Start your child’s learning journey at XP Trust and apply for a Nursery place today!
You can apply for a place through the Local Authority here…
www.doncaster.gov.uk/admissions
If you’d like to find out more or arrange a visit, please contact the school directly.
Plover: 01302 361450
Norton Infants: 01302 700743
Carcroft: 01302 722353
Green Top: 01405 813181
On Monday, the week beginning the 14th September the Nursery children were greeted by our “Kindness Elves” who had brought them another text and some buckets? The children were excited to know why the elves had brought them a pair of buckets.
As we investigated further into our first case study of what does caring look like? The children explored the text “Have you filled a bucket today?” I was talking about emotional buckets and the children were very excited to think that they each had an invisible bucket. We thought about what we could fill our buckets up with and the children suggested; “water”, “sand”, “slime”, “dinosaurs”, “worms” and “sea creatures”. After reading the text it became clear that we needed to fill each others buckets with happiness and kindness, which would in turn fill up our own buckets. We thought hard about how we could do this and the children were guided and encouraged to sort things that may fill up their or other peoples buckets or also quickly empty them.
We all tried to adopt the name of being a “Bucket Filler” by being caught doing kind things for our friends and grown ups in class. When the children were caught being kind or spreading happiness, they made it onto the Kindness bucket list and were given the title of a “Bucket Filler!” Our class bucket was bursting!
The children made their friends or special people out of pebbles, using their fine motor and creative skills to show who filled up their buckets. They also produced some beautiful drawings inside a bucket, of things that made them happy and filled their buckets. Great work Nursery!
We had a wonderful Outdoor Crew this morning, making the most of the beautiful sunshine! We started by circling up together for our check-in, taking some time to connect, share and enjoy being together outdoors.
We then had lots of fun taking part in Mrs Jackson’s nature scavenger hunt, exploring our surroundings and seeing what we could discover. It was lovely to see everyone working together, sharing ideas and enjoying the fresh air.
A brilliant morning of connection, teamwork, exploration and lots of sunshine and smiles!
Yesterday Y2 undertook amazing fieldwork to Doncaster Gallery, Library and Museum where we dove head first into toys through time.
Throughout the morning, Class Six spent their time in the Timeline Of Toys workshop. We discovered what the oldest toy ever was, how the teddy bear got its name and even about Doncaster’s special link to Paddington Bear. After all of our amazing learning we even got to explore and play with lots of different toys – we covered everything from diablos and pick up sticks to stacking dolls and marbles. We had the best morning!
In the afternoon, we spent our time wandering around the museum and art gallery. We look at fossils, dinosaur eggs, oil paintings and even a real life sun bear!
The children were all absolutely amazing, they listened, showed respect and were incredible mascots for our school. They should be incredibly proud of themselves! We are so so proud of them!!
What a fantastic first week back we have had in Class 3! The children have settled in brilliantly and it has been lovely to see them growing in confidence, working together and showing what a caring and thoughtful class they can be.
Throughout the week, we have been thinking carefully about our Crew guiding question: “How does what I do impact others?”
This question has been at the heart of our discussions and activities. We have explored lots of different stories together, talking about the choices characters make and considering how their actions can make others feel. We have thought about the many ways we can show kindness, compassion and respect, and how even the smallest actions can have a big impact on someone else’s day.
We have also worked together to think about what makes our classroom a safe, happy and welcoming place to be. Every day, we have considered how we can look after one another, include others, listen carefully and work as a team. It has been wonderful to see the children putting these ideas into practice!
We didn’t stop at thinking about kindness within our crews and Class 3, we also thought about how we could make a difference to other children in our school.
The children decided to design and decorate some special biscuits to give as a little welcome gift to the children in our reception classes. They took great care with their creations and were so excited to make something that would hopefully make the youngest members of our school smile.
It has been a lovely first week filled with kindness, teamwork, thoughtful conversations and lots of opportunities to make a positive difference to others.
We are incredibly proud of how well Class 3 have settled back into school and can’t wait to see where the rest of this term takes us!
Well done, Class 3!
This week Class Six have been thinking about the question “does Crew stop at the school gates?”. As part of this, we have been thinking about what we can do to help our local community and we decided we were going to be Book Fairies!
All week the children have been working really hard. They have been showing respect when listening to the stories and even spent time designing and redrafting their very own Book Fairies.
This morning we have been out on a walk around Norton hiding lots of books! If you are out and about around Norton today, or even walking home from school, make sure you keep an eye out for a book to take home and read!
The rain certainly didn’t stop Crew Nightingale from enjoying their outdoor learning this week!
Wrapped up and armed with their colour charts, our Year 1 crew set off on a colourful adventure around the playground. Their challenge was to find natural and man-made objects that matched each colour on their chart. From bright green leaves and brown tree bark to colourful flowers, the children became excellent colour detectives.
It felt especially fitting that we were hunting for the colours of the rainbow whilst exploring in the rain! Although the sun didn’t appear to create a real rainbow for us, the children discovered plenty of rainbow colours all around them.
The activity encouraged careful observation, teamwork and discussion as the children shared their discoveries with one another. It was wonderful to see their enthusiasm and determination, even with the drizzle falling around them.
In Crew Nightingale, we know that learning can happen anywhere, and our outdoor sessions with Mrs Jackson provide fantastic opportunities to explore, investigate and connect with the world around us. The rain simply added an extra layer of adventure to our day!
Well done, Crew Nightingale, for embracing the weather and becoming brilliant rainbow hunters!
Our second exciting text of our continuing first case study; “How can we help save the ocean?” is “Harry Saves the Ocean” by NGK and Sylvia Fae. This week the children entered Nursery to their beloved beach role play area, being trashed by more plastic pollution! This consolidated all of their prior learning from last week as the began to think rubbish in the sea and as you can imagine the children were so disappointed, sad and angered! This time the children had the skills they needed to be able to help problem solve the solution and were very happy to help recycle the rubbish and plastics into the correct recycling bins.
This week the children have been exploring the properties of 2d shapes and have been thinking about how they could use the shapes to create pictures of sea creatures. Here are some photos of their beautiful work.
The children have also been writing lists of all the rubbish and packaging which they have found in the sea, by hearing and attempting to write initial sounds. They were working so hard on their listening skills and produced some beautiful mark making and letter shapes with support.
During our first week of case study one “How can we help save the ocean?” Nursery were outraged to discover that someone had been into Nursery and thrown rubbish, mainly plastic, all over our environment. The children were totally hooked into the case study immediately and shared some of their thoughts about how could we play and thrive in this environment? How did all of the rubbish make us feel? “Sad”, “Angry”, “Messy”, “Cluttered”, “Dirty”, “Shocked”, “Fuming”, “Cross”, “Upset” were some of the words that the children used.
They then drew faces using different emotions to share their feelings. Some children attempted to write initial sounds of feeling words.
This led to us introducing our first key text “The Odd Fish” by Naomi Jones. A story about a fish who finds a lonely “odd fish” (a plastic bottle) who hasn’t got a family of it’s own and they go on a journey to find the odd fishes family, only to find more rubbish. We consolidated our learning by immersing our water tray and sea creatures in plastic. The children attempted to help the animals by putting all of the rubbish into a bin.
On “Wise Wednesday” the children went on a gallery walk to observes real life pictures of creatures trapped, stuck and tangled in plastic. From this the children were guided to created an anchor chart of all the reasons why plastic is not good for our seas and the environment.
As part of our thoughtful Thursday Crew we thought about ways in which we could help the creatures, by thinking about getting rid of the plastic and rubbish properly. The children were introduced to recycling and were shown how to sort materials and put them into the correct recycling bins. The children each had a turn at this and did a great job.
The whole of EYFS last week were well and truly hooked, lined and sunk into our new summer expedition “Seaside Explorers, what happens where the sea meets the shore?”
The children explored various sea creatures introduced to them through our hook text, “Commotion in the Ocean”. Each crew were given a sea creature to investigate and research, using the internet and supporting non fiction texts. The children then compiled fact files about their given sea creatures and created a large scale piece of artwork between them working collaboratively. They had lots of fun doing this and found out the most amazing facts! Each crew have employed all of their artistic talents to really think about how the creatures look and bring out the best in their features.
Both Nursery and Reception classes presented their sea creatures and fact files to each other in our weekly community meeting. They were so excited to share their interesting facts and spoke thoughtfully and beautifully about their creatures and the new knowledge that they now have! We can’t wait to dive deeper into our thrilling summer expedition. Just look at the quality and craftsmanship of our work, the children really were Go for it Gorillas!
Today, as part of our Diverse Doncaster: Where do I belong? expedition, we explored another important local landmark- Cusworth Hall. The children researched key facts about the building, recording their learning through a silent conversation. The children then created the first draft drawing of Cusworth Hall, carefully observing its features. We finished the session by watching the inspirational Austin’s butterfly video. This helped us to critique and reflect on our next steps.
