Fantastic Farming!

One of our wonderful year 11 students, Jayden, lives – and works – on his family farm. Today, myself and Mrs Sprakes were lucky enough to be invited to see the work Jayden does on the farm – and we were blown away!

Jayden is involved in all aspects of the farm, and is SO knowledgable and passionate about the workings of the farm. There isn’t one piece of machinery that Jayden can’t drive or operate! I bet Jayden could run this single handedly (sorry, dad!). He showed us today the stacks of hay bales he has sorted out – WOW. Jayden also took us both out in his tractor – what a good driver! at 16 years old, this really is impressive.

During the guided tour…
Jayden’s hard work – perfect stacks!!!

Keep up the fantastic work, Jayden. You’re doing yourself, us, and your family proud both inside the classroom and outside of it, too! Don’t we have amazing students at XP?!

Miss Cocliff x

D6: business as usual

C24 can breath a huge sigh of relief as the 2nd set of Y11 mocks are almost over (Just a few to mop up)

However, itā€™s really important that students keep the momentum going with their revision all through the year, and not just before the real deal which starts next month with Spanish speaking.

Click here to view our current enrichment timetable, which includes details of all the all the lunchtime and after school revision sessions available.

We are also encouraging all Y11s to attend D6 on a Saturday morning from 9am-12.30pm each week to access additional support, or just to have a relaxed space for a bit of focussed self-study away from any potential distractions at home. This is also open to our year 10s as they develop learning routines ready for their GCSE year.

For those of you who donā€™t know, D6 is our voluntary sixth day of school which takes place each Saturday during term time. D6 is led by ex-students of XP who are returning to provide our current students with peer to peer academic study support. There will be additional support from our school learning coaches and members of the Leadership Team. 

Weā€™re really looking forward to seeing our Y11s at D6 this Saturday, there are only 9 available Saturdays between now and the end of their GCSE exams!

(Please note that D6 is only open to Y11 & 10 at the moment).

Enrichment Timetable – October – December 2021

Due to the fantastic efforts of our incredible staff, we are delighted to be able to offer so many extra curricular opportunities to our wonderful students!

Please see attached anĀ updated version of our enrichment timetable. On here, you’ll find sports clubs/fixtures, Arts clubs (including our new Vocaleles!) and KS4 Revision sessions with staff. We would encourage our students to attend as many of these sessions as possible to secure their GCSE grades and achieve their potential!



I can also share with you thatĀ D6Ā will begin again this coming Saturday, November 13th. D6 is our Saturday provision where students are able to come and work with coaches in school from 9am – 12:30pm. For the time being, D6 is open toĀ year 11 only.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the staff running any extra-curricular activities, or myself at [email protected].

Thank you for your continued support – we look forward to seeing many of our students in these sessions!

Mel Cocliff
XP Y11 Phase Lead
Crew Macmillan Crew Leader

Vaccination – Covid Vaccine Forms

12-15 year olds will be offered the vaccine via the school-based programme.

Students in Years 10 and Year 11 have been given their consent forms. Check with your son/daughter that they have taken their form. The school vaccination nurses are in school on 10th November. If your son/daughter are currently in year 8 and 9 and did not attend school on their designated covid vaccine day and so missed their chance, then you can fill in the consent form and return to the school office to be added to the list. Please read the letter that goes with consenting and return the consent form to the school office by the end of this week (15th October 2021).Ā  (A reminder if any student has tested positive for Covid 30 days before the vaccine date they cannot have the covid vaccine).

New College Doncaster Taster Day

C25 and C24 spent the day as college students at New College today. Many thanks to Brendan, Scott and the team for welcoming XP East and XP Year 11 and 10 students to allow them the opportunity of experiencing some of the courses on offer. Students each chose 3 courses and had a session in each subject for both BTEC and A Level courses. We had lots of positive feedback and really in-depth reflection on how the day had helped students begin to focus on their next steps after GCSE. As Careers Lead at both schools I look forward to supporting students in making applications to the numerous Post 16 provisions in the area.

X24 History, getting started with revision!

Students this week have been given their own copy of the revision guide for our History exam board OCR B SHP History. All students should have named their copy so that if they are misplaced they can be returned. Students are encouraged to annotate and highlight the guide as they carry out their revision.

The revision guide has a number of different topics, however, students will need to focus on the following sections for revision:

  • The ElizabethansĀ 
  • The People’s HeathĀ 
  • Living under Nazi RuleĀ 

The locations of these topics can be found in the contents page. We would recommend in general students start by revising The People’s Health as well as focusing onĀ page 88Ā in order to prepare for the upcoming assessment in lessons.Ā 

If any student has been absent when these revision guides were handed out, they can see myself or Mrs Hannam directly and we will make sure they get their copy.

 

A further revision guide focusing on the Viking Expansion will be issued to students in the coming weeks.

 

 

Crew Macmillan are back with a bang!


Welcome back, Crew Mac!!

…And what a 3 days it’s been!

On Wednesday we returned to school after what seems an eternity! All members of Crew have grown about 3 feet taller, and have somehow become realĀ young adults! We kicked off our return to school with a check in about our holidays, and what we had all been up to. It was a lovely morning catching up and just being crew!

Wednesday afternoon saw Crew Macmillan becomeĀ champions –Ā that’s right, we SMASHED the competition in a rounders tournament – with our final game endingĀ 12-12Ā against Crew King!!!! What an afternoon, with tonnes of cheering and support (and a sore throat for me from all the screaming to ‘RUN! GOOOOO! and CAAAAATCH!!!’), and it just helped us prove that Crew Macmillan are the best! šŸ˜‰

 

On Thursday, crew really impressed me! We had fieldwork planned to Flamborough Head for a coastal hike as crew. Unfortunately, 2 minutes into the bus journey, the coach broke down! Luckily, we were still on Middle Bank, and so we headed back to school for a crew day at XP. Here, the day focused on us having honest conversations about Y11, and looking at road map for success. Some brilliant conversations took place – from obstacles that could get in the way of success in Y11, to revision techniques, to stress management techniques and how to avoid procrastination. Crew Mac’s winning streak continued here – Imogen, Isaac & Alfie produced a winning road map – check it out below. It’ll give you a taste of what’s to come in Y11 – revising battle tactics, fighting off the mock exam Armada, and battling the current in the river of revision! Incredible work, guys – well done!

 

 

On Friday, weĀ finallyĀ got out on our fieldwork to Flamborough. We walked from South Landing to North Landing, as a crew. Courtney and Alfie took some incredible photos, too – and we even saw some seals! Crew really were ace on Friday, with determination and enthusiasm on the walk – we really enjoyed the day!

 

 

Next week we’ll be into academic sessions, and I’m super excited to see what you all achieve in Y11. I just know the focus, courage, compassion and respect will mean we get everyone to theĀ top of their mountain, together.

We are Crew Mac!!

 

Miss C x

 

Crew Macmillan take on Captain Tomā€™s 100!

ā€œThe family of the late Captain Sir Tom Moore is inviting the world to take inspiration from his famous 100 laps around his garden to celebrate Captain Tomā€™s life, his generosity of spirit and the hope and joy he brought to millions.

The Captain Tom 100 is taking place on what would have been his 101st birthday weekend, from Friday 30 April to Bank Holiday Monday 3 Mayā€.

So, as a crew, Crew Macmillan have decided we will be taking on Captain Sir Tomā€™s 100 Challenge this coming Friday, April 30th.

The Challenge involves completing 100Ā of something!Ā 

Crew have decided to collectively complete 100 laps of XP school in one single crew session. Actually, then, we had a trial run on Friday; and managed to smash that target, so weā€™re going to challenge ourselves to achieveĀ 200 Laps instead!!!

Weā€™ve set up a fundraising page to try and raise some money in aid of our chosen charity, Macmillan Cancer Support. If you are in a position to help us to do so, the link is here.

We would love to be able to raise Ā£100 – what a lovely amount in honour of Sir Captain Tom Moore.

I look forward to taking on this challenge – come on crew, weā€™ll smash it!

 

Crew Hawking Back in the Classroom

It is great to have the crew back in school.Ā  They have all settled very well in getting into their routine and working off their Timetable.Ā  As you can see their timetable in school is very busy.

Now the crew are back, they have started to reflect on their habits of work and learning and this is where they critique themselves and their peers in crew on their HOWLS.Ā  To support their Work Hard, Get Smart and Be Kind grades each student will once a week reflect and grade themselves on their HOWLS and enter their own grades for each subject lesson they study on how they are performing in Work Hard, Get Smart and Be Kind.Ā  through this process each student will hopefully work on the subject areas where they need to improve.

How we grade ourselves in Crew. Work Hard, Get Smart and Be Kind.

Super Successful SLCā€™s!

Student Led Conferences are vital to our work. They put our students in charge of sharing information about their academic progress with their families. In the words of expeditionary learning guru Ron Berger, ā€œStudent Led Conferences require and empower students to take the lead role in communicating their learningā€ – in other words, our students know they have to be responsible for their learning and progress, and they must be able to explain to their families where they are at, and where they are heading!

SLCā€™s obviously looked a little different this year. They were online; students had 25 minutes to speak about a range of things, including their HoWLs data, Academic progress, how they have found working from home, and the pledges they made at the start of the year. Crew Macmillan continue to surprise me daily; and once again, they absolutely SMASHED it! They each spoke confidently and maturely, could analyse their own data in terms of GCSE grades (which is a vital skill as we head into Y11) and they were all able to share examples of beautiful work with their families. As such, i wanted to share some of the amazing work with you!

Firstly, Crew were asked to reflect on their attendance across the year. Although we havenā€™t physically been in school THAT much in Y10 (Thanks, COVID!) – online attendance is still absolutely vital, and it is still monitored. Some great reflections in crew; here is Imogenā€™s! Imogen spoke through how ā€˜blueā€™ means ā€˜Awesomeā€™ – in terms of our narrative for success, this means Imo is exceeding expectations!

Students were then asked to reflect on their Work Hard, Get Smart, and Be Kind attributes in sessions. Archie and Joe provided really detailed analysis for each HoWL!

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