C24 – And now we’re checked out!

5th July 2022Melissa Cocliff

What an absolutely amazing final week for our Y11s. After their last exam on Monday, we weren’t quite ready to let them go, so we planned a week of activities to send them off with a bang!

Final Word

Before you read the highlights from our final week we would just like to offer a massive appreciation to all the parents, grandparents, staff and friends who have supported our students’ Final Word presentations.  It’s been a humbling experience to hear how their time at XP/XPE has prepared them for the future, be that through crew, expeditionary learning, the character traits or through the friendships they have made here.

There is no doubt in our minds that our young people will succeed in whatever they decide to do over the next few years.

Malham Cove

On Tuesday, we went back to where it all began for our crews: Malham Cove. We trudged up 400 steps that could make or break crew and ended up at the top of the Cove together.  We spent some time reminiscing about the last time we visited and everything that has happened in Crew since then.  We spent some time remembering those crew members who are no longer with us. We spent some time just enjoying being with our crews, without the pressure of revision and exams!  Then, who would support crew by helping them across the wobbly stepping stones? We witnessed some really lovely examples of crew helping crew one last time – although I’m not sure which character traits were being displayed during the water fights (definitely not respect!)

Celebration Evening

Thursday night was our chance to celebrate C24 and all their achievements.  To say it was emotional would be an understatement, especially when Mr Portman played the video posted above.  It gave us all a bit of a jolt to see how they’ve grown physically (obvs!) and also in character. I’m sure every single person in the room felt an immense sense of pride that comes with knowing that our students aren’t just going to leave with whatever academic grades they get; they are leaving as kind, considerate, compassionate, beautiful human beings.

We crewed up one last time and handed out our Crew Awards, including the coveted Outstanding Crew Member Award, as voted by fellow crew members. Massive well done to:

XPE:

Crew Churchill: Arandeep Kaur

Crew Finch: Noah Nixon

Crew Mandela: Alfie Close

Crew Young: Summer Cunningham

XP:

Crew Hawking: Max Danby

Crew King: Kai Hall

Crew Macmillan: Frankie Booth

Crew Webb: Kyra Hazel

Alton Towers

Our last day together was spent at Alton Towers. Some of us enjoyed the rides; some of us enjoyed a gentle stroll around the gardens; some of us rocked a poncho in the rain! 😉

Y11’s Final Push!

21st April 2022Melissa Cocliff

We hope you have had a wonderful Easter break, and wanted to highlight some important steps for our awesome year 11 students as we push through their final weeks before their GCSE exams!

This is our final term for Y11 to prepare for their final examinations. All Government guidance states that exams WILL take place this year. Therefore, it is crucial that students are ramping up the amount of revision being completed to maximise the impact this is having. Staff continue to work hard and offer extra academic sessions as seen on our enrichment timetable to ensure students are best prepared for their GCSE’s – students also have a wealth of materials readily available to focus their revision around.  We ask that you support us by reminding them of the need to be working hard outside of school hours, too – any support or guidance you can offer at this time really will make a difference!

To further boost our Y11’s academic success, D6 also resumes this Saturday, 23rd April, from 9am – 12:30pm. We have only 7 more weeks of D6 after this: Saturday April 30th, Saturday May 6th, Saturday May 13th, Saturday May 20th, Saturday May 27th, Saturday June 3rd and Saturday June 10th! D6 is open to both Y10 and Y11.

It is also important to note that our Y11’s last day in school will be July 1st, 2022. 

Please also see here the final exam timetable for our 2022 GCSE Exams:

Please note that Spanish Speaking exams begin next week, Monday 26th April 2022. These are the first formal GCSE exams – wow!!!

If there are any questions or concerns, please contact Crew Leaders, or ourselves at [email protected] and [email protected]

Miss Cocliff & Mrs Parker x

Y11 (X24) Science – Staff Days

28th February 2022Melissa Cocliff

Due to advanced information released by Exam Boards, we are able to invite X24 students in during our staff days in March to complete some hands on science required practical experiments.

Students in both Admiral and Skipper will each be invited to a morning session and an afternoon session to complete these experiments.

A paper copy of these letters will also be sent home with an attendance slip to complete – we ask that these are returned by Monday 7th March please.

If there are any questions/queries, please contact us on:

[email protected] and [email protected]

Best Wishes,

Mel Cocliff & Darren Mead

XP Y11 Phase Lead & Science Lead

BLOG-POST-ADMIRAL-Required-Practical-Learning-Lab-Letter-C24-March-2022-Admiral-Download
BLOG-POST-SKIPPER-Required-Practical-Learning-Lab-Letter-C24-March-2022-SkipperDownload

Y11 ‘Learn2Earn’ Revision Rewards Launch!

13th January 2022Melissa Cocliff

Yesterday, we launched our Learn2Earn Revision Rewards scheme to Y11 as a way of recognising the hard work and commitment of those students who are attending our lunchtime and after-school GCSE revision sessions (and perhaps encourage some of our other students to attend, too!)

So, what is Learn2Earn?

  • A rewards ‘loyalty’ scheme for revision – the more sessions students attend, the more points they earn! 
  • After 5 sessions, students receive a small ‘reward’…
  • After 10 sessions, students receive a medium ‘reward’…

All completed cards will be entered into a ‘big CREW reward’ prize draw – so the more crew participate in sessions, the more chance their crew have of winning the ‘bigger prize’ at the end of Y11!

Y11 students working hard in one of our lunchtime History revisions sessions.

Here is our current revision timetable. Please note this is currently under review and we’ll be adding more sessions soon:

Don’t forget that Y11 – and Y10 – students can also attend D6 on a Saturday morning, from 9am – 12:30pm, which is back up and running this weekend (15th January). D6 provides students with a relaxed and informal study space working alongside our expert Student Coaches. We are expecting these to get busier as GCSEs get closer (16th May – 24th June.)

We look forward to seeing lots of students there!!!

Fantastic Farming!

3rd December 2021Melissa Cocliff

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

Enrichment Timetable – October – December 2021

By Melissa Cocliff9th November 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 an 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 that D6 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 to 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

X24 History, getting started with revision!

By B Batty17th September 2021

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 Elizabethans 
  • The People’s Heath 
  • Living under Nazi Rule 

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 on page 88 in order to prepare for the upcoming assessment in lessons. 

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.

 

 

Super Successful SLC’s!

By Melissa Cocliff14th February 2021

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, “Student Led Conferences require and empower students to take the lead role in communicating their learning” – 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!

SLC’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 haven’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 Imogen’s! Imogen spoke through how ‘blue’ means ‘Awesome’ – 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!

Continue reading →

Crew Macmillan: Spotlight

18th September 2020Melissa Cocliff

This week has been really successful for Crew Macmillan!

Crew have, once again, worked really hard in crew and in sessions, and have received tonnes of praise from staff! See some examples below:

Miss Johnson: Ricki & others in his group: “brilliant team effort on their work around ACC plot. Worked together well as a team and proved me and RJO wrong!”

Miss Taylor: Alfie, Milo, Ricki & Charlie: “Worked hard, created lovely paintings!”

Miss Johnson:  All of Crew Mac! “Fantastic start to English GCSE. Focused and keen to get on. Brilliant HoWLS- Well done! Keep it up!”

Mrs Sprakes: Alfie – “Detailed responses in writing, well done.”

Mrs Batty: Vinnie –“Excellent recall of knowledge in quick fire test“

I absolutely love reading through the praise entries for crew and seeing how excellent you guys really are in sessions!

This week we also focused both Wise Wednesdays and Thoughtful Thursdays on some revision materials – we know that in Y10&11, we need to be organised and consistent with revision.

So far, we’ve looked at Procrastination (and the dangers of it – we learned that Crew don’t like tidying bedrooms, or adding pots to the dishwasher!!) – then we’ve seen what makes an effective flashcard, and put that into practice in preparation for a history assessment.

Members of crew were focused and engaged, which resulted in some beautiful examples of flashcards created, and some brilliant teamwork in Crew Macmillan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep up the brilliant work guys!

Miss C x