Reception (Class 1)
Welcome to your reception class page!
Our Mission Statement
How we can live the Mission Statement in our class
Christian Community
We will say our prayers, join in happily with collective worship and Come and See lessons and share our new spiritual knowledge and Christian values with our families.
Valued and Recognised
We will say Thank you to God for what we have each day. We known each other’s names and know that we our special to our teachers and belong to our class family.
Unique Contributions
We will celebrate each other’s uniqueness and our special talents. We will smile and give a positive comment in response to other’s achievements.
Child Centred Education
We share our interests with our class family and our teachers plan exciting activities for us.
Positive Learning Environment
We will happily play and learn together following our class and school rules. We enjoy singing,exploring, investigating, creating, sharing and laughing everyday in school.
Gospel Values of Love and Respect
We will use our manners and share nicely during our school day. We respond to scripture in different creative ways e.g. singing, dancing, drawing and painting
Partnership with Parents, carers, Governors, the parish, and wider community.
We invite our parents, carers, Governors to different events during the year to celebrate our learning and achievements. We attend church to celebrate with our parish family during the school year. We raise money at different times of the year for the wider community.
Our Staff:
Teachers – Miss Taylor and Mrs Tracey
Teaching Assistants – Mrs Hitchmough, Mrs Sefton.
Parents and carers are free to contact us via the school office should you wish to make an appointment. Otherwise, I am always available for a quick chat at the door at home time.
Class 1
Weekly reminders
Each Monday we collect £1 which is used to buy snack for your child throughout the week. All contributions are greatly valued to ensure your child has a healthy week at school.
In reception we have access to our outdoor classroom daily to keep us physically active and healthy. We have recently had lots of developments in our outdoor area so are very excited to use our new exciting area and equipment.
PE date will be confirmed later on in the school term. Our school PE kit is blue shorts and black P.E. pumps and a white or yellow polo shirt. We ask that children come to school wearing their yellow tops on P.E day to make changing a little easier.
Please ensure ALL your child’s clothing has names on it. As they go through the wash names do tend to fade so please keep checking to ensure that things don’t go missing, especially jumpers and cardigans.
This year we have been fortunate to have some wonderful developments in our outdoor area with lots of new equipment and outdoor facilities to use. We ask that children can bring a pair of wellies to use in school and we have full outdoor protective gear to ensure that we can play in all types of weather. We also ask that when children are entering and exiting the playground in the mornings and home time that they do not use or touch equipment as it has been prepared ready for their learning experiences and stay beside their adults to ensure safety.
Outdoors is vital for children’s learning and it is we do enjoy getting a little bit messy at times so please ensure that your child has a coat that is suitable to use for messy play such as sand and water especially during the chilly winter months and suitable shoes that they can easily take on and off to make changing into outdoor gear much easier.
Our Spring Term Topics
During the Spring term we will cover the following topic and additional topics based on the children’s interests. All areas of the EYFS are covered through the teaching and learning in these topics.
Africa Traditional tales Growing People who help us
Phonics, reading and writing
At SMAAA we learn to read and write using the support of RWInc to help us learn our sounds. We are now beginning to read CVC words and simple sentences on our own. The more practice we get the more fluent we will become.
We will experience lots of writing opportunities, watching our teachers write and noticing reasons for why we write. We will begin to use our Fred fingers and the sounds we have learnt to write CVC words. Also we are beginning to look at how to write a sentence with our teachers, to help us write captions and stories.
We will also enjoy many stories, poems and rhymes during story time . We will a get a class library loan book that will will love sharing with you at home.
Also during our traditional tales topic we will begin to write character descriptions for the characters we encounter in the stories.
Number, shape, space and measure
In our Spring term, we will enjoy learning to recognise our numbers to 10 and then to 20. We will look at finding 1 more and 1 less than a number to 20 and how this will help us to add and subtract. We will begin to look at addition and subtraction using practical equipment and our own marks. During the spring term we will be learning about doubling number to 10.
We will explore shapes all around especially 3d shapes and talk about what makes up shapes. We will explore weight, height and capacity through our play experience and enjoy solving problems together. Through are topics we learn lots of math skills e.g Measuring plants and beanstalks.
R.E Come and See
Spring Term
Topic 4 – Local church/community – Celebrating
During our topic we will join together to talk about celebrations we have been to and how we felt. We will talk about how we felt before and after our celebrations. Also we will plan our own back to school celebration with our reception family.
We will learn and act out the story of when Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple where they met Anna and Simeon.
We will listen to God’s Scripture.
“Mary and Joseph took baby Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem. They wanted to present him to God and thank God for giving them their lovely boy. Whilst they were there they met two people, Simeon and Anna. They went to the Temple every day to pray. Simeon took Jesus in his arms and gave thanks to God. He said a prayer over Jesus and blessed Mary and Joseph. He said Jesus was like a light to help people. Anna was delighted to see Jesus and gave thanks to God for him. Afterwards Mary and Joseph took Jesus home to Nazareth.” Luke 2:22
We will think about the big question .
What and why do people celebrate?
Can we celebrate alone ?
Topic 5 – Eucharist/ Relating
Gathering
To explore gathering we will listen to a story about a boy who has been off school because he had the chicken pox. He was feeling excited to get back to his friends and do lots of activities together. You might be able to relate to this story when you have been poorly or off school for different reasons.
We will talk about games and activities that we enjoy. We will investigate different musical instruments and compare how they sound when played together and when played alone.
We will visit church and talk about our experiences of church and we will role play gathering in church. We will try to remember elements such as; the holy water, the bible, the lectern and the pews.
We will listen to scripture from Mark about how Jesus blessed the children around him.
We will answer questions about why we think people wanted to be near Jesus.
We will listen to God’s Scripture.
“People brought their children to Jesus, he took them in his arms and he blessed them.” Mark 10:13-14
We will think about the big question .
Why do people gather together?
Topic 6 – Lent/Easter
Growing
We will be exploring how the ways in which things grow by planting cress, reading stories about different plants growing and investigating how different animals grow. 
During our topic will learn about why Lent is such an important time in the christian calander. We will begin to recognise that Lent is a time to grow in love and to try to become more like Jesus. We will talk about ways in which we can help, share and care for other and make our lenten promises.
Also we will learn about the Easter story and Gods love for us.
We will listen to God’s Scripture.
Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Luke 2: 51,52
We will think about the big question .
How and why do things grow?
We have already had so much fun in Reception and thank you for all your support . Read below for some extra tips for how you can continue to help your child at home.
What can I be doing at home?
Reading to your child every day! Reading allows children to enter a new world, learn new words, new cultures, new experiences and develops imagination. It provides the chance to question, predict and most of all enjoy!
Find reasons to write. Before going shopping, write down lists of what you will need. Ask your child to write down the first sound of the items, whilst shopping ask children to find the b,b,b bread. Draw pictures and write captions of the things you have been doing at home and over the weekends.
Practice recognising your numbers every day and counting out objects to match. Find 1 more and less than numbers and create your own number problems. Count, count count!
Can you create your own maths problems?
If I have 5 sweets but I ate 1 how many would I have left?
How many beads can you put into the pot into 1 minute?
Have a look on some of these website to help you practice these skills.
http://www.topmarks.co.uk (excellent for mathematical learning)
http://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/resources/parent-tutorial-1-understanding-read-write-inc-phonics/ (all the advice you need for supporting your child’s reading and writing)
We encourage parents to practice reading and writing these sounds and numbers daily to ensure the best possible chance of success!
To learn some more about how we learn in Reception have a read below.
Our Early Years Philosophy
‘Play is the highest form of research’– Albert Einstein
In reception we learn through play. We have many different areas both indoors and outdoors such as the creative area, reading corner and construction space where we investigate, explore and learn many new things. We also learn to read and write letters and simple words, learn to read and use numbers and create lots of models and paintings which we love to send home to display in our homes!!!
READING and WRITING
In reception we love to mark make and throughout the year we learn to form letters to help us achieve our goal of writing simple sentences. We use our friend ‘fred’ to help us do this. If you want to learn more about how we learn to read and write click on the link below. http://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/parents
We love to write in school but most of all we love to bring our writing in from home!!! Keep looking out for opportunities to write at home including shopping lists, birthday party invites, letters to family members!!!
‘You can make anything by writing’ C.S.Lewis
We are all readers!!!
Reading and enjoying stories at home is very important to us. It helps to develop our imagination and creativity!!! What stories do you enjoy reading at home?
‘Get reading. Keep Reading. Change everything’.
Messy Play
We also like to make a bit of a mess sometimes! We love to paint, decorate, create and have lots of fun in our role play area. We like to re-enact stories we know and love, play dress up and create models using all different kinds of materials. Any work we do at home can be displayed in our own learning space at school so we can celebrate our creativity in all areas.
During our reception year we are working hard to help us achieve our Early Learning Goals. Here are some ways you help your child reach the ELG?
Writing
Children use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds. They also write some irregular common words. They write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others. Some words are spelt correctly and others are phonetically plausible.
Can you create your own story book?
Can you write and label a picture?
Can you create a recipe?
Can you write instructions for a game?
Can you write a set of rules?
Reading
Children read and understand simple sentences. They use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately. They also read some common irregular words. They demonstrate understanding when talking with others about what they have read.
Can you share your home readers together?
Can you write a simple sentence and read it back using your phonics?
Can you look our for punctuation in your story books?
Can you talk about what you have read to show understanding? Can you answer questions about he story?
Number
Children count reliably with numbers from 1 to 20, place them in order and say which number is one more or one less than a given number. Using quantities and objects, they add and subtract two single-digit numbers and count on or back to find the answer. They solve problems, including doubling, halving and sharing.
Shape space and measure
Children use everyday language to talk about size, weight, capacity, position, distance, time and money to compare quantities and objects and to solve problems. They recognise, create and describe patterns. They explore characteristics of everyday objects and shapes and use mathematical language to describe them.
Can you practice daily counting out objects? Counting forwards and backwards as you walk?
Can you order numbers you can see at home?
Can you find one more or less than numbers you see?
Can you make a collection of objects and find out how many you have altogether? Can you take some away and find the total?
Can you begin to write simple number sentences using a number line to help you?
