At XP, all staff are expected to go through a professional induction process to
deeply understand what our school is about, how our children learn and how we
teach.
Core to this process is a notion that we “practise what we preach” – that what is
good enough for our students is good enough for us.
For instance, on the first day of school, our students set out on an Outward
Bound experience, then they learn through cross-subject “expeditions”, and
eventually hold Student-Led Conferences where they explain their learning to
their parents. As best we can, all staff follow a similar process during induction, swapping hats between experiencing things as students do, and unpacking the experience as
professionals.
Our staff go on an Outward Bound experience before they start working at XP,
then they experience a learning expedition “slice” (a small expedition lasting
around 2-3 weeks), and the culminating event to our induction is an Educator-
Led Conference, where staff prepare speeches, critiqued by their peers.
During the Educator Led Conferences in 2014 and 2015 staff answered the following guiding question:
“What kind of person, and what kind of educator do I want to be at XP?”
In 2016, the guiding question changed slightly to the below:
“What have you learnt from the experience of the slice and how has it changed you as a person?”
Below is a collection of these reflections.
[gview file=”https://cdn.realsmart.co.uk/8fcb5ef6413072ba30cbe25fbf839dfb/uploads/2015/10/ELC-Speeches.pdf”]