Reception - Elm

Welcome to Reception – Elm Class

Class Teacher: Mrs Smith

Supported by:  Miss Braginton & Mrs Guest

 

Reception is an exciting year full of learning new concepts and skills that will support the children throughout their school life and beyond. The journey each child makes in this first year of more formal learning is immense and the staff pride themselves on valuing & celebrating each individual step that the children take along the way.  We will be encouraging your child to develop their independence and resilience.

 

Reading

In Reception we love to develop the children’s curiosity. We have an overarching topic that we then link to a high quality book. This is reflected within our environment which we carefully plan for to ensure the children develop a love a learning and their curiosity. We also love to read and will spend a lot of time sharing books and talking about them.  The children will be encouraged to extend their vocabulary and become more confident communicators.

Reading Books will be changed online (Rising stars) on a Thursday and a paper copy of a different book will go home Friday.

The children will be expected to read regularly (daily where possible) to both practise their reading skills and their comprehension – please support us in this.  The children will be encouraged to re-read the same book to develop their awareness of vocabulary, punctuation, characters, settings and story structures.  We record each time they read at home and certificates will be awarded for 50, 100, 150 reads.  Please share books daily with your children to help foster a ‘love-of-reading’.

To develop the love of reading, the children will also be given a library book to take home with them. This is a book to share with your child and for them to read alongside you. This will be changed on a Friday.

Children will take part in a mixture of shared reading, paired reading and 1-1 reading to develop both their phonics knowledge but also their comprehension skills.

 

Maths

The children will be exploring their numbers to 20 this year through mastery maths. The children need to be confident to:

• Order
• Recognise
• Count
• Add
• Subtract
• 1 more and 1 less

Children will also be exploring shapes, measuring items and exploring early money.

 

Class dojos

Within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) each child has a learning journey that documents their learning throughout the EYFS. The children will have a literacy, maths and topic book to capture these snap shots.

To record ‘wow moments’ and to develop partnership with home we are moving to class dojos, where you can access at home.

We will use Class dogos to record photos and videos to show progress across the Early Years Foundation Stage, this will compliment other forms of observing and assessing already in place.

You can access class dojos here: https://www.classdojo.com/

Please note: As part of the changes to the new EYFS framework, it means that there is less emphasis on recording paperwork, meaning we, as adults, can spend more time with your child getting to know them and having those quality interactions.

 

PE

P.E is on a Thursday. Children should have a named PE kit on their peg all week including a pair of PE shoes. Please ensure every item of clothing is labelled with your child’s name on. Please try to encourage your child to dress and undress independently at home as this will help them be prepared for when they will do this at school.PE kit will be sent home each Friday to be washed.

 

Homework 

Homework will be set on a Friday through homework books. This will be a mixture of phonics sounds they have learnt/maths/ topic related work. Some of this may require parental support. Homework will need to be handed in on a Wednesday.

 and will need to be uploaded as an observation on Tapestry by the following Wednesday. Homework will be of a practical nature and may require parental support.

 

School Dinners

School dinners are free for Reception children. If your child is having a school dinner please order this online via Parent Pay. This needs to be done by 8am.

 

Water bottles

Each child needs their own clear named water bottle. This will be kept in class for your child to access throughout the day, and then sent home each day to be cleaned. This bottle should only contain water.

If you would like to speak to a member of the Reception team, please either contact the office or e-mail:

 Elm-Class@firtree.newburyacademytrust.org

 

We look forward to working with you all this year.

Mrs R Smith