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Reception - St Mary

Welcome to Reception!

Class teacher - Miss Beaumont and Mrs Mulryan

Support Staff: Miss Dawson and Miss Ferdousy

The Early Years Framework

Your child will follow the DFE (Department for Education) EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) framework and will work towards the final assessment at the end of the Reception year, using the ELGs (Early Learning Goals). These goals are short statements that teachers assess your child against at the end of the year. The 7 main areas of learning are;

Communication and Language
Physical Development
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Literacy
Mathematics
Expressive Arts and Design
Understanding the World

As part of the framework there is less emphasis on recording paperwork, meaning we, as adults, can spend more time with your child getting to know them and having those quality interactions. The new framework is also more aligned with the KS1 curriculum, further ensuring your child’s educational journey from Reception to KS1 is building upon previous knowledge.

The Reception classroom

The Early Years (Nursery and Reception classes) gate opens at 8:35am and closes at 8.45am. If your child is late you will need to enter the school through the school office. Please ensure your child arrives promptly to school each day.

At the end of the day, the doors open at 3.10pm. Please arrive on time to collect your child. If you are late please contact the school office. We have Cuthbert Cubs wrap arrive provision available everyday until 6pm for a small charge. Please make payment via the Parentmail app and contact the school office.

Our Learning through the year

Through the year we guide and progress the children in the 7 inter-connected areas of learning and development within the EYFS Framework.

These 7 areas are:

Prime Areas:

Communication and Language (Listening, Attention and Understanding, Speaking)

Personal, Social and Emotional Development (Self-Regulation, Managing Self and Building Relationships)

Physical Development (Gross Motor Skills and Fine Motor Skills)

Literacy (Comprehension, Word Reading and Writing)

Maths (Number and Numerical Pattern)

Understanding the World (Past and Present, People, Culture and Communities and The Natural World)

Expressive Arts and Design (Creating with Materials and Being Imaginative and Expressive)

We monitor the children's progression through adult and child daily interactions, observations during whole class, group, individual teaching and play during continuous provision.

Summer 2

Transport

This term we shall guide and progress the children primarily in the 3 prime areas of the all 7 inter-connected areas of learning and development within the EYFS Framework.

These 7 areas are:

Prime Areas:

Communication and Language (Listening, Attention and Understanding, Speaking)

Personal, Social and Emotional Development (Self-Regulation, Managing Self and Building Relationships)

Physical Development (Gross Motor Skills and Fine Motor Skills)

Literacy (Comprehension, Word Reading and Writing)

Maths (Number and Numerical Pattern)

Understanding the World (Past and Present, People, Culture and Communities and The Natural World)

Expressive Arts and Design (Creating with Materials and Being Imaginative and Expressive)

We monitor the children's progression through adult and child daily interactions, observations during whole class, group, individual teaching and play during continuous provision.

Maths

In Maths we will be focusing on counting objects, actions and sounds, ordering and recognising numerals to 10, exploring 1 less and 1 more, subitising (instantly recognise small quantities to 5), singing counting songs, comparing and ordering, one to one correspondence, and recalling number bonds to 5.

Literacy

In literacy, we will continue teaching the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Phonics scheme, specifically; segmenting and blending the sounds in words, reading words, captions and sentences and spelling tricky words as well as attempting to write our own phonetically plausible sentences. We move through the programme by daily phonics sessions where children have the chance to read and write the sounds.

For more detailed information on the phonics phases please see the Little Wandle website: https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/ and click on the parents tab. We will be doing lots of mark making in a variety of contexts and for varied purposes, encouraging the use of the letter formation as we learn them. We will be working hard on our speaking and listening skills, having paired discussions with our 'talk partners', telling our news and sharing lots of stories and rhymes. We will be using the Tales Toolkit approach ( https://talestoolkit.com/) to support shared narratives and independent story telling.

RSE

This term we will teach RSE, using the scheme Ten Ten - Life to the Full. Below is an overview of the lesson objectives your child will cover over this term.

PE (Physical Education) in Reception will take place on a Friday. Your child should arrive at school wearing their PE kits each Friday. They will not need their standard school uniform on this day as they will stay in their PE kits all day.

As in line with our school uniform policy, your child’s PE kit should be as follows:

Plain navy joggers (no brands or logos).
A pair of trainers (velcro trainers if they cannot tie their laces independently).

Home Learning

Book bags and reading books will be issued on a Friday at the end of the day. These need to be returned each Friday morning.

Daily activities to complete with your child-

Regular name writing practice - please encourage your child to practice writing their first name, encouraging them to use an upper-case letter for their initial and lower-case letters for the other letters.

Daily reading practice - please continue to engage with daily reading with your child; this could be through singing rhymes, poems and songs also as well as reading stories. It is really beneficial to read aloud to your child each day. This will prepare them to succeed as a reader. Bedtime stories are so valuable to encourage good future reading habits with your child.

Daily number/counting practice - Counting up to 5, 10 and beyond. Sing number songs and rhymes. Using mathematical language such 'more' and 'less'-this could be done when playing or when preparing food together. Go on a number hunt around the home or outdoors-focus on identifying numerals 0-10. Order numerals to 5 and then 10.

Reading eggs – once a week https://readingeggs.co.uk

Reading eggs makes learning to read interesting and engaging for kids, with great online reading games and activities. Children love the games, songs, golden eggs and other rewards which, along with feeling proud of their reading, really motivate children to keep exploring and learning.

My Maths and Mathseeds – once a week https://mathseeds.co.uk/

Mathseeds is an online website that your child can use to develop pupils’ confidence and fluency in Maths and the interactive lessons provide step-by-step examples to break down learning into manageable chunks. The log in for this is the same one you use for reading eggs.

Phonics home learning – once a week

Please continue to practise the phonemes we have learnt using the weekly phonics sheets in your child's phonics book.

You can then practise these sounds further on fastphonics (www.readingeggs.co.uk/fast-phonics-games), which is the same log in as reading eggs.

Learning logs

Pupil, parent and teacher voice all showed that project based home learning was the preferred style of home learning as it gave children more freedom to learn about real life world events, share personal experiences and it has helped motivate them to engage in home learning as it is child managed. It encourages the children to be more independent, inquisitive and provides more opportunities for outdoor learning together. This can be completed in your learning log or a scrap book of your choice.

Instead of completing these every half term, we have reduced this to three half terms a year to make it more manageable. They will therefore be given out on the first Monday of Autumn 2, Spring 2 and Summer 2. We ask that their project is brought into school on the last week of that half term to share and celebrate with their peers. You will be given a sheet of paper that will be stuck in your child’s learning log that will outline what the project is and ideas of activities you can do.

Please find below lots of useful websites and links to great resources that can be used

to support your child's learning at home!

Government support for home learning for children aged 0-5 years - https://hungrylittleminds.campaign.gov.uk/

Phonics websites

Mr Mc is doing fun and interactive daily phonics lessons for children age 4-5. He focuses on new digraphs and has lots of different ways to revisit already learnt sounds.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTcZnvuTeovlznioLRo0GOA/videos

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk

https://monsterphonics.com/games/

http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/phase-3-games.html

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/5-7-years/letters-and-sounds

https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/literacy.html

https://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/alphablocks

Phonics apps

Jolly Phonics Lessons

Meet the alphablocks

Read with phonics games