Reception

Newsletters!

Welcome to Reception!

Our google classroom link...

https://www.sacredheartprisch.com/google-classroom-help/

Reception is....

The year that your child will become 'school-ready'; developing their courage, resilience, independence and communication.

Our intent

Language development is the driver of our curriculum and we strive for children to become skillful, effective communicators.

Areas of learning

Welcome to our class page! Here you will be able to keep updated on all events happening in your child's class whilst also following their learning journey throughout the year!

We plan for learning in all 7 areas of the curriculum: Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development, Communication and Language, Literacy, Maths, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design. Our topics are all formulated from children's interests in which we then tailor the EYFS curriculum accordingly. Curriculum areas are not always taught in isolation and may cross over each other in which these cross curricular links are always made clear on any planning.

Characteristics of effective learning. (COEL)

COEL are ways in which the child engages with others in their environment. They underpin learning and development across all areas of the curriculum and when we observe your children in their setting we will often comment on what COEL they are showing.

Partnership with parents

We strive to create a strong partnership with parents which will help us ensure your child has their full individual needs met. Please share their achievements at home. You can help yourself to a 'WOW' voucher or proud cloud which will be available at every class entrance. These will impact on your child's development and be part of their learning journey in School.

Love for reading!

Here at Sacred Heart we strive for all children to adopt a love for reading. On a daily basis we are sharing wonderful reading experiences with our children whether that being whole class or small group reading sessions or 1-1 reading experiences in our book corners in class. We believe reading not only helps us discover the world we live in but helps develop our imagination and creativity.

Literacy - Our read, write, inc phonics scheme we have adopted as a school are our literacy lessons in Reception. It is a very structured and systematic approach to teaching children Literacy and is designed to create fluent readers, confident speakers and willing writers. Children are sorted into smaller ability groups and all learn a new sound every day. We have also implemented ' The Write stuff' apporach into our daily timetable alongside our daily phonics lessons.

We still have themes that are reflected mainly through our story times / role-play areas and small world areas.

Autumn 1 - What makes me marvellous? / Marvellous Me!

Leaving nursery behind and moving into Reception class can feel like a big step for both children and their parents. This half term we have spent quality time baselining your children ensuring each child has a secure starting point, enabling us to measure the progress they will make throughout the year.

This half term we will reading and doing work on the text 'Owl Babies' where children will have the opportunity to use the talk for writing method to help them re-tell the story orally using story maps. This not only develops children's self confidence as story tellers but will also impact on their story writing as the year progresses.

We will also be focusing on the text 'Bedtime for Monsters'. enjoying a spooky storytime session in one of our pods.

Understanding the world...

We will be looking a our season Autumn and going on Autumn walks to comment on what you see during this season. We will also be looking at technology and completing age appropriate games on our interactive white board as well as exploring other technological toys.

In Maths we are focusing on number and place value to 5 reinforcing the 5 counting principles. At Sacred Heart we follow the Power Maths scheme of learning. Our aim is to develop a whole new culture of deep understanding, confidence and competence in Maths - a culture that produces strong, secure learning and real progress.

Autumn 2 - What do we celebrate? / Festivals and Celebrations!

This half term we will be learning about a variety of festivals and celebrations such as Diwali / Children in need / Eid / bonfire night / Christmas. We start by reading a firework poem and then look at some popular stories from another cultures and traditions like 'Handa's Surprise' and 'Anna Hibiscus' song.

As the term progresses we will be then preparing for our Christmas celebrations reading 'The Nativity story' We will be role-playing a lot of these stories in our Literacy lesson to help us better understand the story behind the Christmas celebrations. We will also be taking part in a lot of Christmas related activities in preparation for this exciting time of the year. There is a lot of cross curricular links with understanding the world during this topic! We will be looking closely at similarities and differences between people and communities in this country and others.

In Maths we will be focusing on one more / one less where children will be able to take part in a variety of practical, concrete activities allowing children to understand quantities whilst also developing their mathematical reasoning skills. We will also be covering naming and describing simple 2D and 3D shapes.

Spring 1 - Tell me a story? / Traditional tales.

This half term we will be focusing on some traditional stories that we have not covered before in Nursery such as 'The gigantic turnip' / 'Little red riding hood' / 'The Little red hen 'focusing on story structures and discussing in detail the what happens at the beginning / middle and end of these stories. We will be retelling the stories using story maps and sequencing pictures in the correct order in which they appear in the text.

We will also be implementing our new approach to teaching writing " The Write stuff " where children will be diving deeper into texts. The Write Stuff is based on two guiding principles; teaching sequences that slide between experience days and sentence stacking lessons. With modelling at the heart of them, the sentence stacking lessons are broken into bite-sized chunks and taught under the structural framework of The Writing Rainbow. Teachers will be preparing children for writing by modelling the ideas and techniques of writing. If you would like to find out more about this approach please visit...

https://www.janeconsidine.com/jane-considine-TWS-online-training

Maths

In Maths we will be introducing children to 'part part whole' and exploring number bonds within 5 to start with and then developing to 10. We will then be comparing numbers within 10 before introducing children to simple addition.

Understanding the world

We will be celebrating ' world religion day' linked closely to R.E ( People, culture and communities ) where we will be discussing andcelebrating a variety of religions, having respect for all the different cultures.

Spring 2 - What can we grow? / Growing!

This half term we will be focusing on texts such as 'Errol's Garden' and ' Yucky worms' looking at growing / planting with lot's of cross-curriculor links with understanding the world. We will be drawing our own story maps and beginning to write simple sentences to match parts of the story.

We will be continuing to break down our stories into 4 plots and look carefully at the structures of stories bringing them to life with real life objects and meaningful moments.

Maths

In Maths we will be focusing on Measures: length, height & distance using the vocab longer, taller, shorter, heavy and light. We will also be covering number bonds to 10 using a tens frame & part whole subtraction to 10 using the part whole model.

We will be ending our half term with exploring patterns, AB AAB ABB patterns using shapes, colours, sizes, actions & sounds.

Summer 1 - How can we use our imagination? Toys / Dressing up.

We will be using our imagination a lot this half term and looking at toys compared to toys from the past.

In Literacy we will be reading 'Billy's bucket'discussing how precious a special toy/ teddy can be to us. We will be labelling and writing about our favourite toys. We will also be making predictions reading only the beginning and middle of stories guessing how it may end!

We will also have a focus couple of weeks on 'Peter Pan' taking children on an adventure and developing their imagination.

In Maths we will be creating our own toy shop, using coins up to the value of 10p to buy toys. We will also be reviewing 2d and 3d shapes and look at the shapes of toys e.g, a ball being a sphere/ a dice being a cube. We will also be problem solving lots this term and solving word problems.

Understanding the world

We will be thinking about the change of season from Winter to Spring. We have an interactive tree display that the children change accordingly with an exploration tray which contains lots of real life objects for children to investigate.

Summer 2 - Where shall we go? / Off we go!

We will end our Reception year thinking about travel / holidays and transport. This half term we will be writing stories based on travelling somewhere or a holiday / day trip that we have enjoyed with our families.

In Literacy we will be reading a variety of stories linked to this theme being, 'The Naughty Bus', 'We're going on a bear hunt', 'Train ride' and 'Astrogirl' all based around going on adventures and having lot's of fun!

Understanding the world......

We will also be celebrating special days such as Fathers day / sports day / celebrating the new season change ( Summer ) and also preparing children for their transition into Year 1.

In Maths we will adding and subtracting 2 single digit number and counting to find a total. We will also be solving problems including doubling and halving. We will also be working on understanding how to subitise ( recognise quantities without counting ) up to 5.

Remember, remember.....

- We will be sending out reading books / phonic sheets. Please support them the best you can with listening to them regularly as well as sharing stories for pleasure at home.

- We have an open door policy so please don't hesitate to come and find us if you have any worries or concerns regarding your child.

- Help yourself to WOW vouchers and Proud Clouds to celebrate your children's achievements at home. These will be available every day outside all EYFS doors.

Thank you for your continued support!

All Reception staff!

KEY PERSON

Every child is assigned a key person and a letter is sent out within the first few weeks of your child starting school. The key person acts as the key contact for you to help establish secure relationships as well as being responsible for ensuring your child feels happy in Reception. Your child’s key person will keep your child’s learning and development records up to date that highlight development and progress. If this key person is not in School and you wish to speak to them, please see your child's class teacher or the EYFS lead ( Mrs Cope )

POWER PROJECTS!