Charity Tuck Shop!!

C27 have been raising money as part of their final product by hosting a tuck shop on Friday break times. This week is our final push and we have LOTS for sale including crisps, biscuits, sausage rolls, toast etc. Alongside this we have the “sponge a teacher event” where students will be able to throw sponges at teachers during lunch!

The money raised is for St Johns Hospice, a local palliative care hospital which is very dear to our hearts at XP. So please bring in a £1 or 2 to support the cause!

Friends of XP

Calling all interested parents, staff and grand parents of XP students!

We are hosting our Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Friends of XP on the 4 December with tea and coffee served from 6pm with a 6.15pm start. The venue for the AGM will be the Board Room at XP school in the Keepmoat Stadium and the meeting will close no later than 7.30pm. 

The group is being set up to help the school to raise funds to support our learning expeditions, products and Outward Bound visits. At the meeting we will elect a Chair and a treasurer. Any help will be invaluable and gratefully received.

We look forward to meeting you in December.

FXP Steering Group.

Subjects Matter

This is currently the book we are focussing on in our staff Book Club. This book is packed with really useful strategies to approaching texts, regardless of their subject matter! Well worth a read.

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Dream Team!

We are delighted to say that we have recruited our pioneering teachers for the 2014-15 academic year. We are so excited about them as talented individuals, but more so in how their blend of skills will join to create a fantastic team.

Martin Said will join us from Cramlington Learning Village, an internationally renowned school in Northumberland. Martin is Head of ‘Create’ (a cross-subject department including Music, Media and Drama), and also has a Maths and Engineering background. Martin will deputise for Andy when needed. Martin is nationally known as an outstanding Project-based practitioner, and has even had articles published by High Tech High. Here are a couple of projects Martin has worked on: http://stonesinamineshaft.blogspot.co.uk & http://callofthewildproject.blogspot.co.uk

Gemma Thornton will join us from Armthorpe Academy. Gemma has led the creation of a Humanities and Arts theme-based curriculum, and is very experienced in pastoral support. She is a lovely person and an outstanding teacher.

Gemma said in her application letter, “I do not understand why any teacher would not want to teach in a creative environment that personalises learning of the individual student by challenging the way they create, design and develop their work.” – Neither do we, Gemma.

Marc Voltaire comes to us from the Doncaster School for the Deaf as an outstanding PE teacher with Biology background. Again, Marc has very strong pastoral skills, and led a fantastic project to create a multi-sensory nightclub for his students. He also has achieved Level 3 in British Sign Language.

Martin, Gemma and Marc will join Andy as our pioneering teachers at XP. Supporting us will be Anna Switzer, who is from Florida, USA and is an experienced Expeditionary Learning school designer. Anna will join us in April and help our teachers understand and implement the ethos and practice of EL. Our teachers will create our curriculum as their first expedition, and exhibit their plans to our parents.

What a dream team!