All of our little monkeys have been going wild on our brand new Jungle Trail over the last couple of days. The newest addition to our outdoor provision has certainly been a hit with the children! Tarzan has got nothing on us!

We’re looking for two cleaners to #JoinOurCrew at XP/XP East – find out more here.

We know that some of you will be up late Sunday night watching the football match, and it’s going to be a late night. We want the children to enjoy the evening and rather than come in tired, or not at all we’re extending our opening times! This is for Monday only!

School will be open at normal time but you will have up to 10am to arrive, after this late marks will be applied.

It is 55 years since England reached a major football final so let them watch, talk about the importance of the National Anthem, talk about pride and resilience and possibly (but hopefully not) disappointment. This is a learning opportunity in itself.

Please stay safe, but most of all enjoy the event and have fun!

Come on England! #NortonInspired

Alas, the crescendo of our expedition – a phase trip to Castleton to face, and subsequently scale, the dizzy heights of Mam Tor. Why? Well, this was the last of our 6 epic adventures into the outdoors: walking over hill and yonder to reconnect with nature and take in that northern fresh air – the best there is I’m told! On this particular adventure, we made our way – weary eyed amidst the dawn chorus – to the heart of Derbyshire to take on the challenge of this unique peak – affectionately known as ‘Mother Hill’. Of course, our tough Doncaster children just reveled in the challenge and I’m pleased to say that each and every one of them managed to reach the summit. There reward? Well a deep sense of achievement – but of course, that must always be complimented by ice -cream, Soleros and ice-pops. What a day!

6CC enjoyed working in student-teacher pairings on Thursday, teaching each other bus stop division in a variety of contexts. By the end of the session, all pupils had developed their understanding of short division and some had even deciphered the secret message at the end of the treasure hunt: IT’S COMING HOME!

At NJS, we try to make maths as engaging as possible: exciting maths, real life maths, active maths and challenging maths.  However, sometimes, children just like to pit their collaborative wits against a good-old-fashioned year 4 SAT’s paper (hard to believe I know).  Here, we wheeled out the 2006 optional test paper – largely regarded as an ‘absolute classic’ featuring SAT’s stalwarts Lauren, Zak and Jade (see image above).  Coincidently, it came to light recently that a member of our own staff team models his haircut, ‘relaxed stance’ and casual dress sense on one of the characters featured in the test (I’ll let you decide the character and teacher in question).  Anyway, as part of our Crew’s challenge, each pair were given three counters that they could ‘cash in’ at any time and in doing so, ask a question to a staff member when the subject matter was just too difficult to navigate.  Of course, most pairs opted against this and used the power of annotations, jottings and ‘math’s talk’ to help them arrive at the answer. 

Following the activity, children swapped papers with another pair and pupils used the critique protocol to give each other praises and wonders regarding the effectiveness of their jottings.   Of course, their feedback was sharp, at times bold and certainly tailored to meet the demands of the situation – just like Mr Wilkinson’s dress sense. 

Have a great weekend everyone