Welcome to Reception
The Reception year is a very exciting time for both parents and children. At Woodham Ley Primary School, children are offered the very best start to their education by being provided with rich opportunities and experiences. Our curriculum is based on the framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and we deliver this through a play-based approach. The curriculum is organised in a way which meets each child's individual needs, interests and fascinations, resulting in us planning 'in the moment' rather than through a 'one size fits all' topic.
Throughout the year, the children will have fun, make friends, learn and develop at a pace matched to each child's stage of development. We work hard to foster positive relationships with parents and value just how important these partnerships are. Right from the start, we endeavour to ensure that caring, nurturing and warm relationships are developed between all members of staff and the children in our care. We promote calm, positive interactions with all children in order to enable them to quickly grow in confidence and independence.
We encourage children to take risks, be curious and explore. We want them to become resilient individuals who are able to problem solve and persevere with tasks even when they find them a challenge. By doing this, we can rest assured that each child will be equipped with the skills to be a life-long, independent and effective learner.
Planning in the Moment
For further information on our rationale behind 'planning in the moment', please read the document below:
For more information on the Early Years Foundation Stage:
Baseline Assessment
During the first six weeks of the children starting in Reception, we will be completing the Statutory Baseline Assessment. Please be reassured that the children will consider these assessments to be just a small practical task that we are asking them to complete which will feel like they're playing. Below is a link to the government website for more information regarding the assessment process.
If you have any questions about this, please speak to a member of the EYFS team.
Snack
The children will have the opportunity to receive free fruit and vegetables through the Government's Free Fruit and Vegetables Scheme (SFVS) which aims to help children achieve their 5 A Day, and there may be occasions when we can provide and encourage children to try fruits they may not have come across before. We will also have a variety of other snacks made available each morning for the children to try, such as croissants, crackers, cucumber etc. In addition to this, children under 5 are entitled to free milk under the Nursery Milk Scheme. We also provide fresh drinking water so the children can re-fill their water bottles during the day, if required.
Please make sure that you speak to a member of the EYFS team to make sure we are aware of any allergies your child may have.
One of the opportunities the children have, when they are a focus child, is to participate in a cooking activity. We try to vary the experiences they have each time and encourage them to try both sweet and savoury items. This opportunity is a very important life skill and also provides an avenue for lots of additional learning linked to: Maths, Communication and Language, Physical Development and Personal, Social and Emotional Development. Usually the children would share what they had made at our weekly Reading Cafe, but as we are not able to go ahead with that at the moment, the children will be given what they make to take home instead.
In order for us to continue this provision, we are asking for contributions towards these cooking experiences. £10 a term, per child, would cover the cost of the ingredients and food bags for sending the items home. These contributions can be made on parent pay. Please speak to the office if you need help with this.
Thank you!
Focus Children
'Focus child' meetings will start from the week of the 26th September. I will be in contact with you when it is your child's week. If there are any worries or concerns, please feel free to come and speak to me before your child's focus week. Please take pictures of things you have done with your child over the weekend after you receive your letter, and send them in to us (via the Evidence Me app) to share with the rest of the class. I look forward to hearing all your news!
Focus children are provided with home bags on the Friday before they are a focus child. The bag is linked to communication and language with activities to do at home. At the end of the week that they are a focus child, they are sent home with a story pack for them to learn and re-tell. Both of these activities are there to support the child's development in speech and language and to encourage a love of books and stories. Please ensure that these packs are returned by the following Monday each week so that they can be prepared and are ready to be shared with another child.
Reading books
Once all the children are settled and into a routine, every child will receive a few books to bring home -these are reading for pleasure books (we are not expecting your child to be able to read them). Please share these and talk about them with your child at home on a regular basis. After October half term, once we have assessed the work on Phase 2, the children will also have a reading book to bring home (from the publisher Big Cat Collins). They will be given a phase book as well as their reading for pleasure book (these will be changed every Friday morning). As the children progress at their own rate, the level of book the children are given to learn at home may change, so please monitor this at home.
Please read with them regularly at home and discuss the book's characters and themes. Ask them questions about what has been read, give summaries of the book and see if they can make predictions about what could happen next as you read. Extra guidance on how to support your child at home can be found on the 'Reading' section of the website, under curriculum, and tips are provided inside the covers of the Big Cat Collins books.
Recycling wanted!
We would like you to dig deep into your recycling bags for yogurt pots, tubs, fruit containers, egg boxes, kitchen tubes, bottles etc as we use them in the creative area. All containers, pots and bottles will need to be washed out before being brought into school. Thank you in advance!
This week in Reception...
The children have been discussing Spring and the changes that we are starting to see in the environment: leaves starting to grow, blossom, baby animals, spotting more insects. They have noticed that the flowers are starting to bloom and created observational paintings of daffodils to study them in more detail. They have also spotted worms in the garden so we watched a video that explained more about where worms live and how they move. These discussions will continue over the next couple of weeks.
In phonics, we have continued to rehearse the phase 3 graphemes within words that have similar patterns. We have also read various words with up to three different digraphs in them and written a sentence on Friday that begins to use these graphemes.
In maths, we have focused on time, starting with the days of the week and how we have routines in class on certain days. We have sung songs about the days of the week and listened to stories before sequencing the events that happened. Towards the end of the week, we discussed changes over time and used baby photos of the children to demonstrate how they have changed over the years. The children really enjoyed this session, especially seeing if they could identify themselves as a baby.
Last week in Reception...
The children have had an extremely busy week during book week. We have been told the story of 'Raccoon and the hot air balloon' and a few of us have had the chance to tell the story ourselves, using dialogic reading techniques. We have designed our own hot air balloons, created them by weaving ribbon through shapes and investigated what happened to the explorer that landed in their hot air balloon on the school premises by going on a hunt for them around the school grounds. We also used the hot air balloon as inspiration for some writing of labels and some stories.
Lots of us dressed up to celebrate World Book Day and we all looked fantastic in our costumes. A big thank you to the grown ups at home for helping to create these wonderful outfits! We had many opportunities to listen to stories and books throughout the week, including a special session where the Year 3 children read to us.
We also made sure we had time to create special cards to celebrate Mothering Sunday which the children were very excited about completing.
In phonics, we have continued to revise all the previously learnt graphemes and tricky words and are coping really well with reading the longer sentences. On Friday, we wrote the sentence, 'This duck is bigger than a rabbit.'
The Three Little Pigs
Hedgehogs
Colchester Zoo trip
Nursery Rhyme Week
We're Going on a Bear Hunt
The children have loved learning the story of 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' using actions and a story map based on Pie Corbett's Talk for Writing. During free flow, lots of children have then continued this learning by going on their own bear hunts and creating their own caves to sit in. We were even lucky enough to go on our own bear hunt at the end of the week which we all thoroughly enjoyed!
The Invisible String
Hello, Reception!
I have prepared a video for you to listen to. It is about a wonderful story called 'The Invisible String'. Please watch it and discuss any questions you may have with someone who can help you at home. There is a task to do at the end which may help you to feel more at ease on your first day with us.
Enjoy the rest of your time at home, and we will see you very soon.
Have fun!
Mrs Hambleton
Stories to be shared
These stories are all about trying new things. They are lovely stories that could be shared with your child in order to prepare them for their first day.
'The Koala that could'
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ytTglyWmgFQ6oHNGRgBX4WZZzBGfGXSb/view?usp=sharing
'Be brave little Penguin'
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yNogwV5KjyMlWs9TqlrSbZTK9gSyrYD1/view?usp=sharing