We’re looking for an English Lead at XP/XP East!

There is the opportunity of a lifetime to lead English at our extraordinary schools, XP and XP East. We need someone to further design and creatively develop the study of English into our highly regarded expeditionary learning curriculum. This is a fantastic opportunity for an English specialist to develop activism, leadership and equity in our students by creating beautiful products and important work that will change the world.

Our Design Principles

‘At XP, we build our community through…

Activism,

Leadership

and Equity…

sharing our stories as we go.’

These design principles are the basis for all our work. We focus on enabling our students to create beautiful work that creates agency and has a positive impact on the world; we encourage leadership in our students by facilitating the ownership of their own learning; and we have an unabated insistence on equity to ensure that we remove any barriers that inhibit student growth and success.

Therefore, at XP we focus relentlessly on high quality work and character growth. As a result, our school culture is value driven. Therefore, we expect our students, staff and parents to be courageous, respectful, committed to craftsmanship and quality, compassionate and to always show integrity. We provide an authentically tough and rewarding education for everyone, and we believe this is best achieved through not segregating our children by any measure, such as social class or academic ability.

We believe a person is judged by their character and the quality of work they produce. Our school focuses continuously on these two crucial areas of development. Our students express who they are by personalising their work, and are given time to produce beautiful and meaningful work by following a process of multiple drafts and critique, working towards creating products which are indistinguishable from professionals. Every day, our students develop their habits of work and learning by working hard, getting smart and being kind, and reflecting on our character values of courage, respect, craftsmanship and quality, compassion and integrity.

English and the wider curriculum at XP

Our curriculum is predominantly taught through cross subject, highly rigorous, learning expeditions which are delivered through subjects that we group into a collective we call HUMAN (Humanities and Arts) and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths). The HUMAN collective includes the study of English Language, English Literature, Art, History and wider humanities subjects such as RE, Geography and Citizenship. The STEAM collective includes the study of Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths and Art. Expeditions are usually cross-curricular and include subjects from both HUMAN and STEAM combined. This ensures that students see connections between subjects and standards and thereby deepen their learning experiences.

Teachers at XP, are designers of the curriculum. Staff work together to create a curriculum overview that is: highly engaging; academically challenging and rigorous; purposeful and authentic; has creativity at its heart; and is determined to allow students to acquire knowledge that is then applied to bring about social change. Our Teachers ensure that our curriculum is relevant and purposeful, and everything we do links to improving ourselves, our community and our wider world.

English is at the heart of every Learning Expedition.

Accordingly, each expedition has a challenging ‘Anchor Text’, alongside equally rigorous non-fiction texts, that connect learning across subjects. that binds, drives and connects the learning. Our students are skilful, adept and discerning readers and this is achieved because of the investment of the wide ranging and high quality reading experiences that are planned into expeditions.

Over the past five years students have focussed on some of the following literary texts:

Year 7: To Kill A Mockingbird; Seedfolks; The Giver; Pay it Forward; Kit’s Wilderness; Beowulf; The Canterbury Tales; The Rain Horse; and Macbeth.

Year 8: Of Mice Men, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Roots, poetry including: Keats, Blake, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou.

Year 9: First World War Poetry, Hard Times, Years of Wonder, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, War of the Worlds.

Year 10 and 11: Macbeth, Othello, An Inspector Calls, A Christmas Carol, Blood Brothers, Poetry Anthology, Animal Farm, the poetry of Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney.

We use the study of challenging texts, to develop and support our students to become highly competent writers. This skill, and beautiful work, does not stay in the classroom but is realised through high quality products that connect to the world. Our students are published writers, so they understand the power of the written word and the impact it can have on the world.

Some of the books students have written include:

What Makes a Successful Community?
Grand Designs – A Field Guide for Potteric Carr – a local Nature Reserve
What does the community of Doncaster owe to the Miners?
What does the community of Doncaster owe to the Railways?
What legacy was forged by the Vikings?
Poetry Anthologies

In order to grow student character we insist that students acquire knowledge and skills that are then shared with authentic audiences. As such oracy is a predominant aspect of our curriculum. Examples of where students use speaking as part of their development are:

Presentations of Learning (at the culmination of all learning expeditions)
Community meetings (students articulate appreciations, apologies and stands)
Participation in Poetry Slams
Ambassador Tours of the school (all students)
Student Led Conferences
Passage Presentations
Final Word

The leadership of English at XP is an exciting opportunity for a specialist teacher of English who can continue to develop subject integrity into our expeditions in a creative and innovative way. The successful candidate would work with an enthusiastic and experienced team who are receptive and open to new ideas and willing to engage with challenging texts, enable the creation of beautiful products and ensure academic success for our students.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to contribute to, shape and design powerful learning through the study of English in Learning Expeditions that will empower our students to become agents for positive social change and, as a result, make the world a better place.

We look forward to receiving your application.

Useful links and wider reading: