes, they’re working to become young, poetic activists as they write their own verses for their ‘Fight the Power!’ expedition.

For someone who doesn’t like ‘fake news’, Trump and his pal Piers know how to create it…(cue Jon McClure stepping into the ring).

South Yorkshire star Jon, brings his expertise as a song-writer and poet, as well as having a First Class History and Politics degree! Jon has collaborated on lyrics with the Arctic Monkeys, whilst also having written the music for his own band who have had chart success with anthems such as Heavy Weight Champion of the World. From drawing festival crowds and packing out gig venues, to appearing on politics shows and Good Morning Britain, this guy has lots of wisdom to impart on our Year 8s. The man who said “When we see people like yourself fawning over Donald Trump, then we feel the need to stand up and say something,” will hopefully be inspiring our students to do the same.

Jon will be chatting with our students via Google Hangout (we’re sure he will have the same presence and ‘draw the crowds in’, despite Covid restictions) on Monday afternoon (7th December).  Good Morning Britain will be quaking in their boots…or booking us for their next debate!

 

So, crew Kahlo is back to full strength. We have welcomed another new student to our crew…Alex. He has well and truly fit in with our crew

When speaking to his teachers, it has been lovely to hear such wonderful feedback about Alex and how he has hit the ground running at XP. He has been working really hard and getting smart in his sessions. Here are a few things that his teachers have said about him:

Mrs. Sprakes (Spanish) – Alex shows COURAGE, he’s never done Spanish before but he’s come into Y8 and he’s giving it a real go. Awesome!

Mrs. Ibbotson (Hums) – Alex is doing great in Hums. He is always getting involved and has lots to say and input to the sessions. 

We created a crew display with our name ‘Crew Kahlo’ by adding colour to mindful colouring pages and laminated them. I think it looks great! Every member of crew also wrote a pledge that they feel is important to them to work towards in the run up to Christmas. Some of the pledges were:

  • to concentrate in lessons (Tammy)
  • to be kind (Alex)
  • to use integrity all the time (Max)
  • to remember things (Arthur)
  • to remember to bring my water bottle and equipment (Bryan)
  • to be more organised and to concentrate more (Olivia)
  • to help other people (Kearan)
  • to speak more in class (Billie – Lou)
  • to get my homework in on time (Jessy)
  • to ask more questions in class (Harrison)
  • to be in school on time (Callum)
  • to answer and ask more questions in class (Nida)

We will be checking in on these pledges throughout the term to hold each other to account and make sure we fulfil them.

The crew has also started to analyse their HoWL’s data this week. Looking at the marks they have received for ‘Working Hard; Getting Smart and Being Kind’ for each subject

Next week, we will be making pledges on how to improve our HoWLs as the year progresses.

We will be looking at how we can support each other as a crew to do this by giving kind, specific, and helpful feedback to each other.

We also celebrated a birthday. Happy Birthday, Olivia! Now officially a teenager! (Oh dear. Haha)

Amazing prints by X26

Really impressed with Y8’s prints from today’s art lesson.

It was lovely to see the enthusiasm and excitement of the students with this new technique.

 

Crew Kahlo are back!

It’s all go at XP after our time at home during the lockdown. It’s so good to have the crew back together again. I’m really proud of crew Kahlo for settling back into their school routine (even though they’re all a bit tired). Each and every member of crew has made a fantastic start to Year 8 and has received some lovely feedback from their teachers.

For our first day back we had a full day together to re-connect and catch up.

I was impressed with their mature attitudes towards the new rules that we have to follow to stay safe in school. They also let off a little steam by playing a few games outside to get some fresh air…

We discussed ideas for crew pledges to try and help each other when we need support

The crew has had some changes this week like our first whole school virtual community meeting:

We also had the introduction to ‘Wise Wednesdays’. For our first week, we were looking at ‘Understanding Identity’. We discussed how social and cultural factors help to shape our identity. It was a chance for the crew to explore who they were as people and think about how others see them. It was challenging for some members of the crew but they grappled with the tasks and supported each other. It was lovely to have the chance to speak to them all about ‘what makes them who they are’.

Well done for having a great start to Year 8!

Crew EJN being creative!

Crew EJN have produced some beautiful work based on the artwork of Wassily Kandinsky during lockdown.

By Nida

By Tammy

By Bryan

By Arthur

By Jessy

By Olivia

They have also started their new expedition ‘Above all, compassion’ off with a bang by designing a storyboard to show the environmental changes during ‘The Lorax’.

By Harrison

By Arthur

By Jessy

There is a website that has been created especially for this expedition to help pupils find the tasks that they need to complete and to give them extra guidance. The link for the website is here.

Keep up the good work crew and remember that I want you to concentrate on the most recently set tasks on google classroom and try to meet your deadlines. If you fell behind with the work from the beginning of lock down – that needs to be done after you finish the new work.

Take care and stay safe!