Welcome to Reception at Oldswinford C of E Primary

Where we ‘Believe, achieve and shine brighter together.’

The Reception team:

Mrs Preece (FSLion) and Mrs Terry (FSCrystal) with Mrs Harris and Mrs Hardy.

Foundation Stage 

At Oldswinford C.E. Primary school we believe that the children’s time in Foundation Stage, the Reception class, is one of the most important times in their school life. This lays the foundation for their learning and development for the rest of their education. We work hard to nurture and care for the children and seek to make school an enjoyable and exciting place to be. Children will be able to free-flow through the two rooms and ‘middle area’ throughout most of the day with children from both classes so they can make great friendships.

Curriculum

There are seven main areas of learning which are split into prime areas of :

• Communication and language development
• Physical development
• Personal, social and emotional development

Then we have ;

• Literacy
• Maths
• Understanding the world
• Expressive Arts and design

Each area of learning is implemented through planned, purposeful play. This takes place through a mixture of adult led and child initiated activities. Play is essential to help children relate to others, build their confidence, explore their surroundings, and think critically.

The progress the children make is assessed by 17 Early learning Goals.

What to expect in Reception

We have daily maths and phonics sessions as well as talk for writing and kinetic letters most days. We hope to put on a workshop in the Autumn term to show some of what we do.

The children have two P.E. sessions each week, so please make sure the children have had their earrings removed on those days. These will be on a Tuesday and Thursday. 

All children learn at different rates so we differentiate our experiences so that everyone can learn effectively. Parents/Carers will be sent a dojo link so they can see weekly updates and photos of what the children are currently learning and experiencing. Always helpful when a child replies ‘we just played’, to a question about their day!

Please make sure a water bottle is sent into school each day.

Homework:

We do not set specific homework but there are ways you can support your child’s learning at home which we would always encourage.

• Putting their coats on and fastening them up.
• Going to the toilet and wiping themselves.
• Daily reading. We cannot emphasise the importance of daily reading enough. 
• Counting- children often need a little practice to count accurately moving their finger and saying the number at the same time can be challenging.
• Talking about concepts such as size and weight.
• Writing their name (not all in capital letters!)- we will send home a guide to letter formation.

This half term our focus will be  'Let's explore.......' . We will start off by  looking at where we live- Oldswinford, Stourbridge, England and the UK. We will then look at places that the children have been on holiday and discuss how they travelled there and what it was like. We will link this with Euro 2024 and look at the teams that are playing and where these are on a map/ globe. We will create flags for these countries. Next we will look closer at Australia including the animals, aboriginal artwork, the Great Barrier reef, an Australian Christmas and Australian landmarks. We hope to conclude our topic with a bbq themed treat. We have also got our trip to Sycamore adventure on Friday 21st June this term, please see dojo for any extra details regarding this.

Phonics

We are continuing to perfect our kinetic letters and write in full sentences using capital letters, full stops and finger spaces.

We will be consolidating the following sounds:- oo, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er. and tricky words:- some, one, said, come, do, so, were, when, have, there. We will have a big focus on applying these in our writing.

We will learn the following sounds:- wh, ph, ay, a-e, a (acorn) e-e, ie (shield) and ea

Maths

In maths we will be exploring 3D shapes. We will also be learning 'To 20 and beyond', 'Adding and taking away' and 'Sharing and grouping', please see below for the small steps that are included:-

Manipulate, compose and decompose

Step1- Select shapes for a purpose.

Step 2- Rotate shapes,

Step 3- Manipulate shapes,

Step 4- Explain shape arrangements,

Step 5- Compose shapes,

Step 6- Decompose shapes,

Step 7- Copy 2D shape pictures.

Step 8- Find 2D shapes within 3D shapes

Visualise, build and map

Step 1- Identify units of repeating patterns

Step 2- Create own pattern rules

Step 3- Explore own pattern rules

Step 4- Continue patterns beyond 10 (14-20)

Step 5- Explore mapping

Step 6- Represent maps with models

Step 7- Create own maps from familiar places

Step 8- Create own maps and plans from story situations

Make connections

Step 1- Deepen understanding

Step 2- Patterns and relationships

Consolidation

Step 1- Subtraction

Step 2- counting back

Step 3- Problem solving

RE

Our question for this half term is:-

Who am I?