Reception 2025 - 2026

Reception

Spring Term

This class page is where you will find information about what your child will be learning in the term ahead. Please see below for some of our planned curriculum and learning opportunities for this term across the 7 areas of the EYFS Framework, as well as our RE and You, Me, Everyone programmes.

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) at Ursuline offers your child numerous opportunities to develop in the following prime areas of learning:

• Communication and Language
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
• Physical Development

as well as another four areas of learning:

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Expressive Arts and Design
• Understanding the World                                                                                       

• RE - To Know You More Clearly

Our first branch of learning this term, Galilee to Jerusalem, will be based on the visit of the wise men (The visit of the Magi), stories about Jesus growing up in a loving family and then as an adult, Jesus welcoming the children. We will be listening to these stories and exploring what they mean to us. Through creative activities such as arts and crafts and role play, we will explore some of the themes from these stories. We will then reflect how we can live out this learning in our daily lives. 

After half term our next branch of learning, Desert to Garden, teaches us about the Great Commandment about how Lent is a time for reconciliation and new life. We listen to more stories about Jesus and Holy Week. We explore some traditions around celebrating Easter. 

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• Communication and Language

We will continue to have lots of opportunity to talk and to understand how to listen carefully to each other through our continuous provision activities where staff will be engaging in purposeful conversations with children in their play. Key worker circle times also offer an excellent opportunity to develop listening and speaking skills in a smaller group situation. We will be modelling back and forth exchanges using full sentences and encouraging the use of new vocabulary taught through our quality texts.

• Personal Social and Emotional Development

We will encourage respectful relationships with peers and adults where children will learn to begin to self and co regulate using our emotions check in and sensory box. We will encourage the children to identify and link book characters’ emotions with their own to help with this. We will help the children to develop independent use of buttons, zips, shoes, coats etc and teach them strategies to look after their belongings. We will talk about the different factors that support their overall health and well-being, such as being active, spending time outdoors, eating healthily and having a good sleep routine as well as keeping ourselves safe.

•         You, Me, Everyone

Our bespoke You, Me, Everyone programme offers many opportunities to discuss ways in which the children can develop personally, socially and emotionally.

This term we will be continuing to explore our friendships and our feelings as we celebrate our similarities and differences as we grow.  We look to role models in our lives including how Jesus loves us and is a role model for us to copy in how to love one another. 

•   Physical Development   

PE lessons will be on a Wednesday (children to come into school dressed in their PE kits please) and this term will focus on developing our fundamental movement skills with a coach from LFC Foundation.

We are continually developing our gross and fine motor skills in lots of ways in Reception, using play dough, threading, colouring and writing on a large and small scale as well as rolling tyres, carrying buckets of mud, water, sand and crates in our continuous provision. The range of continuous provision activities is so important in building their hand and eye coordination, core strength, stability and balance, all necessary for future learning.

• Literacy

Our quality texts form the basis of our well-planned curriculum. 

Our book choices this term relate to our themes:

Once upon a time...  

'There is No Dragon in this story'

In this story our dragon is joined by a host of very familiar characters. We will explore their own stories alongside our main text, reading, sharing and acting out different versions of traditional tales. If you've a favourite at home, we'd love to share it in class!

Our focus for writing in spring term is on labelling using CVC words and beginning to write short captions and sentences.

e.g.' I am sad.'  'It is red.'

We will be encouraging the children to make labels for all their creations. 

Growing and changing- Spring...

'The Woolly Bear Caterpillar' and 'Things with Wings'

 A fiction and non-fiction text help us find out about changes and growth, particularly in spring. These will hopefully inspire us to spot signs of spring in our local environment and further afield.

Growing and changing- Spring...

         pic                                       

'The Woolly Bear Caterpillar' and 'Things with Wings'

 A fiction and non-fiction text help us find out about changes and growth, particularly in spring. These will hopefully inspire us to spot signs of spring in our local environment and further afield.

Staff will also read many books from our class book areas and will be encouraging the children  to sequence and retell them themselves. Story time is such a wonderful part of the day in Reception!       

• Phonics

The children continue to have daily phonics sessions, through our Read Write Inc phonics programme. Fred the frog helps us learn new sounds and blend them into words (Fred Talk).  We will continue to track the children closely and will assess them each half term.

Reading Books

For reading for pleasure at home, the children will continue to bring home a class library book of their choice.

They will also bring home a phonics text. This may be a 'sound blending' book to support their blending, a 'ditty sheet' or 'red ditty book' which they will have read in class that week. These texts will be brought home for the children to read for consolidation. When appropriate, a further 'book bag book' of the same level will be sent home in addition to the above to support their prediction skills and enjoyment of reading for themselves.

Books will be sent home in book bags on a Thursday to be returned to school on a Monday. Thank you for your support in helping your child with their reading at home, please ask if you need any clarification or support with home reading. 

Some useful videos for parents, to help your child at home with phonics.

What is Read Write Inc phonics?

http://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/pZZPHmeN/NMhLJH4j

How to say the sounds

http://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/2AMjv1bd/Y7SY82Ap

Why read to your child?

http://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/FgFGcFNi/FddCy9Cj

10 things to think about when you read to your child

http://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/gY4Vn2ld/L647Htf0

• Maths

Our daily maths input this term develops the children's understanding of number to 10 by focusing on composition, matching numerals to cardinal values and beginning to talk about one more and one less than a number.

We will use 5 and 10 frames, manipulatives from our environment (pebbles, pencils, sticks, cubes, buttons and anything else that can be moved!) to have a solid understanding of number to 10. This includes being able to spot a number without needing to count each item individually (subitising) within 5, recalling number bonds to 5 and looking for patterns within larger numbers to help with accurate and speedy counting.

The children play a range of simple games to support their understanding, first with an adult and then with a friend during continuous provision.

There are lots of opportunities within continuous provision for children to explore shape, space and measure.

• Understanding the world

Children's understanding of the world is explored in spring term beginning with a comparison of how Christmas is celebrated in a different culture. Spain, where the wise men (Los Reyes Magos) visit houses on the Epiphany and leave treats in children's shoes. We also look at Chinese New Year as we celebrate our diverse world and the wonderful cultures and traditions across it. The Role Play areas help us to reenact scenes from our dragon story as well as do some sping cleaning in our home corner, 'calling people to help us to fix cupboards, burst pipes' etc. We then examine seasonal change in the natural world from the magic of frost, ice and snow in winter to spotting those beautiful first signs of sping. We are always respectful of our natural world and teach the children to take care of it and the wildlife that live in it.

Our key texts, The Woolly Bear Caterpillar and Things with Wings, prompt us to think about spring and the changes that happen in this season. 

Through Language Angels, we will be practising simple greetings in Spanish, including our 'hola' and 'adios' songs and numbers 1-5. We will learn a familiar nursery rhyme in Spanish and listen out for new words we have learnt in songs. We also compare how we greet each other in Spain to the UK, expanding our understanding of different communities.

• Expressive Arts and Design

We will be revisiting drawing dragons and building on it, using observational skills and thinking about different media, toools and techniques to create pictures, props and models. We will also be doing some observational drawings of daffodils and other signs of spring. Our imaginations will also be stimulated as we develop our Role Play in many ways, from re-enacting familiar situations to retelling stories, using what we know to express our ideas. 

Music

As well as the opportunities to explore and make music daily with the instruments out on our performance area we will be following the Kapow scheme of work.

A few reminders:

• Please send in a water bottle for your child, filled with water each day.
• We also ask that you check that every item of clothing and footwear is labelled with your child's name.
• Please could you continue to support children at home with zipping coats, putting gloves on etc to build their independence as they get ready to go out to play/home in the cold weather.

Dates for your diary:

• Maths Fun with Families - Friday 30th January - 9am - 9.30am
• Parents'/ Carers' evenings – 10th and 11th February- (you will be invited by e-mail to book a meeting slot with your child's teacher via 'school cloud' nearer the time)
• Finish at usual time for half term on Thursday 12th February
• INSET DAY - Friday 13th February - SCHOOL CLOSED FOR CHILDREN 
• Return to school - Monday 23rd February
• World Book Day - Thursday 5th March (More details to follow)
• Book Buzz for families - Friday 20th March - 9am - 9.30am
• Finish for Easter holidays - Friday 27th March - 2pm

If you need to speak to your child's teacher, please approach us at pick up and we can arrange a time. We would ask that you kindly wait until we have seen all of the children safely to their parent or carer before speaking to your teacher and we will be happy to chat. Alternatively, you may wish to ring the school office.

We are looking forward to a super term of learning ahead of us.

Reception team

Mrs Long, Mrs Bray, Miss Parsons (Class RL) 

Miss Turner, Mrs Walmsley (Mon – Weds)/Mrs O’Brien (Weds – Friday) (Class RBT), Miss Farrell (Class RBT)