We strive to build supportive and positive relationships with children’s families. The Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum emphasises the development of the whole child, and it is through strong relationships between home and school that we support the holistic development of each child.
The Reception year starts in September with a focus on settling the children into their new classes. Children learn the classroom rules and routines including the school’s Golden Rules. They find out where to explore and play, inside and out, including the big playground where they spend their lunchtimes. The favourite text, ‘Dirty Bertie’ is used to teach children how to make excellent behaviour choices! As Autumn comes around, children learn songs to perform in the school’s Harvest celebration and the text ‘Room on a Broom’ is used to introduce a range of Halloween themed activities including spell-making and pumpkin carving.
As Autumn turns to winter, activities in the classroom are themed around three key texts with a woodland theme, ‘One Snowy Night’, ‘Owl Babies’ and ‘The Gruffalo’. Children learn about woodland habitats and the plants and animals that live there. As Christmas approaches, the children go to see a Christmas production, often at Jackson’s Lane theatre and, right at the end of term, perform a rather unique version of the Nativity story.
After the Christmas break the children set sail for a host of trepid adventures that are introduced through three key texts, ‘The Great Explorer’, ‘The Snail and the Whale’ and ‘Miranda the Explorer’. Children decide what equipment they will need, role play all sorts of adventures, start Forest School sessions in Highgate Wood and generally become brave and confident. Towards the end of the half term, children write their first book which details their own adventure to a far-off land.
The second half of the spring term is all about animals and begins with a study of African animals introduced through the favourite text ‘The Ugly Five’. Children learn about farm animals and visit a city farm before, later in the term, reading ‘Dear Zoo’. This key text inspires children to write their own letter to the zoo requesting that an animal be delivered to school. The zoo have always responded, usually sending duck eggs from which the children see ducklings hatch. Over the topic, children become very knowledgeable about animals and experts at animal classification.
In the first half of the summer term, role play and acting skills come to the fore, as children act out the traditional tales ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and ‘The Billy Goats Gruff’. Children make goat bridges with blocks and planks, invent ingenious troll traps and re-enact conversations between book characters with puppets and story-spoons. Toward the end of the half term, each Reception class performs their first ever class assemblies, either ‘The Gingerbread Man’ of ‘The Little Red Hen’, to the whole school.
The Reception term ends with the focus on transition to Year 1. Two key texts are introduced, ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker’, allowing the children to write in huge giant writing and then as tiny elves. Children design and make their own elf shoes, cook a beanstalk stew and reflect on just how much they have ‘grown’ themselves over the course of the Reception year.
