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!

How does what I do impact others?

3rd September 2025Claire Goodyer

Class Three have enjoyed some lovely stories whilst exploring our crew question ‘How does what I do impact others?’

Working together as a team was so much fun in the sunshine, we worked hard to solve problems by sharing ideas and listening to each other.

We thought about our own families at home and how we are a big family in our crew and class at school. We worked together to create our crew norms and thought about what makes a happy classroom.

Finally we thought about how we could make kindness our own superpower and spread happiness amongst our friends. Year One decorated biscuits and gifted them to the children in Reception to welcome them into school.

Care Bear Crews in Reception

3rd September 2025Elouise Chadwick

The children in reception have transitioned into full time school seamlessly. Our first two weeks have been focused on settling and getting to know the children. Our number one rule in reception is to be kind, so we thought it was apt that we are the Care Bear Crews!

We have been reading ‘Kind’ by Axel Scheffler, which has been a great book that is filled with positivity and hope. It has a strong message that we can all make the world a better, kinder place. With that being said we have introduced our class kindness jars. Each time we capture an act of kindness we get to put a pom pom in our jar. The love and kindness is spreading in reception and our jars are getting full very quickly! Once we reach the top we will be having a special treat!

In our crew sessions, we have been passing smiles, giving compliments, sharing hugs and high fives…

We have loved spending time together and we know we will have the best year with your wonderful children! Here we are in action making friends, sharing and learning together…

Nursery’s introduction to Crew.

2nd September 2025Sarah Winkley

This week Nursery have began to learn what Crew is? And how we take part in it?

We have circled up using our special circle song and we have began to become more familiar with our Crew leader’s. Each crew has the name of a bird as their Crew name and a little pet to help the children to understand being kind, helping them to focus and concentrate whilst take turns to speak. We wonder if you can guess the names of our Crews?

Our focus this week is one of our core principles “ Being Kind”. We are teaching this through a host of stories about kindness and friendship, in particular “Kind” by Axel Scheffler where the key character is lion. This links to our characteristic’s of effective learning character’s, where we encourage the children to show kindness like a “Loving Lion”. Being kind underpins everything we do at Norton Infant School, especially in the Early Years as it helps children to build strong bonds and relationships with each other and staff. This character trait is essential for learning those early social skills, how to treat others, how to play fairly and respectfully and how to look after each other and our Nursery. Let us know if you catch your child being kind – Look out for reward stickers and certificates to praise their acts of kindness this week.

Did you guess our Crew names?

That’s right Crew Puffin’s, Crew Blackbirds, Crew Penguins and Crew Robin’s.

Thinking About Our New Expedition

1st September 2025Laura Parsons

This week the children have been busy exploring ideas for our brand-new expedition. We began by asking ourselves: what could our learning journey be about? and what might our guiding question be?

To help us, we looked at some amazing legacy products that children have created in past expeditions. We discovered superhero Top Trumps cards, a comic book, and even watched a video of children marching proudly around Norton. These exciting examples gave us lots of clues and inspiration for our own journey.

The children thought carefully about what makes a powerful guiding question and shared some fantastic ideas of their own. We are excited to keep building on these thoughts as we begin our expedition together – watch this space!

Hook Week Adventures: Supertato and the Super Veggies!

1st September 2025Laura Parsons

As part of our exciting Hook Week, the children dived into the story of Supertato! We had so much fun meeting the brave superhero potato and the mischievous Evil Pea. The children loved joining in with the story, spotting the clues, and talking about what makes a superhero.

Inspired by Supertato’s adventures, we then got creative and designed our very own super veggies! From carrots with capes to broccoli with superpowers, the children let their imaginations run wild. Each creation was unique and showed off their brilliant ideas.

It was a fantastic way to kick-start our new topic and get everyone excited about the learning ahead. The classroom is now full of colourful, heroic vegetables keeping an eye out for any pesky peas!

Does Crew Stop at the School Gates?

29th August 2025Lauren Gate

What an amazing first week in Class Six!

This week we dove head first into crew, and have been thinking all about how we can help ourselves and each other be the best versions of ourselves. As part of this, we have been thinking about the question “does crew stop at the school gates?”. We put together little gift packages, and this morning we went our of school and delivered them around Norton.

It has been lovely getting to know Class Six this week, and we cannot wait to start our new expedition next week!!

Year Two: Does Crew Stop at the School Gates?

29th August 2025Laura Parsons

This week, Year Two have been exploring our new guiding question: “Does Crew stop at the school gates?” We began the term by thinking carefully about what it means to be part of a crew, not just in our classroom but in our wider community too.

Throughout the week, children took part in a range of activities designed to reconnect us as a crew after the summer break. We shared stories, took new crew photographs, created self-portraits for our classroom displays, and agreed on norms to help guide how we want our classroom to look, feel and sound. We also enjoyed team-building games and challenges, reminding ourselves that we are always stronger when we work together.

A real highlight was our work on kindness. Each child wrote a thoughtful kindness poem, which was carefully packaged alongside small treats into gift bags. In the afternoon, we set out together to deliver these kindness bags around Norton. The children were so proud to share their poems and gifts with members of our local community, showing that acts of compassion can travel far beyond the school gates.

This project helped us to see that crew is not just something that happens inside the classroom – it is about how we connect with and care for others wherever we go. We are excited to continue exploring this question throughout the year.

Our First Day Back at School

26th August 2025Laura Parsons

What a brilliant first day we’ve had back at school today! It was wonderful to see all the children arriving this morning with big smiles, smart uniforms and lots of excitement (and a few little nerves too – which is completely normal!).

The children have settled back into school life so quickly. We spent time getting to know our new classroom, reminding ourselves of our routines and expectations, and most importantly, enjoying being back together as a crew.

A big focus for us today was on the character trait of Craftsmanship and Quality. Using the artist Piet Mondrian as our inspiration, the children worked carefully and thoughtfully to create some beautiful pieces of artwork of their own – we were so impressed with the pride they took in their work.

We also shared the story Our Class is a Family. Together, we thought about our families at home and then reflected on what will make our classroom feel like a family too. The children came up with some wonderful ideas about kindness, teamwork and looking after one another.

There were also plenty of opportunities for fun games and team challenges to help everyone feel comfortable and confident. It was lovely to see new friendships beginning to form and old ones picking up right where they left off.

We are so proud of how brilliantly the children have started the year. This is going to be an exciting term filled with learning, discovery and new adventures – and today was the perfect start!

Well done, everyone – we can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Mrs Parsons and Miss Tinker xx