Reception 2025 - 2026

Reception

Summer 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 focus this half term will be learning about the Pentecost story and hearing that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to us to be our friend.  We will be exploring what this means to us in our daily lives, especially as we understand that we are all different yet connected to each other and there to help each other. This leads us nicely onto our final topic of the year, where we hear about us being children of God and that it means for us and the communities to which we belong.

. 

• 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. We will be modelling back and forth exchanges using full sentences and encouraging the use of new vocabulary taught through our quality texts: Superkid, Naughty Bus, Fantastic Fish and Somebody Swallowed Stanley.

• 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, sensory box and Zen Den. 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. Our key text, Superkid also helps us to understand how we can be super healthy and super strong.

As we move towards the end of the year, we will be doing frequent transition activities, such as seeing Year 1 staff in the hall, visits to the year 1 resource area and classrooms. joining Year 1 and 2 for prayer and liturgy as well as our main transition days. More information will follow about this closer to the time. All of these activities help the children to prepare for moving to a new year group. The idea of new beginnings and changing into something new is also explored in our Summer 2 text, Somebody Swallowed Stanley including all the positives that we can take from change.

•         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 talk with the children about keeping themselves safe, with a reminder about their body being private. We also explore the people who can help us if we ever have a problem or need to talk. We then finish our year by thinking about how we can love God by loving others, showing kindness to each other as God wants us to do.

•   Physical Development   

PE lessons will continue to be on a Wednesday (children to come into school dressed in their PE kits please) and this term will continue to work on developing our fundamental movement skills with a coach from LFC Foundation, with a special focus in summer 1 on preparing for our Sports Day (Wednesday 20th May at 2pm on the school field). Parents and carers are invited to watch and support your child. Our Sports Day is for Reception children only.

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:

Transport and Oceans

Superkid

This book offers many opportunities to stimulate conversations about the qualities we all have that make us 'super'. This can be super kind, helpful, healthy as well as a super listener. It allows us to think about all of the real superheroes in our world who help us. We invite special visitors into school to deepen our understanding of how they help us and maybe even inspire us to follow their lead in the future!

Naughty Bus is a fantastic book which follows the adventures of a mischievious bus who acts first and thinks later! This book helps us to explore different vehicles from London buses to rescue vehicles as well as look at London as a capital city and examine where that is in relation to us in Liverpool. This super texts gives so many opportunities for Expressive Arts and Design as well as Understanding the World not forgetting PSED, thinking about self regulation and the choices we make.

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!       

Somebody Swallowed Stanley

In this story, we think about the effects of littering on our beautiful world and the creatures in it. 

Our focus for writing summer term is on writing a range of short sentences using CVC words using correct letter formation. e.g.' I am sad.', 'It is red.'

We will be encouraging the children to write sentences for all their creations. Eg. It is a ...  This is a ... Look at the ...

Fantastic Fish

A non-fiction text helps us find out about some super fish and 'jump' into aquatic life, maybe even explore our own aquarium. This text inspires us to deepen our awareness and understanding of the natural world. It also serves as foci for observations of fish and sea creatures for us to then paint, draw and create with different media.

• 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', 'red ditty' or 'green/purple or pink 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 extends the children's understanding of numbers from 5 up to10 by focusing on each number in depth. We will be focusing on developing our automatic recall of number bonds to 5 and some bonds to 10, including double facts. We will verbally count beyond 20, recognising the pattern of the counting system.

We will use 10 frames, manipulatives from our environment (pebbles, pencils, sticks, cubes, buttons and anything else that can be moved!) to support 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 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, including composing and decomposing shapes.

• Understanding the world

In summer term, we continue to examine seasonal change in the natural world from spring, taking care of the flowers we planted in spring and understanding what we need to do to look after them to help them to grow and flourish in the summer. Opportunities to explore the contrasting environments of beach/coastal in summer term and garden environments in spring term.

We look at the passage of time through our monthly calendar and talk about what has happened in the past and the present. Exploration of different transport vehicles from the past and comparing them to the present is enjoyed during our Naughty Bus topic.

People in our local communities are explored in our You,Me,Everyone and RE learning during summer term, including those who can help us.

Through Language Angels, we continue to greet each other in Spanish, practise numbers 1-5 and some colours, as well as learn some familiar songs in Spanish. Eg Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

• Expressive Arts and Design

Superheroes, buses, other vehicles and famous London landmarks provide inspiration at the start of summer term. As the term progresses, we will be examining our beautiful sea creatures and costal scenery. They will use and explore a variety of materials, tools and techniques to create pictures, props and models and begin to explain the process we have used. Our imaginations will also be stimulated as we develop our Role Play in many ways, from booking holidays/travelling to visiting 'aquariums' using what we know to express our ideas.

Music

We will be following the Kapow scheme of work. The transport theme fits nicely with our texts themes to encourage the children think about how we can experiment with sound to represent transport and changes in temp and rhythm. The children will also take what they have learned into their play as they access the instruments out on our performance area and in their role play

We will also be learning to sing hymns in class in our prayer and liturgy and assemblies as we join KS1 or the whole school to worship through music and song.

A few reminders:

• Please apply a long-lasting suncream to your child before they come to school each day during the warmer months.
• Please send your child in with a sun hat (name label on) and a water bottle, 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 jumpers and cardies on etc to build their independence as they get ready to go out to play/home.

Dates for your diary:

• Maths Fun with Families - Thursday 21st May - 9am - 9.30am
• Finish at usual time for half term on Thursday 21st May
• INSET DAY - Friday 22nd May - SCHOOL CLOSED FOR CHILDREN 
• INSET DAY - Monday 1st June - SCHOOL CLOSED FOR CHILDREN
• Return to school - Tuesday 2nd June
• Book Buzz for families - Friday 10th July - 9am - 9.30am
• Finish for Summer holidays - Friday 17th July - 2pm

Transition to Year 1

We will ensure that all children will receive many opportunities to become familiar with the Year 1 classrooms and resource area, in addition to meeting their new teachers and staff. Further information about our transition days/opportunities will be given in due course.

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)