Hello everyone!
We are thrilled to announce that our recent Christmas jumper day and pyjama day events were a huge success! Thanks to your generous donations, we were able to raise a total of £344 for Save the Children.
We would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who participated and donated. Your support means the world to us, and we are so grateful to have such a kind and giving community.
I wanted to show some pieces of work that Olivia, Jessy and Nida have been working on at home.
All three girls have really impressed me with their work ethic and are showing how they ‘Get Smart’.
Olivias Hums work:
Jessy’s artwork:
Nida’s artwork:
I wanted to share some of the beautiful work that 9 Skipper has been producing in their art sessions.
I am so impressed with the craftmanship and quality.
Year 9’s first expedition of the year is called ‘Another Brick in the wall’ which has the guiding question ‘How are our lives affected by structures?’
They have created their own expedition title pages:
They have been looking at the street artist Phlegm and reproducing their own work in his style as well as an artist research page.
As you can see – it’s looking great!
Crew Kahlo has made a great start to their fourth year at XP (How time flies).
Our crew week was a bit different this year which consisted of:
As they are coming to the end of Year 9, crew has been reflecting on their year. When thinking about their journey throughout the year, here are some of their highlights.
They have finished their second expedition of the year called ‘Every Picture Tells a Story’ by creating beautiful work. They looked at Islamic tiles and then used rotational symmetry to design their own patterns to paint with acrylic paint.
Here are some examples from Crew Kahlo:
Crew also chose their options for ‘Leading Our Own Learning’ that they will be studying next year. The crew has picked a range of options such as Engineering, Citizenship, Psychology, Further maths, ICT / Computing as well as some members of the crew decided to take up the opportunity to join the ‘pushing for 4’ group that will support them with Maths, English, and Science leading up to their exams.
They cant really believe that they are coming to the end of Year 9 and going into Year 10!
This week, crew Kahlo had a visit from Rufus. It was lovely to get some fresh air – what a lovely start to the day!
What a busy first couple of weeks crew Kahlo has had in Year 9!
There’s never a dull moment at XP, especially at the beginning of term. We kicked off the new year with an outward bound trip where we went abseiling off a bridge (80ft!) and caving:
On our second day of Year 9, crew took part in a number of fun challenges (working as a crew) in the morning and then played the other Year 9 crews in a bench ball tournament. We ended the day with a community meeting.
On our third day of Year 9 we walked to Potteric Carr nature reserve and then did a ‘Solo’.
When we got back to school, crew prepared for their POL to explain what they had done that week and what they had learnt from it. They worked well as a team to present to their peers and parents.
As you can see – we don’t mess about! We start as we mean to go on here at XP.
Cant quite believe that crew Kahlo are in Year 9 already – bring it on!
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.
On Thursday, all our Year 7 students had a hangout with their first art expert.
Their expert was called Derek Robertson who was speaking to our pupils about his ‘Migrations‘ exhibition.
These pieces of artwork that Derek created fitted in perfectly with Y7’s current expedition called ‘Wherever I lay my hat’ where they are answering the guiding question of ‘Is migration worth the risk?’
Our expert was able to give our students information about his experiences when visiting refugee camps around the world and insights into the lives of the people he met.
Mr. Wilmot made loads of notes!
Mrs. Marshall was on fire with the anchor charts.
Miss Hickson was busy making notes on the board
Manveer and Maisie shared the notes that they wrote during the hangout.
Keegan even recorded the whole hangout as a voice note on his iPad and sent it to me!
I was so impressed with our Year 7’s. They were respectful and inquisitive. They asked some fantastic questions and wrote brilliant notes.
Well done Y7!
So, we got through our first week back after Lockdown 3.0. It was a tiring week but we made it.
Crew hit off the week with a covid test before they were able to mix with their classmates. They did really well and were really sensible about it.
To end the week, X26 crew leaders thought that it would be good for pupils to blow off a little steam and have a couple of games of dodgeball.
I was really impressed with crew as we didn’t come last! Even though we were two crew members down.
I was particularly impressed with Arthur who was throwing the balls so so far and properly took poor Kolby out at one point! He was a great sportsman and said sorry for the powerful take-out.
I hope Nida won’t mind me sharing this – but I was so happy to receive the following photos of some artwork she has been working on this weekend based on the artist Luke Dixon that we are looking at in Y8 art sessions. Nida always works so hard and has a real talent for drawing. Everything she does is presented so neatly with great care and attention. Absolutely brilliant work Nida!
Fantastic week back crew! Roll on next week.
