Reception

Welcome to Reception

Summer 2 2024

Dear Parents,

Welcome back after the holidays!  We hope you have all enjoyed the sunshine and had a lovely time with your family.

We will continue working hard on our school values of Respect, Good Manners, Patience, Perseverance and Honesty and will earn dojo points for good behaviour, attitudes and effort.  When your child models a super learning attitude, they will be placed on the golden crown.  If they stay on it for the rest of the week, they earn an extra 10 dojos.  Can they get at least 100 this term to receive a certificate?

Attendance

Regular attendance helps your child build good habits, getting them used to the idea of getting up and ready for learning each day.  It helps your child build and sustain relationships with staff and make friends.  It can also help to ensure continuity of learning, with staff being more easily able to assess your child’s progress and identify next steps for them in accessing the curriculum.  Every moment in school counts, and days missed add up quickly. The higher a pupil’s attendance, the more they are likely to learn, and the better they are likely to perform as they progress through school.

Staffing in Reception is:

Mrs May - Class Teacher

Mrs F Patel – Teaching Assistant

Mrs H Sadia – Teaching Assistant

Mrs A Patel - Special Support Assistant

Mrs Shayeb -  Special Support Assistant

Homework 

Please complete all homework which is set on a Friday and return completed books to school by the following Wednesday. Your child will have a timetable of homework activities, reading books and knowledge organisers to share with you each half term.  There will also be some projects during holidays and don’t forget your child can now use Purple Mash (you will find their login details at the front of their reading record). You can find links to useful websites in the websites star.

Parental support at home is vital in helping your child to progress.

PE

PE will continue to be on a Monday morning so please make sure your child comes to school in their full P.E kit.  Please also ensure that earrings and jewellery are removed on this day and long hair is tied up. The correct PE uniform is: yellow PE shirt, school green sweatshirt/cardigan, black PE shorts or jogging bottoms and black pumps or trainers.  Trainers are better now that they wear their PE kit all day.

Our topic this half term is ‘Transport/Travelling’

Communication and Language

We will continue to encourage our pupils to work together to solve problems and to express their ideas and feelings about their experiences using full sentences, including use of past, present and future tenses and making use of conjunctions.    Please continue to encourage your child to speak in full sentences at home so that this becomes more natural to them.  We will continue to learn and practise new vocabulary, share stories, discuss events and listen carefully so that we can ask relevant questions to help us understand better.  Staff provide opportunities for our pupils to engage in conversations so that they can apply skills already taught, e.g. eye contact, listening, responding appropriately etc. 

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

This half term we will focus primarily on the transition to Year 1.  Children will spend some time up at big school where they will become familiar with their Year 1 classroom and its immediate surroundings.  They will be encouraged to set their own challenges and be confident to try new activities showing independence, resilience and perseverance. 

We continue with the toothbrushing scheme.  Remember - this is not intended to replace tooth brushing at home. Our aim is to help support and reinforce what you are already teaching your child. It is still important that your child’s tooth brushing is supervised by an adult at home, in the morning and last thing at night before bed. Brushing before bedtime is especially important, to prevent plaque and food particles remaining in contact with the teeth throughout the night. 

Physical Development

The children continue to have daily access to the outdoors and also a weekly PE session in the school hall.   We give opportunities for our pupils to move energetically and support them to develop the fundamental movement skills of rolling, crawling, walking, jumping, running, hopping, skipping and climbing.  During their physical development, the pupils demonstrate strength, balance and coordination and learn to negotiate space and obstacles safely.  They also continue to practise holding their pencil effectively, using a tripod grip.  This supports them to show accuracy and care in their writing and drawing.  Please encourage this tripod grip whenever your child is using writing/drawing tools.

Literacy

Now we have almost completed learning Set 1, 2 and 3 sounds we will focus on using these sounds to be able to write simple phrases and sentences that can be read by others.  We will also focus on writing Red Words (common exception words).  Daily practice of all sounds previously taught continues to be essential – this helps pupils to recognise ‘special friends’ in their reading.  During our English lessons, we will encourage your child to demonstrate understanding of what has been read to them, support them to ask questions and give their opinions.  Daily whole class reading as well as 1-1 reading continues to support your child in their ‘learning to read’ journey. 

Maths

During maths and throughout the day, we continue to develop a deep understanding of the number system.  Our pupils will have regular opportunities to subitise and automatically recall number bonds to 5 (including subtraction facts and doubling facts).  Throughout the day, we plan opportunities for counting beyond 20 and noticing patterns in the number system.  Any opportunities for counting at home and when you are out and about, will support your child to gain a deep understanding of number.  As well as number, we will investigate mass, volume and capacity before moving on to learning about money.

Understanding the World

As we move into the summer months, we continue to learn about the seasons and their effect on the natural world around us.  We will explore and make observations about different countries and learn about the different modes of transport people may use when they travel to these countries.  We have a travel agent role-play and your child will be encouraged to use learnt vocabulary whilst playing alongside others. We will continue to fill in our weekly timeline and will learn about the seaside now and the seaside in the past. As always, we learn about how different people may have different beliefs to us and look at how they celebrate special times, knowing some similarities and differences between different religious and cultural communities in this country.

Expressive Arts and Design

Our pupils continue to make use of props and materials when role playing characters in narratives and stories and staff encourage them to find resources to create their own props.  Your child will be motivated to share their creations and talk about their designs by explaining what they did first and discussing how they made a particular part etc.  We will continue to build on previous learning by safely exploring a variety of materials, tools and techniques, experimenting with colour, design, text, form and function.

As always, we hope your child has an amazing half term being the best that they can be. 

Stay healthy, safe and happy! 

From all the Reception team: Mrs May, Mrs F Patel, Mrs H Sadia, Mrs A Patel and Mrs Shayeb