Reception 2023 - 2024

Welcome to Reception!

Summer term 

We can't quite believe we are heading into our last two half terms of the year. We have another exciting term planned as we look forward to warm and sunny days and all the joy they bring. Please see below for 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.

• RE 

We will begin our Come and See learning this year with our Pentecost theme, 'Good News'. We will explore that everyone has good news to share and think about the joy we feel when we receive good news. We will think about how the disciples felt when the Holy Spirit came in Luke's story of Pentecost. 

Reconciliation:Friends theme

We then move on to look at friendships and  listen to what Jesus tells us about friendship including forgiveness.

Other Faiths Week

Islam

In Reception, We explore our own special objects and how they are precious to us and treated with care. We then look at special objects in the Islamic faith, including prayer mats, which have a special significance.

We then finish the term with our Universal Church, 'Our World' topic. This  helps us to think about what we love and wonder about our world and how God gave it to us to look after. 

We will invite parents and carers in to our special end of Reception year Prayer and Liturgy which will be linked to this topic and celebrates our journey through Reception. 

• Communication and Language

We will have lots of opportunity to talk and to understand how to listen carefully to each other through our continuous provision activities, such as preparing healthy meals and going to healthy activities such as gymnastics clubs in our Role Play area and planning holidays (booking holidays, packing a case, booking a taxi to the airport, places we might travel to etc). We will be modelling back and forth exchanges using full sentences and encouraging the use of new vocabulary taught through our quality texts. We will continue to talk about non-fiction books through our Fantastic Fish text  and encourage the children to ask questions to find out more and check their understanding. We will encourage children to retell a simple story once they have developed a deep familiarity with the text; some as exact repetition and some in their own words.

• Personal Social and Emotional Development

We will continue to encourage those respectful relationships with peers and adults where children continue to learn to self and co regulate using our emotions check in and sensory box. We will encourage the children to set their own goals and work towards their weekly challenges, showing resilience and a have a go attitude towards completing them. We will continue to know and 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.

        You, Me, Everyone

This term, we will continue to talk about how we can look after our bodies from keeping ourselves healthy and safe to what we can do if we feel poorly. We will also look at people who help us in a variety of ways including a visit from our local police and fire services. We will build on our resilience using our key text, Superkid to help us examine the qualities of a superhero with resilience being one of them. We will look at our role within our community and encourage the children to think about our responsibilities to help other people and the planet. 

•   Physical Development   

PE lessons will continue to be on a Thursday and will focus on practising athletics in preparation for our Sports Day on Wednesday 22nd May, including running in a straight line, skipping, jumping and taking part in a relay race. We will also be developing our ball control skills in the object manipulation topic.

We are 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 and sand and crates in our continuous provision. The range of continuous provision activities is so important in building hand and eye coordination, core strangth, stability and balance, needed for future learning.

• Literacy

Our book choices this term relate to our themes:

Heroes/Transport

Oceans/Transition

We have some exciting enrichment activities linked to our key quality texts which we hope the children will love. We will make comparisons between the current text and others they have met including for example non-fiction texts about our emergency services; our real-life superheroes and the text, Superkid. We will also be reading for fluency using the sentences we compose during the course of our shared writes. We will be writing sentences in our guided groups using all of our key texts as a focus, using phonemes we have met, as well as encouraging writing opportnities throughout continuous provision.                               

Phonics

The children are progressing well in daily phonics sessions, through our Read Write Inc phonics programme. Fred the frog continues to help us learn new sounds and blend them into words. The children will bring home the text they have read in their lessons that week in addition to unseen text with matched phonemes and a class library book they have chosen themselves. Please can you record all the texts your child has brought home in their reading record book and write a short comment about how they have engaged with them. 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.   

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

What is Read Write Inc phonics?

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/wKnB6EWQ/wc16un7Q

How to say the sounds

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/vO406Rla/5wPcgzyT

Why read to your child?

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/NsDcfr19/ukrGGJBx

• Maths

Our daily maths input develops the children's understanding of number to 10, comparing quantities up to 10 and supporting them to automatically recall number bonds up to 5 and some to 10, including doubles facts. We will also be counting beyond 20 recognising the pattern of the number system.

We will use 10 frames, manipulatives from our environment (pebbles, pencils, sticks, cubes, buttons and anything else that can be moved!) to have a solid understanding of numbers to 10. This includes being able to spot a number without needing to count each item individually (subitising) within 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 then again as an independent challenge activity and during continuous provision.

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

In preparation for Year 1, we will begin to recognise and write numerals to 10.

• Understanding the world

Children's understanding of the world is further deepened in summer term through a range of topics from seasonal change in the natural world from spring to summer, looking at different environments: the city in Naughty Bus and the beach in Someone Swallowed Stanley. This text, as well as Our World topic in Come and See encourage us to consider the effect we have on the environment and what we can do to look after our wonderful world.

Our key texts will prompt us to think about people who help us and the communities in which they serve. They will develop an awareness of different occupations and draw upon their own personal experiences and observations of the world.

Our Islam topic will encourage children to think about other cultures and the similarities and differences between the Islamic faith and their own faith.

We will be continuing to practise our simple greetings, basic colours and numbers to 10 in Spanish this term.

• Expressive Arts and Design

From superheroes and fire engines to other types of vehicles, we will use and explore a variety of materials, tools and techniques to create pictures, props and models and explain the process we have used. In the second half of the term, oceans and beach scenes will be our focus, from individual pieces to shared collaborations.Our imagintions will also be stimulated as we develop our Role Play in many ways, from being superheroes to retelling stories, using what we know to express our ideas.

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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.

This term the themes are:

Transport

Big Band

We will also prepare the songs for our end of year Prayer and Liturgy celebration.

A few reminders:

• From summer term, it is really important that you send in a water bottle for your child, filled with water each day.
• Please apply long lasting suncream before your child comes into school and send them in with a sun hat, clearly labelled.
• We also ask that every item of clothing and footwear is labelled with your child's name.

Dates for your diary:

• Reception Superheroes Day - 26th April (children to come dressed as a superhero eg Super Kindness Boy or Super Tidy Girl)
• Book Look for families - 1st May - 3.30pm - 5.30pm
• Family Book Buzz - 10th May 9am - 9.30am
• Reception Sports Day - 22nd May - 2pm
• Finish at usual time for half term on Thursday 23rd May
• Return to school - Monday 3rd June 
• End of Reception Prayer and Liturgy - Parents and carers welcome - Friday 5th July - 2pm
• Finish for the summer holidays - Friday 19th July - 2pm

If you need to speak to your child's teacher, please approach us on the playground 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 Bryce, Mrs O'Brien (Class RB), Miss Griffiths (1:1 support)

Mrs Long, Miss Anderson (Class RL) 

Mrs Walmsley (mornings RB,RL)

Miss Holland - on placement (Tuesdays and Thursdays)