Welcome to Reception
In Reception we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum. This is organised into seven areas of learning:
- Personal, social and emotional;
- Communication and language;
- Physical education;
- Literacy;
- Mathematics;
- Expressive Arts and Design;
- Understanding of the World.
Each term we have a broad theme which is the springboard for focussed teaching and learning. Our topics this year are; Super Me, Super You; Let's Celebrate; Once Upon a Time; Here, There and Everywhere; Growing and Changing; Brilliant Beasts. That said, we know that much of the best learning happens as a result of the children's interests and ideas. Therefore the children spend much of their day engaged in self-initiated and play-based activities ("Discover and Do"), where the adults facilitate and support learning and deepen it through open-ended questioning. This approach allows our children to consolidate their skills and knowledge, and explore their interests and schemas fully.
Learning doesn't just happen within the classroom though, our children have access to our fabulous outdoor environment where they can develop their skills and learning further.
Outside they have opportunities to develop their core strength, by riding bikes and scooters, climbing our apparatus - and even trees! - digging in our woodland area or our enormous sandpit. They have space to run and to use their 'big voices', and to take and manage risks. The children work together - or alone - to develop ideas, or role-plays around real and imagined worlds and use props, costumes and resources they make themselves. They use bricks, blocks and planks to build, developing their creative and mathematical skills in the process. They talk, negotiate and take turns... and build valuable life skills as a result.
We foster the children's reading and writing skills from the very beginning, by reading stories and rhymes and encouraging the children to join in with and discuss them (which builds their understanding of story structure and vocabulary). We teach daily synthetic phonics (to help them read and spell words) and we encourage the children to develop the skills they need to be effective writers...through activities designed to develop their coordination and fine motor skills. Our children also have open-ended opportunities to write and make marks in lots of different ways, including on paper, on vertical whiteboards, in chalk on the playground, in shaving foam, paint...and even mud!
While maths skills are taught daily through short sessions and as part of our daily routines, the children reinforce their understanding of mathematical concepts in their independent learning or in adult-initiated tasks. Maths occurs spontaneously throughout the day. Children might be writing numbers on whiteboards or in chalks on the playground. You might spot someone using pattern blocks to create designs, or even counting toys and sharing them with a friend.
The children develop skills in ICT using tablets. They use our interactive whiteboard to explore a range of activities and games linking to developing their skills in maths, phonics and creativity, and enjoy exploring Beebots and remote-control vehicles to develop their skills and understanding.
As well as our adult focussed and their child-initiated learning, the children also enjoy a number of additional discrete activities each week:
PE is timetabled for Tuesday mornings with our Sports Coach, Laurence Clark.
Library takes place on Friday - so please can your child have their library books in school on this day if they wish to change them.
