In August of 2025, I visited schools to support and observe ‘First Week Back.’ It was encouraging to see, hear and feel our students engaging in Crew activities that had a clear purpose, were well organised and engaging. The systematic planning by schools to include a Guiding Question that students answer through their shared experiences is ensuring that Crew is at the forefront of everything we do at XP Trust.
One of my key notices was that debriefing at the end of a Crew activity sometimes was very general. For example, questions like ‘what went well?’ or ‘What could we do better next time?’ were used which are fine to encourage students to speak but often elicited surface responses from students, if they weren’t built on.
The most effective debriefs were the ones where staff returned to the purpose of First Week Back, sharply focusing the activity to student experience and linking this explicitly to Character Traits and HoWLs, thereby compelling students to reflect on the guiding question, the purpose of the week and the development of culture.
Some powerful debrief questions I heard which elicited profound responses from students were:
“How did the activity we engaged in earlier help us to show the character trait of courage? Could you give me specific examples?”
“In our Crew norms we focussed on what compassion looks, sounds and feels like. Where did you see, hear and feel compassion today? What was the impact of this?”
“We showed real craftsmanship and quality in that activity. What skills did we develop? How will we ensure we do this in expeditions in the coming year?”
As John Dewey suggested in his work, ‘We do not learn from experience; we learn from reflecting on experience.’
In next year’s planning for First Week Back it would be useful to keep this at the forefront of our thinking, planning and delivery so that reflecting on and reinforcing culture is more explicitly embedded.
As I said, ‘It’s all about the debrief!!’
Andy Sprakes
