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 on 'People who help us', within this topic we will be learning about Dentists, Vets, Police, Doctors, Nurses and Firefighters and we will be having some first hand experiences with some visitors from Stourbridge fire brigade, The Police, A Nurse and some Paramedics. We will also learn about Chinese New Year. During this half term there will also be Numbers Day on Friday 7th February.

Phonics

We will continue to practise reading and writing cvc words.

We learn the following sounds:- j, v, w, x, y, z, zz and qu. 

We will learn the following new tricky words:- he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, her, they, all are. 

We will also continue to practise reading and writing the tricky words and our names.

Maths

In maths we will be learning about zero and consolidating our understanding of 1,2,3,4,5 and learning 6,7 and 8. We will also be comparing mass, finding balances and exploring and comparing capacity, please see below for the small steps that are included:-

Step 4 – My day and night

Alive in 5

Step1- Introduce zero,

Step 2- Find 0 to 5,

Step 3- Subitise 0 to 5,

Step 4- Represent 0 to 5,

Step 5- 1 more,

Step 6- 1 less,

1,2,3,4,5

Step 1- Find 4 and 5

Step 2- Subitise 4 and 5

Step 3- Represent 4 and 5

Step 4- 1 more

Step 5- 1 Less

Step 6- Composition 

Step 7- Conceptual subitising to 5

Mass and capacity

Step 1- Compare Mass,

Step 2- Find a balance,

Step 3- Explore capacity,

Step 4- Compare capacity.

Growing 6,7,8

Step 1- Find 6,7,8,

Step 2- represent 6,7,8,

Step 3- 1 more,

Step 4- 1 less,

Step 5- Composition of 6,7,8

RE

Our question for this half term is:-

Who is special to Christians?