Reception

Welcome everybody to the Reception section of the website. 

Welcome to Reception class:

Class Teachers:
RW - Miss Willetts 
RB - Mr Billington
RM- Miss Moran

Learning Support Assistants: Mrs Lindan  (Mr Bilington), Mrs Wilkowska (Miss Moran), Miss Jakobowska (Miss Willetts), Mrs Taylor, Mrs Phillingham (Speech and Language)

Assistant Headteacher: Miss Moran

Our curriculum has been designed to be broad and balanced. The children engage in independent learning opportunities as well as adult guided group work, and by promoting excellent behaviour, we aim to enthuse in all our children a desire to learn, as well as care for and respect each other.

The Partnership between home and school is integral to your child’s success and we encourage parents to take an active part in their child’s learning. We see parents as playing a significant part in the education of their children, and greatly value their contribution to school life. Children thrive when they feel happy, safe and respected.

Whatever the needs of your child or special interests they have, we aim to ensure your child thrives at Lark Hill Community Primary School. We want the children here to have memorable experiences, build on what they know and can do and help them to become confident, lifelong learners.

P.E.
Our P.E. day is Thursday. 

Water bottles and snacks

Don't forget to bring a water bottle to school each day - it is important for children to stay hydrated throughout the day. Please label bottles and take them home to wash each day. Juice is not allowed in school to promote good oral health.

Children do not need to bring in a snack as they are provided throughout the day. Breadsticks and milk can be ordered at the start of each half-term, please speak to the school office about this.

Topic

We have developed a long term curriculum plan, including 'overarching themes', which support how the different areas, knowledge and skills will be taught across the academic year. They link prior knowledge to new learning to deepen children's understanding. Over the year we will explore the children's interests and use themes to guide our learning. The adults will tune into children's interest and plan purposeful and meaningful learning experiences across the curriculum.

The learning environment will also reflect our learning and theme which this half term is called 'Me in my world.' We will spend time getting to know all of our learners. We work with previous settings and families to help us get to know the unique child. We will explore feelings and emotions and engage in discussions about our families and friends. We will get to know our new setting and also find out more about our local community. 

Reading at Home

In Reception, it is important that you read with your child at least 3 times a week and sign their reading record. Children must have their reading records signed by an adult. A member of the Reception team will check reading records daily, so please ensure that reading records are returned to school each day. 

Support children to apply their phonic knowledge by saying letter sounds and blending those sounds together to read a word. Also, continue to demonstrate reading for pleasure and reading stories to your child. 

Practise reading sight words daily. These are the tricky words children cannot use their phonics to sound out, they learn them by sight. Children learn best by repeated exposure to the words, by seeing them and saying them and by playing games. At Lark Hill, we call these Red Words and your child will bring a set home with their first reading book, we will test them when reading in class and when they know all the words in that set they will move on to the next. Below is also the Red Words we teach in school.

Seesaw

Seesaw is an online learning journal that documents a very special record of a child’s experiences, development and learning journey through their primary years. Using photos, videos and diary entries, Seesaw tells the story of your child and how they are growing and developing. Parents are able to view online their child’s progress and how much fun they’re having,  whilst also uploading their own comments and media. Once your child has settled into their new class the class teacher will create their profile. If you can not access Seesaw please give your child’s class teacher your email address to activate your account.

Please respond to the things that we post with a comment, and post your own photographs or videos so that we may share them in your child's home learning journey. Use the crib sheet below to guide you through uploading an observation to your child's account.

Mathematics

We use White Rose Maths to support our learning in Reception. This half term we are focusing on developing our knowledge of matching, sorting and comparing and will also develop our knowledge of numbers to 5. we will engage in adult led activities and games in provision where we will deepen our understanding. 

Literacy

In Literacy, we will focus on telling stories and the children will bring home their reading books to support this. We will begin whole class phonics sessions this term and then start our small phonics group.  We will be continuing to sound out letters and blend sounds together to make words and engage in Fred Talk; this is the first step in becoming a competent and confident reader. To find out more about the Read, Write, Inc. phonics programme, please read the information below.

We are continuing our writing journey through large gross motor activities and name writing. We are also supporting the children's  writing journey by exposing them to writing opportunities in continuous provision; hooks linked to our theme of the week are encouraging the children to 'choose' to write. We are using the Message Centre to promote a love and excitement for writing.

If you wish to practice your child's writing skills at home, use Seesaw to support their interests and orally rehearse what you are going to write before writing on paper. If your child is not quite ready, practising sentences orally and recording them on Seesaw would be another option.

Phonics

Read Write Inc (RWI) is a phonics-based programme which helps children learn to read whilst also developing a wide range of vocabulary and encouraging a love of stories. It was developed by Ruth Miskin.

In Reception, children will be taught a sound a day and will be assessed regularly by their class teachers. We will continue in our phonics groups learning new sounds, segmenting and blending, reading and keywords. We regularly give out phonics certificates to those who have tried hard, too!