Reception

Dear parents/carers,

Thank you for choosing our wonderful school for your children. We are so excited to teach and nurture them and to watch them grow and blossom.  We are also looking forward to welcoming you into our school family and working closely with you, so that together we can give your children the best possible start to their school journey. We are a friendly, caring and approachable team and we are always here to help and support you.  

Below, you will find an overview of your children's learning for the week ahead; this will also be shared on Tapestry. You will find photos of your children having fun with their learning on the weekly Tapestry update; these will be added throughout the week.

Please scroll further down the page to find more information about your child's learning. 

Your child's week at school - week beginning 27.11.23

We hope that you have all had a lovely weekend. 😊

Below, you will find an overview of your children's learning for the week ahead; this will also be shared on our website page. We will add photos of your children having fun with their learning throughout the week, so keep checking this observation. 😊

The week ahead:

Phonics 
We will continue to work in our new phonics groups. All groups will be revisiting all of the sounds that we have learned so far, we will build words using flashcards and magnets, play Fred Games where we listen to the sounds in words and blend them together with increasing independence, spell using our Fred Fingers to write words, again with increasing independence.
Group A will spend the week revisiting and practising the sounds that we have already learned and learn the new letters  r, j and v. 
Group B will learn the new sounds w, z and x. 
Group C will learn the new special friends  sounds zz, gg, sh, ch, th. They will also continue to read ditties. 

Reading
We will share lots of stories throughout the week and will send home books for you to read to your children. Those children who are confidently recognising the sounds that we have already learned will bring home a sound blending book. 

Writing 
We will share the story ' The Night before Hanukkah' by Natasha Wing. We will discuss Hanukkah and how this celebration uses the lights of candles to sparkle and shine. We will use our Fred fingers to write words linked to Hanukkah, using sounds that we already know. 

Vocabulary to discuss and practise using at home:
Hanukkah, menorah, gelt (chocolate coins), temple, latkes

Maths
We will continue to learn about 1,2,3,4,5. We will sing the songs 5 Currant buns, 5 Little Men in Flying Saucer and 5 Little Speckled Frogs and link these to 1 less. We will read the stories The Man on the Moon and Anno’s Counting Book and encourage counting forwards and backwards. We will use numicon and objects to explore and compare. We will draw amounts of objects and have a go at writing numbers too. 

Continuous and Enhanced Provision
Continuous Provision describes all of the different areas of provision that are available for your children to access every day e.g. maths area, writing area, creation station, construction area etc. Within each of these areas, there will be a core range of resources that your children can use all the time, throughout the whole year. These areas invite the children to explore, engage and become active learners. We update our Continuous Provision to meet the needs of the children and we enhance it to add links to our current learning. This week we will add enhancements linked to Hanukkah and to our project ‘Sparkle and Shine.’ 

We are going to have lots of fun together this week. 😊

The Reception Team 

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

This half term, the Jigsaw puzzle piece is Being me in my World. In Reception, the children will be learning about:

• Self-identity
• Understanding feelings
• Being in a classroom
• Being gentle
• Rights and responsibilities

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 - 783876 - 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

Mrs Cole - Teaching Assistant

Mrs King- Teaching Assistant

Mrs Kershaw - Teaching Assistant

Mrs Brown - Teaching Assistant

Miss Clarke - Teaching Assistant

Miss May - Teaching Assistant

Mrs Mc.Grath - Lunchtime Assistant

Mrs Rumbold - Lunchtime Assistant 

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 are focusing on helping your child to develop an effective pencil grip, which will help 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