🧸 Immersion Week Begins! 🧸

1st September 2026Laura Parsons

We have officially kicked off our Immersion Week in Class Five, and what better way to begin than by bringing in something very special from home — a favourite toy! ❤️

The classroom was full of excitement as the children shared their toys with each other. We talked about what our toys were, where they came from, why we liked them and what made them special to us. There were dolls, figures, cars, cuddly toys and lots of other wonderful treasures!

But we didn’t just look at our toys as children…

🔬 We became scientists!

We looked very carefully at our toys and became materials detectives, thinking about what they were made from. We spotted materials such as plastic, wood, fabric, metal and rubber and talked about why different materials might have been chosen to make different parts of a toy.

🎨 Then we became artists!

We slowed down and really looked at our toys. Rather than drawing what we thought our toy looked like, we challenged ourselves to be careful observers and create accurate drawings, noticing shapes, patterns, colours, textures and tiny details.

It was wonderful to see the children looking at something so familiar in a completely different way.

A toy isn’t just something to play with…

It can be something to investigate, observe, question, draw and learn from. 🧸🔍

And this is only the beginning!

Throughout our immersion week, we will be exploring toys from lots of different perspectives and beginning to uncover the clues that will help us discover exactly where our new expedition will take us…

The power of play is already taking us on quite a journey! ❤️

⭕ Circles, Crews & Connections ⭕

27th August 2026Laura Parsons

This week in Class Five, we spent some time thinking about something that might seem very simple… circles.

But we quickly discovered that circles can be pretty powerful.

A circle has no beginning and no end. It is strong, connected and continuous. And, of course, circles are a big part of life in our crew. Every day, we circle up together — to listen, share, celebrate, solve problems and make decisions. There is something special about sitting in a circle because everyone is part of it. There is no “front” or “back” and nobody is left out.

Our guiding question this week has been:

Does crew stop at the school gate?

Today, we started to explore that question by thinking about all the different crews we belong to outside of school.

The children came up with an amazing range of crews — football teams, families, gymnastics clubs, church groups, dance groups, friendship groups and much more. We organised ourselves into our different crews and then started to notice something really interesting…

Our crews overlap!

We might belong to different football teams, different families or different clubs, but we often had people in common. We discovered that although we are all wonderfully different, we actually have lots in common with one another.

This led us to think about how we behave in our different crews. Do we act differently depending on which crew we are in? Or do the things that make us us follow us wherever we go?

We thought about our character traits and realised that being kind, respectful, courageous, honest or compassionate doesn’t just belong in the classroom. These are qualities we carry with us into all of our crews.

So perhaps crew really doesn’t stop at the school gate…

In the afternoon, we took our circle thinking into our art.

We looked at the work of Wassily Kandinsky and noticed that he used circles again and again in his artwork. We explored his use of colour, shape and pattern before setting off to create our own Kandinsky-inspired pieces.

This time, we created trees made from circles, bringing together our ideas about connection, growth and belonging with our love of circles. ⭕🌳

It was lovely to see the children begin the day thinking about a simple shape and finish it thinking about something much bigger:

Who are my crews? Where do I belong? What do I bring to each crew? And how are we all connected?

Perhaps our circles aren’t just something we sit in after all… ❤️

Class Six Are Artist Extraordinaires 🎨

28th April 2026Lauren Gate

Last week we dove head first into our art case study. We spent the week working with different mediums to create a range of different pieces of artwork from our sea creature outlines. We started the week with pastels, making bright, colourful pop-art style pieces of art.

On Tuesday we moved onto sketching, we spent a lot of time thinking about tone, shading and creating patterns with our sketching pencils.

On Wednesday we worked with watercolour pencils. We spent a lot of time thinking about which colours work well together, how light/ dark we should make our colours and how we can effectively blend our colours together.

On Thursday we had a blast working with printing! We worked with everything from cotton buds and dice to pieces of lego and sponges.

We are so proud of the artwork we created last week in Class Six!!

🎨 Class 5 Artists – Sketching Like the Greats!

20th April 2026Laura Parsons

This afternoon, Class 5 fully embraced their role as artists as we continued exploring our guiding question:
The Blue Planet: How Can I Impact the World?

We began by reminding ourselves of our exciting final product — a reusable water bottle featuring our very own artwork. The children were buzzing with purpose, knowing their designs will help promote looking after our planet 🌍

✏️ Inspired by Beatrix Potter

We started by learning about the wonderful Beatrix Potter — a famous artist and writer who loved sketching animals using pencil. We noticed how carefully she observed real creatures and used soft, delicate lines to bring them to life.

Inspired by her work, we practised using our art pencils to create a range of tones, from light shading to darker, bolder marks. We then explored different patterns and textures, thinking about how these could help add detail to our own artwork.

👀 Thinking Like Artists

Next, we became art critics! We carefully studied a selection of model sketches and asked ourselves:

  • How has the artist used shading?
  • Where are the darker and lighter areas?
  • What techniques do we like and want to try ourselves?

One of the examples was Mrs Parsons’ own artwork… but the challenge was set — could we do even better?

Finally, we took our sea creature outlines and began transforming them into beautiful, detailed pieces using all our new sketching skills.

The concentration in the room was incredible — children carefully adding shading, experimenting with tone, and bringing their sea creatures to life. Every piece is unique, thoughtful, and full of creativity.

We are so proud of the effort and artistic flair shown today — we can’t wait to see these designs printed onto our reusable water bottles! 💧✨

📚 World Book Day 2026 📚

6th March 2026Lauren Gate

This year our World Book Day had a Dr Seuss theme – a cat in the hat inspired crazy hat! Boy did the children deliver!! We had everything from gardens to space helmets and minions to globes – the children’s hats absolutely blew our socks off! 👒🎩

In crew this morning, Y2 created their very own crew murals inspired by their favourite books. We took time thinking of a way to represent our favourite books, drawing them and then sticking them all together to create our collaborative artwork.

We also spent some time with The Cat in the Hat himself this morning – we watched the story and then had a go at drawing our very own Cat in the Hats. What a great day!!!

Crew, Collaboration, Critique and Teamwork Tigers!

2nd March 2026Sarah Winkley

The last two weeks have seen the children in Early Years making large scale models of vehicles towards their final product for our expedition, “We are on the move – Would you travel by wheels, wings or other things?” Each child designed their own eco-friendly vehicle and the designs were judged by Miss Tunney. There was one winner from each crew and the children of that crew have began to work collaboratively to create and make their chosen design. The children have worked so hard to make decisions together, exchanging and suggesting ideas of how they could make their vehicles the best that they can be. Carefully choosing which materials would be the best to make their model out of, giving special thought to the eco friendly parts, such as batteries, solar panels, turbines, tanks, sails and propellers! They even took part in a simple vote to help make decisions, by placing a lolly stick on the materials of their choice.

Today as a hook to continuing to finish our vehicles the children took turns to look at each crews model. That crew presented what their model was, how it was powered and why it was good for the planet? The other crew offered critique of what they liked about the model firstly and then suggested what the model was missing to be complete. We had some lovely ideas to help enhance the models, suggestions included, “ A control panel”, “A steering wheel”, “A door”, “seats for the pilot”, “A tank” (to hold the power source), “a button to open the door”, “Windows”, “More wheels” and much more! This is an advanced skill for such young children and with careful scaffolding the children were beginning to understand the concept of critique – Well done Nursery.

Class 5 Artists: Learning to Draft, Critique and Improve

19th January 2026Laura Parsons

This week, Class 5 revisited Austin’s Butterfly, focusing on the power of critique and redrafting. We reminded ourselves what makes great critique truly helpful — it should always be kind, specific and supportive, with the clear purpose of helping each other improve.

Before putting pencil to paper, we spent time looking carefully at Conisbrough Castle through an artist’s eye. We asked thoughtful questions together:
What shapes can we see?
What do the lines need to look like?
Would our sketchbooks work better in landscape or portrait?

These discussions helped us slow down, observe more closely and make deliberate choices before we began.

We then got busy on our first drafts. They are strong starts — thoughtful, detailed and full of effort — but we know they aren’t perfect yet. That’s exactly where the learning lives. Tomorrow, we’re looking forward to giving and receiving careful critique, using each other’s feedback to refine our work and create even stronger second drafts.

Class 5 are learning that great art (and great learning) doesn’t happen in one go — it happens through reflection, feedback and the courage to improve.

Remembering and letting our lights shine.

11th November 2025Sarah Winkley

This week Nursery are thinking about cultural celebrations/traditions and have been exploring Diwali and Remembrance Day.

We began the week by hooking the children into Diwali, the Hindu celebration of light, by immersing the children in special Indian music and entering Nursery in the darkness, lit only by Diya lamps. The children were so excited and soothed by the atmosphere as they drew pictures of the diya lamps. They listened carefully to our key text “Binny’s Diwali” by Thrity Umrigar and learned that the lamps are traditional and used as decorations to guide in luck and light and warn off any darkness.

We have also paused to remember and celebrate the fallen and serving armed forces on Remembrance Day, by listening to an age appropriate story “Lest We forget” by Kerry Brown during our Tranquil Tuesday Reading Crews. The children came to school dressed in patriotic colours to show their support for the cause and made donations to the British Legion. Nursery have drawn some beautiful pictures of Poppy’s using their observational, considering shapes and simple details including colour.

Super Veggie Superheroes

16th September 2025Claire Goodyer

This week, Year One designed their very own Super Veggie Superheroes! From lightning-fast carrots to broccoli defenders of the planet, the imagination on display was truly inspiring.

Each child created a unique veggie-themed superhero and after completing their masterpieces, the children took part in a gallery walk, proudly showcasing their artwork and admiring their classmates’ creations.

Our First Expert Visitor – Author & Illustrator Phil Sheppard

4th September 2025Laura Parsons

Today we were lucky enough to welcome our very first expert visitor of the expedition – the brilliant author and illustrator Phil Sheppard!

Phil shared some of his fantastic stories with us, and we especially loved The Worm Book. There were plenty of laughs and lots of fun as he brought the story to life while reading aloud.

Afterwards, we took part in a draw along where we learned how to create our very own superheroes. The children did an amazing job and showed off some fantastic creativity!

To make the day even more special, we had the opportunity to buy our very own signed book by Phil – a real treasure to keep.

We all agreed that Phil truly deserved one of our special Community Hero awards for his craftsmanship and the quality of his work. What an inspiring start to our expedition!