Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back and a very happy new year to you all! We hope you had a lovely Christmas break and were able to enjoy some special time with your children. We are very much looking forward to welcoming the children back into school and starting the Spring term with them.

The children settled so well into school life during the Autumn Term, and we are incredibly proud of the progress they have already made – from growing independence and confidence to forming friendships and becoming familiar with daily routines. This term, we will continue to build on these foundations as the children grow as learners.

During the Spring term, the children will take part in a range of exciting learning opportunities through play, exploration and adult-led activities. We will continue to develop their early reading, writing and maths skills, as well as encouraging curiosity about the world around them. There will also be a strong focus on language and communication skills, social skills and emotional development,  as the children continue to learn how to work and play together.

We would like to thank you for your ongoing support at home – whether that’s through practising phonics, reading together, completing your children's suggested next steps or simply by talking with them about their day at school.  Working in partnership with you makes such a positive difference, and we really value your involvement.

If you have any questions or concerns at any point during the term, please do not hesitate to speak to a member of the Reception team. We are always here to support you.

We look forward to a happy, busy and successful Spring term together.

With our very best wishes,

The Reception team

An overview of your children's learning - week beginning 12.1.26

Dear parents/carers,
We hope you have all had a lovely weekend. 

Please see below for an overview of our weekly learning. 

My learning this week
Writing
This week we will learn all about babies and discuss how we have grown and changed since we were babies.  We will share 'The Baby's catalogue' by Janet and Allan Ahlberg and we will watch a short video which show us how to bath a baby. We will discuss what we have found out about babies and then write our own lists of things that we might need to bath a baby. We will use our Fred fingers to sound out the words we need to write and we will focus on forming our letters correctly. 
Vocabulary to practise at home:
baby, toddler, crawl, babble, nappy, bottle, pram, cot, sling, bib

Phonics
This week in Phonics, we will begin reading ditties. These are short captions and represent the next stage in our phonics learning.
We will read the ditties in class first, and they will then be stuck into their bookbag phonics books for you to read together at home. Please continue to write a brief comment in your child’s reading record after you have heard them read these at home.
We will be developing our confidence with the ‘special friend’ sounds that we have already learned, as well as practising reading and writing words and short captions.
Please continue to support your child at home by practising saying the sounds and writing the letters.

Maths
This week in Maths, we will be focusing on 0-7. We will read the books I Spy Numbers by Jean Marzollo and The Ugly Five by Julia Donaldson. We'll play games like skittles and write down the amount we have knocked down, make our own number books and play track games. We will subitise, look at 1 more and 1 less and order numbers 0-10.

Continuous and enhanced provision
Continuous provision means that children always have access to carefully planned areas and resources that support learning through play, throughout the whole day. For example, in the role-play area, children act out real-life experiences, building language and social skills. In the construction area, they explore shapes, problem-solving, and teamwork while building and creating. These spaces are always available and help foster independence, curiosity, and a lifelong love of learning. Alongside this, we regularly enhance this provision; new resources or challenges linked to current learning themes are added to keep the children engaged, curious, and to ensure progress. This week we will enhance our provision with resources linked to babies and to our new project 'Long Ago'.
We are going to have lots of fun this week! 😊 

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

School start and finish times:

Children should arrive at school between 8.30 and 8.40am

School finishes at 3.05 pm for children with surnames beginning with A-M and at 3.10pm for children with surnames beginning N-Z

Any concerns

Please use Tapestry to let us know about any concerns or questions you might have; however small they might seem; we are always here to support you. If you need to speak to us, then please either catch us at the end of the school day or contact the school office - 01305 579148- and we will either take your call or ring you back as soon as we are able to.

Meet the Reception Team

Mrs Llewellyn - Deputy Head, Early Years Lead, Class teacher 

Mrs Mitchell - Class Teacher

Mrs Wait - Class Teacher 

Mrs Williams - Teaching Assistant

Miss Caroline- Teaching Assistant

Mrs Quinn- Teaching Assistant

Mrs Mc.Grath - Lunchtime Assistant

Miss Evans- Lunchtime Assistant

Jigsaw (Personal, social, health, and emotional education) 

This half term, the Jigsaw puzzle piece is 'Dreams and Goals'. In Reception the children will learn about-

• Challenges

• Perseverance

• Goal-setting

• Overcoming obstacles

• Seeking help

• Jobs

• Achieving goals

CHICKERELL PRIMARY ACADEMY EARLY YEARS FOUNDATION STAGE

OUR PHILOSOPHY 

At Chickerell Primary Academy and Chickadees, our teaching staff and Early Years Practitioners deliver an EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) curriculum through high quality teaching and through interacting with children in ways which facilitate their learning, alongside an engaging and enriched environment. Our philosophy is to nurture every child’s curiosity and enthusiasm for learning within a safe and secure environment. We aim to develop their skills and confidence so that they are ready to take those important next steps towards a lifetime of learning.  

INTENT 

The intent for our children is to enter the next stage of their education, Year 1, with a secure foundation in learning and well-prepared to tackle new challenges with confidence and a positive mind-set. 

We engage our pupils in a stimulating environment led by the children yet carefully organised and managed by adults. We provide a text-based curriculum which is progressive and builds on children’s prior knowledge. It is an ambitious, challenging and inclusive curriculum which is responsive to children’s individual needs, fascinations and interests. We encourage our children to take the lead in their own learning, this helps to develop their confidence, to explore new ideas, to solve problems, to take risks, to make links and to seek challenge; we aim to foster their personal development from the very start. We develop children’s language and communication skills in a range of ways and we introduce and use new vocabulary with them to further develop their speaking skills. We develop high levels of engagement, curiosity, collaboration and cooperation. We encourage our children to manage their own behaviour in the classroom and in social situations. We encourage our children to express themselves with confidence in a meaningful way and to respect the opinions and values of themselves and others. 

IMPLEMENTATION 

Our approach is influenced by the work of educationalists, researchers, psychologists and practitioners who have guided our knowledge of how young children learn and how adults can support their learning.  At Chickerell Primary Academy and Chickadees, provision is underpinned by a complementary relationship between adult-led, adult-initiated and child-led learning, alongside high-quality adult-child interactions. We use a continuous cycle of observation and assessment, which informs our planning and teaching, alongside structured and systematic lessons and guided group work. In addition, summative assessments are carried out for phonic development, the stable order principle in number and an assessment of each child’s stage of development for each of the seven areas of learning. These take place every half term and are used to inform the planning of subsequent teaching and learning.

*Please refer to our curriculum overviews for Chickadees and Reception. These will show you how our curriculum progresses across the Early Years Foundation Stage, building on prior knowledge in a sequential way and using the Read, Write Inc. phonics scheme, the White Rose Maths scheme and Cornerstones to support the progression of key skills and knowledge. 

IMPACT  

The impact of our EYFS curriculum is reflected in having well-rounded, happy and confident children transitioning into Year 1. Our children enter Key Stage 1 well-prepared to begin the next chapter of their educational learning journey. They are equipped with a broad range of knowledge and skills that provide them with the right foundations for their future learning.  Our children make very good progress from their starting points; the vast majority of our children make better than expected progress with us and achieve outcomes that are at least in line with national data. Our teaching and pedagogy are reviewed and evaluated regularly through EYFS team meetings, through meeting regularly with EYFS colleagues from other schools and through meetings with Key Stage 1 staff.  We ensure that the areas we discuss and develop are reflected in changes and developments in our classroom practice. 

The Early Years provision is highly valued by school leaders, it features in all areas of our school development planning.

PLEASE READ OUR EYFS POLICY TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT HOW OUR CHILDREN LEARN AT CHICKADEES AND IN RECEPTION. TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT CHICKADEES, PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT THE 'CHICKADEES PRE-SCHOOL AND CHATTICHICKS WRAP-AROUND CARE' PAGE. 

Our EYFS curriculum

Our EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) curriculum for both Chickadees and Reception has been guided by the EYFS Framework, Development Matters and early years pedagogy, whilst being personal to our school; it embraces the contextual learning and the cultural capital that comes from our community and our children’s home lives. It has been designed to engage and enthuse the young minds of our children, through carefully planned, play-based learning experiences. Our curriculum is rich and well-sequenced; it ensures that the skills our children require for the next stage in their education progress throughout the EYFS, so that they are ready for school after Chickadees and for Year 1 after their reception year. In reception, there is a key focus on transition to Year 1 which continually evolves throughout the year. For example, whilst teaching the children about the past and the present (Understanding the World), we will introduce the concept of a timeline and introduce some historical vocabulary such as – new, old, ago, past, order, time. In this way we teach children the foundational knowledge, and develop concepts and vocabulary, that prepare our children for their history lessons in year 1.  

Developing a good pencil grip

We continually focus on helping your child to develop an effective pencil grip; this helps them to form their letters correctly when they are writing.

Suggested Activities to help develop your child's fine motor skills, which will help them to grip their pencil and form their letters correctly.

Activities;

1. threading - beads, pasta etc.
2. tearing paper to paste onto a large picture 
3. making snips in paper using scissors and then extend to cutting in a straight line
4. making papier mache
5. using play dough to create different shapes
6. making marks in playdough using small tools
7. grating vegetables or fruit 
8. playing musical games involving fine hand control (‘open, shut them’ etc.)
9. using finger puppets to tell a story or join in a play
10. drawing faces onto fingertips then making the faces ‘kiss’
11. finding hidden small items in a bucket of rice or beans
12. hanging washing onto a clothesline - you could make one at child-height