Welcome to Reception class!
Reception is a busy year with lots of exciting things to do and many things to learn!
Reception is the exciting start of a child’s education. Throughout this year the children will learn through play and opportunities to investigate learning. At this age the children start to develop their understanding of key communication skills as well as developing more social relationships with their peers and adults in the environment.
Our aim in Reception is to teach our children important values and skills such as resilience and perseverance to make them confident and happy learners. Within our daily timetable the children will have a phonics session to support their learning of letter sounds which will enable their development of early reading skills. Our writing will link to shared books and interests of the children throughout the year.
Our School Day
Our day starts at 8.50am when children come into class and have breakfast with their friends. Children access breakfast independently developing their skills to butter their own bagel, put cereal in their bowl, pour milk onto their breakfast and carry their bowl to the table to eat. Children are given short tasks including finding their name card, writing their name and practising number formation. Our morning is made up of both indoor and outdoor child-initiated learning time and adult directed learning including Phonics, Mathematics, English and Physical Development (fine motor activities). We end our morning with a class story and sing some of our favourite songs. Between Midday and 1pm our children have lunch where they will choose what they would like to eat. In the afternoon our learning is focused on other areas of the EYFS curriculum including: Understanding the World, Physical Development, Expressive Arts and Design. The children work hard to develop their independence skills by getting themselves ready to go home at the end of the day. At 3pm our school day ends. We have wonderfully talented specialist dance and music teachers who work with our children on a weekly basis developing their gross motor, coordination, balance, listening, creativity and expressive skills.
Our Curriculum
In Reception, we follow children’s interests to develop their learning through play as well as teaching important skills and knowledge through overarching half-termly topics. The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) sets standards for the learning, development and care of your child from birth to 5 years old, ensuring they are equipped with the skills and knowledge needed to progress onto the next stage of their development.
In the Early Years phase at Leadgate Primary School, our EYFS curriculum is personalised to the developmental stages of our children. You can view this here. To find out more information about how we assess, adapt and plan for our children please visit our Early Years page here.
Our half-termly topics incorporate the skills and knowledge children need to learn, appropriate to their developmental stage.
Curriculum Overview
– Autumn 1
– Autumn 2
Phonics
In Reception, all children take part in daily phonics sessions following Little Wandle – a reading scheme approved by the Department for Education. The children will learn new sounds each week alongside developing their skills of blending, segmenting and the sight reading of ‘tricky’ words.
To help embed the reading skills learned at school, children can access Collins e-books (online) at home where they will be able to read the book they have been practising with in class that week. Each child has their own personalised logins which are sent home at the beginning of the academic year. You can access Collins e-books website by clicking here. Children will also bring home a book of their choice each week to encourage their reading for pleasure.
Here are some useful resources to support children at home following the Little Wandle reading scheme.
Autumn 1 – Phase 2 sounds
Autumn 2 – Phase 2 sounds
Spring 1 – Phase 3 sounds
In Spring 2 and during the Summer term, we consolidate Phase 2 and 3 sounds and develop children’s reading fluency.
Class Gallery
Click here to see the gallery of photos of our Reception class.
Keeping in touch
We use ClassDojo to connect with families, share class news, events and special moments. It’s a very useful way of communicating with your child’s teacher. Click here to join. 
You can read our EYFS Policy here EYFS Policy
