Reception Acorns - Carrwood Primary School

Welcome to Reception Acorns!

Our class teachers are Mrs Curran (Monday to Wednesday) and Miss Weatherill (Wednesday to Friday).

At Carrwood Primary school our behaviour policy is built around three main rules:

Be ready
Be respectful
Be safe

In Reception we love to learn through play! This means you will often see us engaging in challenges, role play, hands on cooking, art projects, science experiments and much more. We learn through a careful balance of child-initiated play and adult directed activities. Staff encourage children to follow their own interests and explore their own ideas in play, whilst extending and supporting their learning. Running alongside this, we have an overarching topic each half term.

Our Topics

Autumn 1 – The Story of Me… Autumn 2 – Let’s Celebrate!

Spring 1 – By Air, By Land, By Sea Spring 2 – All Creatures Great and Small

Summer 1 – Little People, Big Dreams Summer 2 – Food, Glorious Food!

Children in the EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active, and through creative and critical thinking which all take place both indoors and outdoors. The curriculum for early years is made up of seven areas of learning; Communication and Language, Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development, Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design. All of these areas of learning and development are equally important and inter-connected. By the end of their Reception year, it is expected that children reach the Early Learning Goal (ELG) for each of these aspects.

Enhancements

At Carrwood we firmly believe that broadening the experiences of our children is vital to their learning, and this is no different in Reception!

Over the course of the year, we like to go out on as many trips as we can, to places we may not have been before. We also like to bring experiences into the classroom, such as chicken or duck egg hatching, special theme days and bringing the magic of the theatre into school.

Reading

In Reception reading is at the heart of everything we do. Over the course of the year your child will take part in daily phonics sessions which will contribute to them learning to read independently. As a school, we follow the Read Write Inc programme for phonics. We begin by playing lots of ‘Fred Talk’ games where children need to listen to the different sounds within words and try to blend them independently.

To support their home learning, every child has been provided with a named school bag. It is crucial that they bring these back into school every single morning and then they will be returned home at the end of each day. Books are changed every Monday. Inside their school bags you will find a reading for pleasure book (a book which you can share together), a decodable phonics reading book (one your child should be able to sound out and blend independently) and a speed sounds book (a small workbook for your child to practise forming the letters we have learnt). Children should regularly get the opportunity to practise reading at home. Please remember to sign your child’s reading reward bookmark whenever you have read with them. Once your child’s bookmark is full it will go into our class prize draw and the children will get a new book mark to complete. The prize draw will take place every half term!

We also have year group authors. Each year group focusses on three different authors over the year, one per term. We read lots of books from our chosen author and also find out lots of information about them. In Reception our authors are:

Learning Journeys and Proud Clouds

Every child in Reception has their own Learning Journey, which includes their observations and any fabulous pieces of work they create independently. Your child’s Learning Journey is always available for you to look at; you will find them in Reception’s cloakroom. We value all of your contributions to your child’s Learning Journey and love to hear about all the things they have been learning at home. Please keep sharing these observations with us. You could do this by completing a ‘Proud Cloud’, which are always available. Please just ask and we will be happy to give you them whenever you would like one. On the ‘Proud Cloud’ you can write anything that your child has done at home which makes you proud or happy. This could include learning to zip up their coat, riding their bike, or reading by themselves.

Parental Engagement

Involvement in your child’s learning is actively promoted at Carrwood. In Reception, each term parents and carers are invited to open mornings where you will have the chance to ‘stay and play’ with your child, find out about their learning and complete fun activities with them. Staff will also be available to model how we teach reading and to answer any questions you may have.

Reception Acorns do PE every Wednesday afternoon. Please send your child with a named PE kit. PE kits should include: a plain white t-shirt, black shorts or black tracksuit bottoms and pumps.