🎠 Hook Week: Day Two – Designers, Inventors and Lots of Resilience!

2nd September 2026Laura Parsons

Day two of our Hook Week was another busy one in Class Five! Today, we became designers and inventors, putting our creativity (and our resilience!) to the test.

Our challenge was to design and make our very own cup and ball toy. It sounded simple… until we actually had to make one! There was A LOT of sticky tape involved, plenty of problem-solving and more than a few moments where things didn’t quite go to plan! 🤣

But the children showed resilience in bucket loads. They kept trying, adapted their designs and didn’t give up when their toys weren’t working quite as they had hoped. And then came the REALLY tricky bit… actually getting the ball into the cup! Some of us discovered that making the toy was only half the challenge! 😂

In the afternoon, we became toy detectives. We thought carefully about toys from the past and toys we might find today. Rather than simply deciding whether a toy was “old” or “new”, we thought about how we knew. We looked closely at the materials toys were made from, how they worked and the features that might give us clues about when they were created.

We finished our day by getting to properly play and explore some of our new toys in our groups. But there was a challenge attached to our play! We were trying to earn more of our Play Awards by showing all the behaviours that make play enjoyable for everyone – playing fairly, sharing, taking turns, looking after our toys and remembering to tidy up.

It was lovely to see the children putting our learning about fairness, teamwork and being a good crew member into practice while they played.

Another fantastic day of Hook Week – and we think we might have some budding toy designers and inventors in Class Five! 🎠

🧸 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! ❤️

🍬 The Jelly Baby Challenge! 🍬

1st September 2026Laura Parsons

What better way to finish the week than with a Jelly Baby Challenge?! 😂🍬

On Friday, Class Five took on one of our most unusual challenges yet. Each child was given a very special responsibility — one Jelly Baby to care for for the whole day!

The mission sounded simple… keep it safe, happy and in one piece! 😬

Of course, there were rules to follow. The Jelly Babies couldn’t be eaten (obviously! 😂), squashed, dropped, bent or hurt. They had to stay with their carer unless they were safely tucked away in their specially designed home. There was also absolutely no touching, rescuing, stealing or swapping someone else’s Jelly Baby!

So, the children got to work designing and building somewhere safe for their Jelly Baby to live. They thought carefully about what their Jelly Baby might need to feel safe, comfortable and protected — and we saw some wonderfully creative Jelly Baby homes!

But, as you might have guessed, this challenge wasn’t really about Jelly Babies…

It was about compassion, responsibility and crew. ❤️

We introduced one extra rule:

You are responsible for your Jelly Baby, but you are also responsible for your crew.

This created some brilliant conversations throughout the day. What should you do if you notice someone else’s Jelly Baby is about to fall? Could you help without taking over? Could you show compassion without touching their Jelly Baby?

The children began to realise that being compassionate doesn’t always mean fixing something for someone else. Sometimes it means noticing, warning, encouraging, supporting or simply being there while someone works out their own solution.

There were moments of incredible concentration, a few moments of complete Jelly Baby panic 😂 and lots of thoughtful conversations about what it really means to care for something — and for each other.

At the end of the day, we reflected together:

💭 What did our Jelly Babies need from us?
💭 Was it difficult to look after something all day?
💭 Did we notice when someone else’s Jelly Baby needed help?
💭 How can we care for people in our crew without taking over?
💭 Can you show compassion without taking over?

And, of course, there was one VERY important question…

🍬 How many Jelly Babies actually survived the day?! 😂

What looked like a very silly challenge (and, let’s be honest, it absolutely was!) actually gave us the opportunity to explore some really important ideas about empathy, responsibility, boundaries, independence and what it means to genuinely care for the people in our crew.

We’re pleased to report that Class Five proved to be some very caring Jelly Baby carers indeed! ❤️🍬

A brilliant way to round off fantastic week in Class Five!

🥐 A Crew Breakfast to Finish an Amazing First Week! 🥐

28th August 2026Laura Parsons

What better way to finish our first week together than with a Crew Breakfast! ❤️

We spent the morning sitting together, chatting, sharing food and continuing to get to know one another. It was such a lovely opportunity to slow down, enjoy each other’s company and celebrate what has been a brilliant first week in Year Two.

But what made our breakfast extra special wasn’t the food… it was the crew thinking that happened all around it.

The children decided that we needed to all sit together so that nobody was left out. Without being asked, they organised themselves, moved furniture around and worked together to create one big space where we could all be together. 🥰

And when breakfast was finished, they didn’t just leave it for someone else to sort. They worked together to degunge the classroom, put everything back and rearrange the furniture ready for the next part of our day.

These might seem like little things, but they are exactly the things we want our crew to be about — looking out for one another, taking responsibility, working together and making sure everyone belongs.

What a start to the year! 🌟

I couldn’t be prouder of Crew Attenborough and I can’t wait to see where our journey together takes us. 💚

Crew Attenborough: Collaboration, Communication and a Floor Full of Lava! 🌿🔥

27th August 2026Laura Parsons

What a brilliant first week back for Crew Attenborough! 💚

We have spent lots of time getting to know one another, learning what makes our crew special and, most importantly, beginning to understand what it really means to work as a team.

We have tackled lots of crew challenges, including one where we had to build the tallest tower we could. It was fantastic to hear the children thinking carefully about how they could work together. One child summed it up perfectly:

“We need to work together or we won’t do it.”

Another noticed just how important communication was:

“We did some good communicating to help us.”

And today, our collaboration skills were REALLY put to the test… because the floor turned to lava! 🌋

Working in small teams, the children had to figure out how to get safely across our classroom using only the stepping stones. Just when they thought they had cracked it, Mrs Parsons made things even trickier…

The floor was lava all the way to Mrs Bradshaw’s office! 😱

There was lots of problem-solving, communicating, encouraging, changing plans and, most importantly, persevering when things didn’t go quite right.

Step by step, the children worked together to pass the stepping stones all the way from Class Five, along the corridor and safely to Mrs Bradshaw’s office. And, of course, we couldn’t resist a sneaky little photo when we finally made it! 📸

What a brilliant way to finish our first week. We are already seeing the beginnings of a crew who listen to one another, encourage each other, solve problems together and don’t give up when something feels tricky.

We wonder what Crew Attenborough will be able to achieve when we really start working as one crew… 🌿💚

Watch this space!

🧚‍♀️📚 Does Crew Stop at the School Gates? 📚🧚‍♂️

27th August 2026Laura Parsons

Today, Class Five took our guiding question beyond the classroom… and beyond the school gates!

Does crew stop at the school gates?

We decided that if our crew is about looking after one another, being part of something bigger and making a difference, then perhaps our crew should reach much further than our classroom.

We started by choosing some of our favourite books together. We talked about the stories we love, the books that make us laugh, the ones that teach us something new and the ones we think other people might enjoy too.

Then came the fun part…

We became Book Fairies! 🧚‍♀️🧚‍♂️

The children designed their very own Book Fairy characters and created special labels to go inside our books, explaining what our mission was all about.

And then we headed out on our crew mission…

Beyond our school gates and into our community! 🌳📚

Armed with our books and our Book Fairy labels, we hid our books in different places around Norton for members of our community to discover.

But there was an important part to our mission…

We weren’t giving the books away forever. We wanted the people who found them to read, enjoy and then re-hide them for somebody else to find.

So our books could keep travelling.

Our crew mission had gone beyond the school gates, but so had something else…

❤️ Our love of reading!

We loved imagining someone walking through Norton, discovering one of our books and wondering who had left it there. We wondered where our books might travel next, who might read them and whether they might make someone else’s day a little bit brighter.

It made us think about how being part of a crew isn’t just about what happens when we are together. It is about what we choose to do for the people around us — even people we might never meet.

So, after lots of discussion this week, we think we might have an answer to our guiding question…

Does crew stop at the school gates?

Absolutely not. ❤️

Our crew stretches into our community, our kindness can travel further than we can, and today… our books did too. 📚🧚‍♀️✨

⭕ 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… ❤️

Celebrating Our Learning

2nd July 2026Claire Goodyer

In crew this week, our Year 1 children have been busy preparing for their Student-Led Conferences by practising how to share their learning with confidence. They spent time showing their chosen pieces of work to their friends, explaining what they had learned and why they were particularly proud of each piece.

The children worked hard to speak clearly, listen carefully to one another and celebrate each other’s achievements. It was wonderful to see their growing confidence as they reflected on their progress and practised talking about their learning. We are so proud of the enthusiasm and pride they have shown, and we look forward to seeing them share their beautiful work with their families next week!

Why is the seaside such a special place?

16th June 2026Sarah Winkley

Last week Nursery began exploring and investigating their final case study, Why is the seaside such a special place? We began by reading our key text, “Look what I found at the seaside”. This was an age appropriate non fiction text that delved into all of the natural elements and fun that could be explored at the seaside, through a short story and supporting facts with exciting illustrations to engage the children. They thought carefully about what their experiences of the seaside have been and each child spoke about why the seaside is a special place to them and their families. Their answers were scribed into a speech bubble for them.

On Tuesday we had a very exciting visit from Aqua Explorers, who provided the children with a Rockpool experience – just for Nursery. James (our expert visitor) brought lots of sea creatures with him including; Mussels, Spider crab, Shore crab, Hermit crabs, mutiple starfish, A Purple Sunblazed Starfish, Sea Anemones and a couple of Sea Urchins.

James explained to the children all about each sea creature and where they live and what they eat. The children were so engaged and asked some amazing questions throughout the experience. James was also blown away with the prior knowledge that the children had about some of the sea creatures when he asked them questions…. All of which has come from their learning throughout our expedition “What happens where the sea meets the shore?”

Each child was allowed and encouraged to touch some of the creatures. Most children were willing whilst others were trying to be brave, as it was a daunting prospect to touch an unfamiliar creature.

The following day the children used their experience and observation skills from memory and with photo support to draw the sea creatures. They did so well and included so much detail for the creatures features. Just look at their beautiful work!

Finally to bring all of our lovely learning and the week to a close the children create cardboard box Rockpool models. They painted their boxes first and then used a variety of materials and artistic skills to create sea creatures. They made cardboard tube sea anemones, playdough sea urchins with cocktail sticks, either a starfish using folded paper or a crab using craft materials and pipe cleaners. One of the children in the afternoon nursery brought back brightly coloured seashells from their holidays as a gift for the children so we included those too. Aren’t they absolutely amazing!?! The children have shown real quality of craftsmanship here! Well done Nursery beautiful learning – I am so proud.

📚✨ Final Word Preparation ✨📚

15th June 2026Laura Parsons

Today, we spent time preparing for our upcoming Final Word, focusing on one of our most important learning habits: reflection.

We journeyed back through all of the expeditions we have completed this year, revisiting beautiful pieces of work and remembering the learning experiences that helped us grow. The children were amazed to see the progress they have made, spotting improvements in their writing, artwork, presentation and overall craftsmanship.

As part of our preparation, the children worked together to support one another in selecting pieces of work to share with their families. Some chose work they are especially proud of, while others selected pieces that they found challenging and had to really grapple with before achieving success.

It was wonderful to hear the children talking so thoughtfully about their learning journey and celebrating how far they have come. We can’t wait for them to share these special pieces and reflections with you at Final Word! 🌟