Welcome to Reception Class page!

Mrs Harrison & Mrs Sharrock

"The child grew and became strong in body, mind and spirit."

Welcome to Reception Class page!

At St. Peter’s C.E. in Reception, we have embedded the COURAGE CURRICULUM into our school ethos and it is interwoven into all aspects of our school life.

CULTURE: We promote our Christian ethos in daily worships and RE sessions. We look at our local area, the School and world around us.

ORACY: We have discussions and develop speech and language, learning new vocabualry. We learn to express our own ideas, reasoning skills and opinions.

UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD: We look at real life problems in maths activities. We have visits and visitors in class. We explore and learn about the world around us. 

READING: We have been lucky to have lots of new books. Reading is a big part of our learning. We read at home, school, with teachers and to ourselves. We learn letters and sounds and develop early reading quickly.  

ARTS: We have opportunities to perform and act in music and PE, as well as in the provision in EYFS. We develop our ceative abilites, expressing ourselves through art and design. 

GROWTH: We learn about the growth mindset learning pit. With perseverance and determination, we can overcome the difficult challenges that give us knowledge. Jigsaw lessons and circle times help us to grow. 

ENQUIRY: We learn how to ask questions and foster curiosity for new learning and vocabualry. We complete investigations and follow our interests, learning about the world and community around us. 

During the year we will get to know your child, their abilities, gifts, learning styles, schemas and next steps. Every child is unique. With our help, your child will learn key skills and acquire knowledge, providing them with a firm foundation on which to build on, throughout their education.

We will look after your child's mental health and support their wellbeing, as we ensure all children at St.Peter's learn in a happy, safe and inspiring environment. We will support your child in learning letter sounds, in order to read and write.  Reading is the key to education- we enjoy it so much!

We also learn all about numbers up to 20, a variety of shapes and how to solve problems independently.  We learn about the local community and the wider world, developing your child's cultural capital.

We will nurture your child in our Church of England school. We make sure that the learning environments are inviting and stimulating, both inside and out.   

Here is some information to help you:

• Children will have access to fruit and milk each day, although you are more than welcome to send in a small, healthy snack with your child. (Not a sugary or chocolate snack) Please remember that this cannot contain nuts or peanuts (including chocolate such at Nutella). 

• P.E. is MONDAY and children should come dressed in their PE kits on this day. This half term we are practising different skills- ball skills, balance, throwing, catching, aim etc

• Home activities are sent out at the beginning of each half term and your child can choose which options they would like to complete- or all! It is not compulsary, but we do find that families enjoy engaging with the challenges that we set and they consolidate all of the learning in class. This can be recorded in the Home Learning Book or on Tapestry. Children must bring the book in each week on Wednesday. I will send it back home on Friday after having a look. Sometimes, I will add additional tasks that will consolidate learning in class. 

• We continue to have fantastic feedback from parents and I know you will love Tapestry! Please post observations from home too, as you are so important in your child's educational journey. Come to the regular EYFS workshops, as they will help to keep you up to date with how to help your child and with your child's learning at school. They have been so well attended year on year. 

• Reception children enjoy home reading books and also guided reading sessions at school. We have some lovely books that have parent prompts and questions for you, to help you to use the book more than once, over the week. Your child can retell the story and learn new vocabualry. We have Oxford Reading Tree, Essential Letters and Sounds, Little Blending books, Project X and other Oxford Press books that are closely matched to the phonics being taught in class. For example, as your child learns new letter sounds, the book they bring home will help to practise these. The book should not be too challenging, enabling your child to read with confidence and develop reading fluency. There will not be any words or sounds that your child has not learnt in phonics lessons. The aim is for them to read it with ease by the end of the week. 

• Please sign your child's reading record after each read and ensure your child reads their book at least three times. This will help their reading progress immensely. 

Your child has completed a baseline assessment in the first few weeks of school- simply a few activities that Mrs Harrison completes with them, individually. Please see the leaflet attached to tell you more.

Tell Me a Story

As part of our theme this half term we will be learning all about animals and their young, hibernation and the farm. We will explore the wider world and learn about different materials. We will observe the changing Seasons. We are using 'Pathways to Write' for our English carpet sessions and we will explore the well known, traditional tale;

'The Three Little Pigs'. 

We will also look at the text, 'A Letter to Santa' as we look at the journey of a letter and post letters of our own.  

In maths, we will follow the Reception 'White Rose' scheme as we continue to learn about early number and the principles of counting. The units this half term will ensure children are counting sets, subitising and becoming secure with representations of numbers to 5. We will also explore shape and measures.  Have a look at the long term and medium term plans below and click on the white rose link here to find out more:   

https://whiteroseeducation.com/parent-pupil-resources/maths#start

We continue to follow our successful Essential Letters and Sounds phonics scheme. We will learn new phase 3 alphabet sounds. We will learn the name and sound of each letter and how to write and form it correctly. 

We will continue to read and write words, as we learn to blend sounds together. We have learnt lots of 'harder to read and spell' words now too.

Click on the link to learn the correct pronunciation of the letter sounds: https://youtu.be/UCI2mu7URBc

There is also some information here: Essential letters and sounds

A big THANK YOU to all the parents and carers who came to the recent PHONICS workshop. The feedback was overwhelming and we are so happy that you can see such progress so quickly. The slides are attached for the few who couldn't attend. 

Below is a Reception Timetable, so that you can see what we do every day! There are also plans for the year and a curriculum overview. Of course we add bits through the year and adapt it as we go, to meet the interests and needs of all learners, as we follow your child's next steps on their unique journey. 

Click on the link to look more closely at 'Development Matters 2023' https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1180056/DfE_Development_Matters_Report_Sep2023.pdf

This is the latest copy.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to speak to us by appointment or for a brief chat on the door. We are here if you need us!

Mrs Harrison & Miss Sharrock