Welcome to Reception
Our teachers are Miss Common and Mrs Grainger. Mrs Conaboy and Mr McCauley are our teaching assistants.
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- Mrs Conaboy
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- Mrs Grainger
In Reception we continue to learn predominantly through play, allowing lots of time in the school day for the children to be in continuous provision. This allows children to build upon their own experiences, developing their own child-initiated activities and those important social skills which will serve them well throughout their school lives and beyond.
We believe that learning through the natural world is becoming increasingly important and our children experience nature regularly; whether that be visiting the school garden to plant, harvest or weed, or going to our weekly Forest School session in the school woodland.
In Reception, our adult-led sessions focus on the basic skills of reading, writing and maths. Our reading is taught through the ‘Read Write Inc’ programme, a systematic phonics programme which we have found supports our children to learn to read quickly and with confidence. We also read a wide range of familiar and unfamiliar books that link to the interests of the children and to our topics. We make weekly visits to the community library, enjoying choosing our own books from the wide range available. Our writing is taught through this phonic programme, showing children the link between letters and sounds every day. We encourage our children to write in all areas of the learning. We find encouraging children to write and mark make their own thoughts, ideas and stories allows the children to develop without fear of failure.
Our “Mastery in Maths” approach introduces children to maths concepts through real objects, then pictorial (pictures on paper), then to the abstract (such as calculations on a page). Concepts are revisited regularly to allow children to retain new knowledge and try to recall it later. All of our learning is taught using scaffolding and modelling so that all children feel secure and cement the foundations of their learning step by step.
In our classrooms we have accessible play provision for all including, sand and water areas, small world play, a home corner, writing station, creative area and more. We add to this provision daily, this could include magnets, beads and string, items from a nature walk or a new role play area (such as a hospital or fruit shop). Outside we have a very well-resourced garden, including: a selection of bikes and scooters, mud kitchen, sand pit, costume imagination station, construction area (with large blocks, pipes and tarpaulin to build with) and a large shaded gazebo. We have weekly PE sessions delivered by both our staff and specialist coaches, giving children the opportunities to develop and improve the gross motor skills both in the school hall and outside in our fabulous school grounds. In our weekly music sessions, we have a large range of instruments to play and investigate. This develops their sense of rhythm both through rhyme for their literacy skills, and through movement in the form of dance. We have also found that self-confidence grows through these sessions, especially when the opportunity to be the conductor of the class orchestra comes along!
An example of our School Day
| Time | Example timetable |
| 8.50 | Greeting children from the garden, time to greet our friends and register |
| 9.00 | Phonics session |
| 9.30 | Children have full access to the provision inside and out. Children can help themselves to snack (milk and fruit). Adults will be working within provision or delivering small group activities or interventions |
| 11.00 | Reset time, Whole class story time and preparing for lunch |
| 11.30 | Lunch in the school hall and time for play in our garden |
| 12.30 | Maths session |
| 1.00 | Further time to access provision, revisit learning from this morning or continue a project. Models are stored so children can add to them, allowing glue to dry and for creativity to flow. We also use this time to introduce children to new ideas, such as celebrations from different faiths, seasons, scientific concepts, etc. |
| 2.30 | Reset time, whole class story time and prepare to go home. |
| 3.10 | Parents pick up from our garden. |
Over the year we provide a broad and rich curriculum developed around the interests of children in our setting; popular child-initiated themes covered recently are: Me, Myself and I, Wonderful Winter, We Live in Esh Winning, Farming, Dragons, Castles and Knights; People who help us in Esh Winning, Dinosaurs and Superheroes. We also love using a popular book, such as The Gingerbread Man, Zog by Julia Donaldson or Supertato by Paul Linnet and Sue Hendra.
Reception is an incredibly important stage and we believe through our holistic approach that children are truly ready for their next step in their school journey.
Curriculum Overview
You can find out more about Our Curriculum on our website. Click on the links below to see our term topic plans.
