Welcome to Reception
Class teacher: Miss Hughes
Class T.A: Miss Briscoe
A warm welcome to all children, parents and visitors to our class page. We have a wonderful team of teaching staff who work hard to ensure the children’s learning and wellbeing are the focus of everything we do. Miss Hughes is the class teacher who loves teaching outdoors. We have a fantastic outdoor environment with lots of lovely learning resources. Miss Briscoe is the class teaching assistant who loves creating engaging activities for the children to access independently.
In Reception we are flexible and responsive to the children, environment and classroom atmosphere to ensure every child’s needs and interests are met, therefore the planning is changeable and adapted. St Mary’s Catholic Primary Academy believes that all children deserve an education rich in memorable experiences that allows our children’s creativity and curiosity to grow, alongside the development of key skills and knowledge. We believe that offering our children a strong foundation and a love of learning gives children the best chance to become well-rounded, happy individuals, ready to succeed in an ever-changing world. We recognise the importance of giving our children the best possible start to their education by planning and implementing teaching and learning opportunities that support them in reaching their full potential. It is our intention to provide a stimulating learning environment where all children can work with adults and peers in a climate of mutual respect to develop confidence in their ability to learn. We aim to provide children with a well-structured, safe and active learning environment. This will enable our young learners to develop the skills, attitudes and understanding that support our children to become lifelong learners and encourage them to become active members of our ever-changing society. Every child is recognised as a unique individual, and we acknowledge and promote children’s interests to provide them with the opportunities to follow their imagination and creativity. In Reception, we invest time into helping children to recognise their personal goals, which allow them to reflect and aim high. We celebrate the diversity in our school community, and always strive to promote a love for learning.
Reading and Phonics in Reception
Reading – Reading is at the heart of all our learning at St Mary’s. To support this at home, please could all children ensure that they read their school reading book every night and that the planner is signed by an adult. Alongside this, it is also key that all children select their own reading for pleasure book which they will also have opportunities to read and share with others in school.
Phonics– Phonics is a way of teaching reading where children are taught to read letters or groups of letters by saying the sound(s) they represent. The phonics programme we follow is called Read Write Inc. (RWI). In reception we are beginning to blend sounds together to create words. It is really important that the children practise blending sounds together to create words so please blend, blend, blend with your children at home. Playing simple listening games can help your children understand phonics a lot more. Asking your child ‘Can you get your c-oa-t?’ ‘Sit on the ch-air.’ etc. will help them understand ‘fred talk’ or ‘sounding out’.
Our theme this half term is ‘Once Upon a Time’. Each week our learning will focus on the key skills we want to develop through exploring different fairy tales as well as the children’s interests as they arise. The theme ‘Once upon a time…’ will be explored with a range of activities and learning experiences both inside the classroom and outside to progress the children’s understanding of the world. Reception class will be looking at the stories ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and ‘Prince Cinders’.
