At the start of term crews in X22 (Y10) engaged in a number of activities linked to our Character Traits and Habits of Work and Learning to allow them to reflect on what it means to be part of XP. The activities included: service learning at Sandall Beat Woods; visiting the elderly at an Age UK Centre; leading crew activities; acts of kindness and just having fun as a crew!
Below are Bronte’s thoughts about crew and some of the things we did in the first week back.
At XP we learn about teamwork and show acts of kindness, for us it’s important to go to a school where we can be ourselves and try to make our work significant. We call this our ‘crew’,
In crew we can share ideas and be creative, for example, every week we share what we have done on the weekend to our crew and show acts of kindness by doing greetings; this happens every Monday.
In crew we all feel like we can share things with each other without getting embarrassed or scared.
We read on Wednesdays to allow us to build our knowledge of vocabulary, punctuation, grammar and sentence structure. On Thursdays we (sometimes!) have an activity day, it’s a day where we all come together and have fun which makes us succeed in team work. We also work hard by focussing on academic work to better prepare us for our upcoming GCSE’s.
On Fridays we participate in a whole school community meeting. This is an opportunity to show integrity and apologise for our mistakes, we also appreciate others that have shown us compassion and respect and we hold each other to account by making stands. This relates to our character traits of ‘Courage, Respect, Craftsmanship and Quality, Compassion and Integrity’.
To show compassion and kindness, every year our crew choses a charity to support. The charity we chose as a crew in Year 9 was Cancer Research UK. They are a non profit charity that provide money for research into cancer suppressant or curing treatment, also they fund the treatments to some degree. We organised 2 fundraising events. The first was a bag pack in Asda and the other was a sweet sale in school. In total we raised £341.09. We were really proud that we had helped others.
Below are some thoughts from us about the visit to the Goldsmith’s Centre at Sprotborough:
Noah
On the 29th of August, as part of ‘Twenty Ways to be XP!’, we went to see the elderly visitors at the Goldsmith’s Centre at Sprotbrough. We asked them questions about their life, played games with them and other activities. At first it felt daunting to meet and talk to people who you have never met but when we got to talk to them we found it enjoyable and fascinating. When we were there we played dominoes and talked to people who told us about the mines and their past lives.
Ben
On our table, there was me and 5 other elderly visitors. At first it was hard to start a conversation but after we had it was fine and we began playing dominoes. Some of them got a bit confused at first but after a few games it was fine. I got speaking to Jim who was from Scotland and had moved to Doncaster to work in the mines. He was nice and happy to talk to me. Everybody there was different and was born in many different places. All of them were happy and seemed to be enjoying their time at age UK.
