S2E11: Andy Sprakes on XP school: crew, compassion and changing the world (ft. Dec and Guraaj, Y10)

Today I am delighted to be able to share with you my recent conversation with Andy Sprakes, the co-founder of XP school in Doncaster. I also had the opportunity to speak with two students from the school, Declan and Guraaj, who were absolutely lovely and insightful as you will soon discover. There has been a lot of interest in XP school in recent months, partly following a very complementary profile of the school that was published in the Sunday Times magazine, entitled: ‘Is XP the school of the future?’ The article is below - paywalled unfortunately. In case you haven’t heard of XP school before, it’s a free school that was set up in 2014 by two teachers - Andy Sprakes and Gwyn Ap Harri - who were inspired following a visit to some innovative schools in the US - notably, High Tech High in San Diego, and Ron Berger’s Expeditionary Learning schools. They do things very differently at XP. The curriculum is organised into cross-curricular ‘expeditions’. Their pastoral system is second to none. And their results are astonishing. And they are rated by Ofsted as being outstanding in every category. LINKS: Article: Is XP the school of the future? (£) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/no-uniforms-no-detentions-no-maths-lessons-is-xp-in-doncaster-the-school-of-the-future-jnc6n80kq Free e-book - How we XP: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yJy4-nn0cVaxFNaqBRMnoDemA3v3RvwH/view RETHINKING EDUCATION CONFERENCE - TICKETS: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-rethinking-education-conference-2022-tickets-226415834857 RETHINKING EDUCATION CONFERENCE - SPEAKER APPLICATIONS: https://rethinking-ed.org/conference/ RETHINKING EDUCATION MIGHTY NETWORK: www.rethinking-education.mn.co/feed BECOME A PATRON: www.patreon.com/repod BUY ME A COFFEE: www.buymeacoffee.com/repod The Rethinking Education podcast is hosted and produced by Dr James Mannion. You can contact him at www.rethinking-ed.org/contact, or via @RethinkingJames on Twitter.