Reception Curriculum Letter

Term: Autumn 1

Dear Parents and Carers, 

Welcome to Reception! We have had a wonderful start to the year, getting to know all of our amazing children and are looking forward to the year ahead.

Please contact the school office if you need to pass on messages throughout the day, e.g- change of adult picking up. The school office will then let the class teacher know. We have an open door policy and are happy to talk to parents/carers at the end of the day, once we have dismissed all of the children.

Important information from us

Spare clothes

Thank you to those who have already sent in spare clothes for your child. If you haven’t yet done this, can we ask for you to get this into us by the end of the week. Please ensure all items are labelled, that you provide a full change of clothes including socks and underwear (this does not have to be uniform) and it is in a labelled bag. If you are able to, please also provide wellies as the children have access to the mud kitchen within their play.

Lunches

Please discuss the lunch options with your child each morning. Please ensure they know if they are having a blue, red or green lunch. If you need information on the lunches, please ask your class teacher to provide you with a menu.

PE

The child’s PE day will be on a Thursday. We request that your child comes into school wearing their PE kit. This should consist of black/navy jogging bottoms or shorts, a white t-shirt and trainers. They will not need to change back into their uniform so there is no need to send this in as well.

Reading

Next week you will receive your home reading folder. In the folder you will find a reading record and on the front page it will tell you what day your child’s reading day is. It is very important that your child brings in their folder on that day or we will be unable to change their books.

You will receive a reading book/sheet that you will work through with your child. This should be read a number of times in order to build confidence and fluency. You will also receive a bedtime story that you can share with your child throughout the week.

Phonics

The children have begun our RWI programme and will be learning a new sound each day. We will also be focussing on oral blending (Fred Talk) and hearing the initial sounds in words. When learning to read we use pure sounds, not letter names. Please watch this video as an example of how to say each sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkXcabDUg7Q

Throughout Autumn 1, we will be focusing on learning to recognise, blend and write the following sounds:

Week 3

13.9.21- m, a, s, d, t

Week 4

20.9.21- i, n, p, g, o

Week 5

27.9.21- c, k, u, b, f

Week 6

4.10.21- e, l, h r, j

Week 7

11.10.21- v, y, w z, x

Week 8 

18.10.21- Assessment week- which sound is each child confident with?

Please support your child by going through these sounds with them at home. We practice letter formation every day in reception but your child will greatly benefit from 1:1 practice at home alongside this. If you are able to support your child in this way, please watch this short clip on letter formation so you teach the correct phrase alongside each sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O-levOoRV0

Literacy

Stories are a key part of our curriculum and high quality texts will be used throughout the day to foster the children’s love of reading. This half term we will be focusing on texts that promote kindness and confidence. We begin with Rainbow Fish and will immerse ourselves in the book for 2 weeks with writing opportunities, art and games planned around the story. We will then move on to Super Duper me and Elmer. Please check out our blogs to see what the children have been up to.

Maths

We will introduce a number of the week each week beginning with zero. The children will work on number recognition and representing the number in different ways. This will deepen the children’s number sense and basic math skills. We will also be looking at counting accurately and matching number to quantity. These basic skills will set us up for the rest of the year. The children will use a range of resources to show their mathematical thinking and will practise and revisit concepts until they are confident enough to apply it independently to a range of situations and talk about their process.

Communication and Language

We will be encouraging the children to speak in full sentences to express themselves. Focusing on a key text each week will allow children to become familiar with the story and retell the story using their own words. We also will be singing lots of songs in class.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

This half term we are focussing on settling the children into their new environment, ensuring they are aware of expectations and rules of the setting. We will be working on sharing resources and taking turns.

Physical Development

This term there will be a big focus on fine motor activities to strengthen our hand and finger muscles for writing. These are all of the ‘fiddly’ activities you will see around the classrooms, such as threading, using tweezers, cutting etc. We will still be working on our gross motor skills in the outdoor areas as well as starting PE lessons next week.

Key Dates

Monday 18th October and Tuesday 19th October- Parents Evening

Week beginning 13th September- Baseline assessments in school

Workshop for the children- TBC

Friday 22nd October- Last day of Autumn 1

We look forward to working with you over the upcoming year and encourage you to speak to your class teacher if you have any questions. If you would like to contact a member of the EYFS team via email the address is: reception@broadford.havering.sch.uk

Kind regards,

The Reception Team