Welcome to THE LADY BUGS CLASS

Miss Ogborne is the Ladybug class teacher.

“When we give every child the best start in their early years, we give them what they need today. We also set them up with every chance of success tomorrow.” - Development Matters in the Early Years, July 2021

The following four guiding principles underpin our practice within Reception, in accordance with the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS):

Every child is a unique child, who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured;
Children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships;
Children learn and develop well in enabling environments with teaching and support from adults, who respond to their individual interests and needs and help them to build their learning over time. Children benefit from a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and/or carers;
Importance of learning and development. Children develop and learn at different rates.

A Typical Day in Reception

8:40	Gates open and children enter class; they self-register and make their lunch choices. Gates close at 8:50. The children start the day with a session of ‘linked provision’ – activities linked to developing a particular skill (e.g. fine motor skills or number recognition).
9:00	The register is taken and the class comes together for a whole class teacher-led session. This session will be a discrete Phonics lesson from the ‘Letters and Sounds’ phonics programme. Once settled, the children will join the whole school for a celebration assembly each Friday. Parents of children receiving certificates are invited to attend this exciting celebration (your class teacher will let you know if this applies to you). On these days, Phonics is moved to 9:30, after assembly.
9:30	Children will then have an extended period of self-initiated learning, accessing either the indoor and outdoor learning environment. Adults will work with children in small focus groups or 1:1 during this time, as well as supporting child-led play.
11:30	Before lunch time, the children will come together for a second whole class teacher-led session. This session will have a Maths focus, and will follow the ‘White Rose Maths’ scheme used in the school.
11:45	Lunch time
1:00	After lunch, children will have a third whole class teacher-led session. The focus will vary each day, but will be linked to an aspect of the EYFS curriculum and usually begins with a physical activity (e.g. Dough Disco).
1:20	Children will then have another period of self-initiated learning, much like the morning session. The adults in the setting will continue to support children in their learning. Towards the end of the session, children will come together for a fourth adult-led session, to share a story/song, reflect on their learning and say goodbye.
3:15	School finishes at 3:15.

Snack Time: During the school day (once children are settled into school), the class does not stop for a timetabled break. Instead, children are free to access the Snack Bar in the classroom, when their learning comes to a natural break.

Throughout the week children also have discrete PE, PSHE and Forest School sessions.

Overview of Term One

English

This term we are looking at traditional tales starting with Little Red Riding Hood. We will look at a variety of versions of the story.

Y1 children will use the story as a stimulus for recapping the writing skills they learnt in Reception such as full stops, capital letters, finger spaces and letter formation. They will be writing lists, descriptions of character and settings as well as some non fiction enquiry based writing.

Reception will be learning new vocabulary and making marks inspired by what we have read. They will learn about initial sounds, oral blending of CVC words and will be writing their name either from memory or from a name card.

Reading/Phonics

Y1 will be mastering phase 4 of phonics which means no new sounds but a focus on grammar such as adding ing, making plurals etc.

Reception will be recapping phase 1 before starting Phase 2 once they are in full time.

Y1 will continue with their green reading record from last year.. It is the expectation that you read with your child four times a week.

Reception children will receive a school reading book and reading record later this term. We will be in touch with more information about this nearer the time.

Please read with your child every day. You can share a favourite bedtime story and encourage your child to join in with bits they know, talk about the pictures or copy your words. You can look for print in the environment, such as road signs, shopping lists and shop names - ask your child if they recognise any symbols, letters or words.

Maths

Year 1 starts with a focus on place value looking in depth at numbers to 10 in a variety of ways. They will be counting forwards and backwards and using language such as few, less, more, greater than to compare and order amounts. They will then move onto addition and subtraction with a focus on part whole model for adding and subtracting as well as learning their number bond to 10.

Reception will begin their Maths learning with a focus on matching and sorting, exploring patterns and comparing amounts, size, mass and capacity.

Science

We get to be scientists every term this year! This term we are learning about different materials such as wood, plastic etc. We will be describing the simple properties of these materials and testing some of these.

Geography

This term we are geographers learning all about our local area. We will be looking at where our school is in the local area and the human features we can see. We will begin to make simple maps about our area.

PSHE

We will continue to follow the Jigsaw scheme scheme of learning to support our PSHE work. This term our theme is ‘Being Me in My World’. Each week we will explore a different aspect of this theme.

We will be developing our fine and gross motor skills through play inside and outside

On Wednesdays we are lucky to have the Robins Foundation leading one of their PE sessions this term which will have more of a game focus.

On Fridays our other PE session will focus on the key skills of footwork and balance as well as developing our resilience.

Reception will also be focusing on health and self-care, learning about the importance of washing our hands, how to use the school toilets independently, and using a knife and fork to eat our school lunches.

This term we will focus on the question “Does God want Christians to look after the world?”. We will explore this through stories, art and discussion.

Design & Technology

Our focus this term is structures using junk modelling. We will be exploring different ways to join materials. The focus will be on designing our models, making them and then evaluating them to see how we can improve them.

Music

We will be learning to make different types of sounds with our voices such as rapping and singing. As well as singing notes of different pitches. There will also be access to tuned and untuned instruments in the outdoor area.

Additional Information

Forest school: every Monday

PE: Every Wednesday and Friday

Bookbags: In everyday. The school expectation is that you read with your child 4 times a week.