Reception

School starts day is 8:30 to 3:20pm unless you have signed up for the Reception extended day that runs till 5:30pm or another after school club that runs till 4:30pm.

The Reception year staff:

Cooke: Miss Sweeney (Class teacher and EYFS leader) and Ms Bressan

Waddell: Miss Mayes (Class teacher) and Ms Guzel.

What are we learning?

Our theme will be ‘Mad Science” with a focus on living things. We will be preparing to go on our first trip to the Mudchute Park and Farm.

We will also talk about similarities and differences between living things, plants and animals. We will be looking at the world and the continents and the types of animals and plants you will find on the continents and in the oceans. Children will then learn about how we can change and take care of the world.

Mudchute Park and Farm

. Talk to your child about listening and attention and safety in public. Talk about health when being around the animals. Washing your hands and not putting your hands near your face or mouth if they have touched animals.

In Literacy

We will be looking at fact books about animals, the use of vocabulary, how words can make a sentence more interesting. We will be looking at writing sentences with nouns and adjectives. We will also be looking at the difference fiction and non-fiction and the similarities and differences between them. We will also enjoy writing for purpose, including writing our forename and surname. We will continue to have daily Read Write Inc. lessons.

In Maths

 We will continue to develop our number skills, by adding while using objects, talking about more and less and solving number stories. We will focus more on adding and subtracting and adding on from a number  to get the total. We will also look at money.

PSED

 We will be continuing to develop the skills with working with others and identify rhymes that can represent a moral. We will also continue to work on listening and attention and building our confidence to kindly and patiently tell other how we feel, what we like or dislike.

Communication and Language

We will be looking at how children join in with repeated phrases/refrains in a story or rhyme. We will also see how children respond to instructions in two parts while understanding the use of preposition. We will also learn to understand ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions while increasing our vocabulary.

Physical Development

Children will continue to develop fine motor skills by writing clearly on lines and forming clearly clear and correct. They will also explore movement like animals..

PE with the PE specialist teacher will take place on:

Cooke class – Monday, Tuesday

Waddell class - Monday

Your child should have a full PE Kit (Harris round-neck yellow t-shirt, navy shorts or jogging bottoms and black plimsolls in a Harris P.E kit bag). All items should be labelled with your child’s name. Please ensure your child is not wearing jewellery on these days such as, hoop earrings. Children will be expected to undress and change themselves. To support children with this, you should encourage them to practise fastening and unfastening buttons and tying shoelaces at home.

Understanding the World

We are learning about the world and similarities and difference animals and plants. We are also going to learn how the animals are different and how some are the same. We want to develop their love for science, developing thinking skills and questioning, building their curiosity.

Expressive Arts and Design

We will develop our musical ability by exploring tempo, moving patterns, structure and dynamic We will explore materials and how this can recreate the body covering of different animal groups.

In phonics

Children will continue to follow the Read Write Inc programme. Children will be developing their reading skills  by blending words speedily without saying them out loud and by also making sure they can understand questions. They will develop inference (draw a conclusion based on evidence from words read, pictures) They will then use these skills to write and complete sentences.

How can you help us?

Any learning you are able to do at home with your children makes a big difference to their school life. 

• Helping your children with basic counting aloud (0-20 and beyond) can really help their progress in maths.  Also, writing these numbers down will help greatly with their number formation. Recognising the symbol for the numbers 0 to 20. 

• Reading stories to your children develops their language as well as their imagination.  Sharing books with your family is a great activity and way to spend time with your children whilst learning.  

• Getting your child to segment or blend simple words in their everyday routines is a great, easy way to help support them with their phonics. This could be as simple as asking your child to sound out the sounds needed for ‘bed’ when it is their bedtime.

Now that the weather is getting colder please make sure your child wears their school coat each day– our outdoor learning continues all year round so they will be learning both inside and outside during the winter months. 

Class routines and home learning

• Home learning is compulsory and must be completed each week. Your child is given their homework on a Monday and it must be brought back completed by the following Monday.

 

As the children are becoming more confident in their writing, please encourage your child to start writing their ideas down sounding out words which they want to write. It would then be helpful for you to annotate underneath their writing what they have written and bring it in.

• As always, we expect all children to read every day at home. Please ensure your child brings in their rucksack, with the folder every day, along with their reading record and book, ready for when the class teacher needs to change your child’s book. It is important that you remember to write in these reading records each time your child reads as this helps us to support your child’s reading and allows us to suggest ways you can support your child further.