Welcome to Reception

Miss Carroll and Miss Reid are the class teachers and are assisted by Miss Hulstone and Miss Thorpe who are our wonderful Early Years Practitioners. Miss Shingler our amazing Learning Support Assistant will be in the class, supporting with small groups, alongside Miss Kat our fabulous Apprentice.

Dear Parents/Carers,

We hope you all had a restful half term.

In Reception, we learn alongside the Development Matters National Curriculum for children in the Early Years Foundation Stage. Throughout all of our work, the staff in Reception will be assessing the children against the objectives outlined within this document and also use it to ensure that all individual needs are being met.  

In Reception, the morning consists of Phonics (taught through 'Super Sonic Phonics') and Maths. In Phonics, the children have now reached the end of Basic 3 (phase 3). This half term, the children will be consolidating all sounds taught in the Basic 3 and using them to write more complex sentences.The children will also begin to expand their reading knowledge and continue to take home books with sounds which they are learning about that week in phonics.

In Maths, the children will be learning to recall patterns of numbers such as the 2, 10 and 5 times table. They will be working to identify odd and equal groups, and to answer simple subtraction questions using practical methods.

This academic year St Mary's will be introducing the children to the Write Stuff in the Early Years.The Write Stuff is a literacy based programme created by Jane Considine. The Write Stuff is a system that puts key aspects of communication at the heart of your teaching. By implementing Jane Considine's methods, pupils' language will be nurtured through developing ideas, strengthening talk and widening writing opportunities. During the Spring term, the children will be focusing on the book 'Here We Are' by Oliver Jeffers. The children will be working to write non-fiction reports about the world.

During the second Summer term, the children's new topic will be 'I wonder what is beyond the sky?'.This will be a focus on narrative and history. The children will learn all about the different planets in our solar system and how to travel into space. The children will be taking a trip to Jodrell Bank to explore the different exhibitions and the space dome!

The children will be exposed to a range of vocabulary such as world, space, moon, planets, stars, rocket, astronaut, gravity and oxygen. We encourage parents to discuss the topic words with their children, what they mean and how to use the words in a sentence.

During our RE sessions the children will be learning about different religions around the world. The topic this half term is 'What makes every person unique, special and important?'. This will involve the children taking a closer look at how different religions celebrate people and their differences.

Homework is given out on a weekly basis via Class Dojo. Please all of the activities with your child as it supports them with our current learning topics. Dojos and class rewards are given to those who complete all homework challenges.

Reading books will be given to all children.  Reading is a vital importance in early literacy, communication and language and phonics development. Books are changed weekly. We ask that you listen to your child read at least twice a week. Please head over to our 'videos' tab on the website for support reading with your child at home. 

At St Mary’s outdoor learning in very important to us, Reception promotes this during ‘Muddy Mondays’. Every Monday afternoon the children spend time learning in the outdoor environment, they are given opportunities to explore, discover and take risks. During this half term the children will creating creating dinosaur skeletons, searching for dinosaur clues and diggings for fossils.

Please ensure the children bring to school appropriate clothing such as a puddle suit (see our uniform requirements for more information) jogging bottoms and wellies/walking boots. If you need further information regarding clothing please contact your child’s bay teacher.

Thank you,

Reception team