Welcome to Reception!

Our class saint is St Joseph

The Reception Team

The Reception Teachers are: Mrs Farrell, Mrs Searle and Miss Gerrard. 

Learning support staff are: Mrs Murphy, Mrs Hussain, Miss Glendon, Miss James and Mrs Bailey.

The Early Years (Nursery and Reception classes) gate opens at 8:30am and closes at 8.40am.  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. For further information on where to collect your child from on the Early Years playground, please refer to the letter we sent before the summer. 

Our Learning in Spring

Spring Topic: Our world and everybody in it

This term we shall continue to 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. 

Home Learning

Book bags and reading books will be issued on a Friday. These need to be returned each Wednesday. 

Within your child's bookbag there will be: a guided reading book, a library book and the weekly phonics activity. 

You will have access to your child's QR code to access our Seesaw home learning page.

We use Seesaw to give you the opportunity to share photographs with the class bears, when it is your turn over the weekend.

We use Seesaw to upload maths home learning and the phonic words from that week.

The children love to share their home learning with the other children each morning so please upload anything your child is interested in. They especially like to watch video clips of their friend's learning at home.

Please see a member of staff as soon as possible if you are still having any problems accessing your Seesaw account.

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. Please share any writing on Seesaw. 
• 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 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, then 10 and 20. 

Maths

In Maths we will be focusing on counting objects, actions and sounds, ordering and recognising numerals to 10, and beyond, subitising (instantly recognise small quantities to 6), singing counting songs and number rhymes and read stories that involve counting, comparing and ordering, one to one correspondence. We will be sorting and matching, creating patterns and finding them around us. 

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, and reading captions and tricky words. We move through the programme by daily phonics sessions where children have the chance to read and write the sounds. We have completed Phase 2 and now will progress onto Phase 3. 

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 writing in a variety of contexts and for varied purposes, encouraging the use of the letter formation as we learn them. We will practise name writing on a daily basis also.

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.

Religious Education

We use the schemes, Come and See and Caritas in our RE lessons. Below is an overview of what your child will cover over in the Spring term. 

As part of our Catholic ethos. we love to involve family life within our school life and may ask you for photos of special events or people, such as baptism, Christmas and other important celebrations to reflect upon in our weekly Collective Worship sessions. 

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

PE (Physical Education) in Reception will begin each Friday (from after October half term) outdoors on the astro turf pitch. Your child should arrive to school in 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).
• Your child can wear their usual white polo shirt and navy school jumper on a Friday. The school uniform shop in Heaton Moor sells St Mary’s PE hoodies. These are permitted to be worn on a Friday but please do not feel that you have to purchase one as the normal school jumper is fine.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to speak to a member of the Reception Team. 

Many thanks for your continued support

The Reception Team

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

First words sampler

Teach your monster to read

Maths websites

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?Subject=16&AgeGroup=1

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/topics/numeracy

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

Maths Apps

Kids counting

Maths Tree

Bugs and Numbers

Busy things

Maths ages 3-5

Maths YouTube videos

Jack Hartman

https://www.youtube.com/user/JackHartmann

Monkey floss counting backwards from 20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hD26XpuUCc

2D shape song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTeqUejf3D0

3D shape song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cg-Uc556-Q

Numberjacks

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWKuiktSh-V3E4ysPU0VC3Q

Numberblocks

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPlwvN0w4qFSP1FllALB92w

Counting by 10s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gmEe0-_ex8

Counting by 5s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ4jV14Oz5I

El Nombre for number formation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB6RGn7x4ks

Money song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFzAU3u06Ps

The Early Years Framework

As you may already be aware, the DFE (Department for Education) have introduced a new EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) framework, commencing September 2021.  Your child will follow the updated EYFS framework and will work towards the final assessment at the end of the Reception year, using the new 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 remain the same. These are;

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

As part of the changes to the new framework, it also means that 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. See the attached link below for the statements that your child will be assessed against at the end of Reception. We have also provide a link below to the Development Matters 2021 document, which outlines the principles behind the new framework.

Partnership with Parents

• It is important for parents and early years settings to have a strong and respectful partnership. This sets the scene for children to thrive in the early years.
• This includes listening regularly to parents and giving parents clear information about their child's progress.
• The help that parents give their children at home has a very significant impact on their learning.
• Some children get less support for their learning at home than others. By knowing and understanding all children and their families, we will offer extra help to those who need it most.
• It is important to encourage all parents to chat, play and read with their children.

Useful Information for parents from the NSPCC

Positive parenting (nspcc.org.uk)

Look Say Sing Play: to build your baby’s brain every day (nspcc.org.uk)

Handle with care: How to keep your baby safe (nspcc.org.uk)

Talking about difficult topics | NSPCC

Helping Your Child Cope with Your Divorce or Separation | NSPCC

Online Safety for Children - Tips & Guides | NSPCC

Useful Information for parents from Early Education

Babies - learning starts from the first day.pdf (early-education.org.uk)

Children as artists.pdf (early-education.org.uk)

Going out to play and learn (3).pdf (early-education.org.uk)

Helping children cope with change.pdf (early-education.org.uk)

Helping children with their behaviour.pdf (early-education.org.uk)

Making their mark - children's early writing.pdf (early-education.org.uk)

Maths is Everywhere.pdf (early-education.org.uk)

Questions and answers.pdf (early-education.org.uk)

Science all around.pdf (early-education.org.uk)

The road to reading.pdf (early-education.org.uk)

Toddlers and very early learning.pdf (early-education.org.uk)

Useful Information for parents from BBC/CBeebies

Grown-ups - for parents and carers - CBeebies - BBC

Tips and clips for good oral hygiene and teeth brushing