Reception

With Mrs Scott and miss duerden

🌟WELCOME TO RECEPTION!🌟

Hello and a big warm welcome to our wonderful Reception Classes!

We’re so excited to have you join us on this exciting learning journey. This is the beginning of an amazing adventure where we’ll explore, play, and discover new things every single day.

On our learning platform, you’ll find fun activities, stories, and exciting games that will help you grow, learn, and practise the new things you have learnt in school. Your teachers are always here to help, so don’t be afraid to ask questions and explore at your own pace.

Let’s get ready to learn, laugh, and make lots of happy memories together. We’re so glad you’re here!

Let the fun begin! 🎉

Mrs Scott and Mrs Rickwood

Penguins Class

Penguins

Owls

Miss Duerden and Mrs Scott
Owls Class

KEY MESSAGES

PE and Forest School

Our PE and Forest School day is Wednesday. Please remember to bring your PE kit and Forest School kit into a school in a bag with your name on it to hang on your coat hook. At the end of each half term, we will send your kits home to be washed.

Our PE uniform is a white t-shirt, black or blue jogging bottoms / leggings, socks, trainers and your school jumper or hoodie.

For Forest School, make sure your child has a waterproof coat as well as their PE kit.

Outdoor Play

Please make sure you bring a coat and a pair of wellies to school as the weather does change during the day and your child will be outside in ALL weathers! It is recommended to bring a change of clothes to leave in school so that children can change if they need to.

Home Reading

Books will be sent home with each child in their red book bags. These red book bags will be supplied by school. Please remember to read your home reading book at least three times a week and make sure your reading record is signed by a grown-up each time you have read. It is important that you read at home regularly to practise the skills that you have learnt in school.

Homework

A home learning grid will be available at the bottom of this web page with examples of activities for children to complete at home. Children should try to complete at least three activities each half term. This will help children to reinforce the knowledge and skills that they have learnt in school.

OUR CURRICULUM

Our curriculum is designed around the needs of our young children and is organised into seven areas of learning. Each half term we have a key topic that children will explore with their adults and friends, both inside and outside the classroom. Our seven areas of learning are:

Communication and Language

Listening, attention and understanding
Speaking

Personal, Social and Emotional Development:

Self Regulation
Managing Self
Building Relationships

Physical Development:

Gross Motor Skills
Fine Motor Skills

Literacy:

Comprehension
Word Reading
Writing

Mathematics:

Number
Numerical Patterns

Understanding of the World:

Past and Present
People, Cultures and Communities
The Natural World

Expressive Arts & Design:

Creating with Materials
Being Imaginative and Expressive

AUTUMN 1: WHAT WILL WE BE LEARNING?

Our Topic is 'All About Me'.

During this topic we will learn all about ourselves, our family and our community.

In the first few weeks of school we will talk about different feelings, including happy, sad, angry, scared and calm. We will use the story 'The Colour Monster' to help us understand these different feelings and things that make us feel these different emotions.

As the term goes on, we will start to draw our self-portraits, pictures of our family and what we would like to be when we grow up!

Throughout this term, we will also learn about different people in our community that help us. These include: firefighters, nurses, police officers, lollipop people, vets, lifeguards, construction workers, paramedics and dentists. We will also be having lots of special visitors in our school, so please keep your eye out on here for some exciting photos!

Communication and language

Listening, Attention and Understanding

Children will learn to listen carefully and enjoy longer stories, remember much of what they have heard. Stories that we will share include:

Lulu's First Day at School
The Colour Monster
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Bear feels Happy
Bear feels Sad

Children will also learn how to listen carefully and why it is important. Children will learn 'Ginger's Listening Rules'.

Looking with our eyes
Listening with our ears
Keep still
Keep quiet

Children will practise answering questions when we have shared a story during circle time and our Talk for Writing lessons. This half term we will be focusing on 'who', 'what', 'when' and 'where' questions.

For example - 'Who went to the shop?' - 'What did Lula take to school?' etc

Speaking

Children will know and retell the story 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'.

Children will develop social phrases such as 'Please can I have...?' or 'Please can I go...?.

Children will become more confident with joining in 'Show and Tell' to showcase what they have been learning or something they have made / done.

Children will also take part in a range of WellComm activities to develop their understanding of vocabulary. Please watch out for some useful tips on how you can support your children with developing vocabulary at home!

Personal, Social and Emotional

Our focus theme is 'Me and My Relationships'. The theme we will cover over this half term includes:

All about me
What makes me special
Me and my special people
Who can help me?
My feelings

We will take part in circle activities around these topics.

As part of PSED, children will learn:

to see themselves as being unique by sharing their hobbies and interests
what 'happy' feels like
how regular exercise is important for their health
the different learning zones and what related behaviour looks like for each zone
how to identify their feelings, using books such as 'The Colour Monster'

Physical Development

Gross Motor

We use our outdoor areas daily. Children have a range of equipment to help develop their gross motor skills. Children have access to climbing equipment, a range of bikes, scooters and balance bikes.

This half term the children will be practising the following skills:

jumping
hopping
skipping

Fine Motor

Fine motor activities will be available for the children to take part in and develop their skills using a range of equipment including tweezers, scissors, pencils and threading beads.

Children will learn:

how to hold a pencil correctly
how to sit at the table properly
how to use scissors to make snips in paper
how to form the letters correctly in their name

At the beginning of the year, the children will be learning how to make different patterns. These patterns include:

vertical lines
horizontal lines
crosses
squares
triangles
circles

Children will also learn how to write the letters of the alphabet during their daily 'Little Wandle' handwriting sessions. Each day your child will learn a new phoneme and will learn a new formation phrase to help them understand how to form each letter.

Literacy

Word Reading

We follow the 'Little Wandle Letters and Sounds' phonics programme. We do two phonics sessions a day.

In the morning, children learn the sounds that each letter of the alphabet makes (phonemes). In the afternoons, children are tuning into sounds carefully, recapping syllables, rhyming words, blending sounds together and identifying initial (first) sounds in words.

Comprehension

This half term our key literacy text is 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'. Children will be learning this story off by heart, using pictures and actions. Please look out for our story map being uploaded to this page soon! Children will be encouraged to use puppets, story spoons and pictures to retell the story of Goldilocks.

Children will also be encouraged to create their own stories. This will include children choosing their own character, setting, problem and resolution!

Writing

This half term your children will learn:

how to write their name
how to correctly form the letters in their name
how to write initial (first) sounds in words e.g. 'c' for 'cat'

Maths

During this half term we will be learning how to:

match, sort and compare objects
talk about size, weight and patterns
finding 1, 2 & 3
representing 1, 2 & 3
subitising 1, 2 & 3
identify 1 more than 1, 2 and 3
identify 1 less than 1, 2 and 3

Understanding the World

Past and Present (History):

We will be learning about:

how we have changed from being a baby to being 4 and 5 years old
their family and who is older and younger than them
our community and what they would like to be when the grow older

People, Culture and Communities (Geography):

We will be learning about:

people who live in our community who help us e.g. doctors, nurses, vets, police offers etc

The Natural World (Science):

We will be learning about:

the names of our body parts, including head, shoulders, knees, toes, shoulders, elbows and ankles
our five senses - sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell
how it autumn and how we know it is autumn (signs of autumn)

People, Culture and Communities (RE):

We will be learning about:

what is special to you and your family
what our favourite things are
understanding that we are all unique
why Christians believe that we are all special
harvest and why it is a special time for Christians
why it is important say 'thank you' and how Christians say 'thank you' to God at Harvest time

Technology:

We will learning about:

how to take photos using an iPad

Expressive Arts and Design

This half term we will be focusing on learning lots of nursery rhymes and action songs. These include:

Pat-a-cake
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Once I Caught a Fish Alive
Five Little Ducks
Name Song
Things for Fingers

We will also be learning how to move to a beat. We will be listening to lots of songs and discussing how these songs make us feel and whether we like or dislike the song.

We will be performing the songs that we learn in small groups and as a whole class!