Welcome to Reception 2023-2024

Welcome back! We hope that you enjoyed a lovely Easter holiday and you are excited for the term ahead! Outlined below you will find details about the exciting learning that will be taking place this term.

What will we be learning in Reception?

Maths:

In Reception we follow a maths mastery approach. In teaching for mastery, we provide time and opportunities for children to make connections in their mathematical understanding.  The children are therefore provided with many opportunities throughout the indoor and outdoor environments to develop and deepen their understanding through play.  As well as through discrete teaching sessions led by their practitioners, practitioners engage with children’s mathematics in their play (posing problems, modelling language and helping children to mathematise).

Our staff provide different contexts for children to explore the same mathematical idea and multiple representations of this idea (including pictorial, informal jottings and mathematics equipment).  For mastery in early years, children are encouraged to communicate their mathematical thinking in a wide variety of ways including through manipulation of resources, gesture, pointing, body language, mark-making and talk.

Literacy:

In Literacy we aim to develop our phonics, reading and writing. We will identify some of the features of books and read a wide range of texts that act as a stimulus for our learning. We regularly use talk for writing as a step by step process in which our children listen, join in, reenact, sequence and write about a range of stories. 

Key Texts:

We will explore different books in detail throughout the term. Some of the books we aim to cover this term include Pumpkin Soup, Room on the Broom, Binny's Diwali, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Stick Man.

Phonics:

Each day the children complete a phonics session where they learn sounds and how to use them in their reading and in their writing. Phonics homework books will be sent home each Thursday. The homework will focus on consolidating sounds that we have been learning in class.

The support you have given by reading with your child at home has been fantastic - thank you! Please continue to read with them at home when school reading books are changed, and also by sharing stories with them at other times. 

PE:

We ask that all children have a labelled PE kit. Our PE kit consists of a pair of maroon shorts, a white t-shirt with the school logo and black pumps. (In colder weather children may wear a plain, dark coloured tracksuit as some PE sessions will be outdoors).On PE days, the children should come to school in their PE kits. These sessions will start on Tuesday 14th September.

Timetable:

• PE is on Tuesday and Thursdays

• Daily Phonics lessons 

• Daily Literacy and mathematics input 

• Regular topic and understanding of the world sessions 

Useful information:

Our school day begins at 8.50am each morning. The school door (lower school) will be open from 8.45am until 8.55am. 

Our school day finishes at 3.15pm and the Reception children will leave from their classroom door (To access please cross the lower school playground into the nursery gate and follow the building around where you will find our Reception classroom).

Essentials:

Please bring a pair of wellies and a waterproof suit or jacket and trousers into school all clearly labelled. We will be doing outdoor learning sessions in all seasons!

Please also ensure that children have a named water bottle in school along with their book bag.

Parents as Partners:

From birth, children are continually learning. They develop and learn in a variety of ways and you as parents are their first and most enduring educators. Close working between teachers and parents is therefore vital for the identification of a child’s learning needs. So that we can plan the most effective and meaningful activities for your child, it would be most helpful if you could share your child’s experiences out of school with us. This could be anything from a special trip out or dancing in a show, to baking a cake or going to swimming lessons! We highly value your opinions and input and it would help us greatly if you could write down any experiences your child has enjoyed away from school. We aim to share lots of photographs and images of children learning so that we can work as a team and promote excellent home-school links.

We hope you find this information useful. If you have any queries, please come and see us.

Thank you for your support.

Mrs Fielding-Huda and the Reception team