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Holy Family Catholic Primary School

Reception - Saint Mary

Welcome to Reception!

Our class saint is Mary: Mother of God.

 

"When the Angel came, Mary was scared."

"Mary trusted God."

"God chose her to have a baby."
Reception 2023/4

Saint Mary is known to be "full of grace" as she never sinned and was always faithful to God. Mary was also an important part of God's plan to bring Jesus, Our Saviour, into the world as she showed great courage and said YES to being His mother.

Welcome to the Spring Term

The Reception Team

Welcome!

My name is Miss Collins, I am the Reception Teacher. I will be in school every day. Our wonderful teaching assistants are Mrs Spratt, Miss Watkins and Ms Grace. 

Class Information

Class information is shared and updated regularly via our Class Dojo page. Please feel free to send a message via Class Dojo or speak to a member of the team if you have anything you would like to ask or discuss.

If you are interested in volunteering or hearing children read, we would welcome you to join us. Please get in touch!

Homework

Homework in Reception will consist of:

  • Daily reading (Two school reading books)
  • Daily phonics activities (links to these are posted on Class Dojo)
  • Word pots to develop segmenting and blending (a video should be uploaded to your child's portfolio on Class Dojo when they are able to independently blend all their word pot words together. The next word pot will be uploaded at the next earliest convenience.) 
  • Common Exception Word (CEW) booklets (once all 30 word pots are completed)

Children should upload their homework and/or Word Pot videos to their Class Dojo portfolios when completed. Each term, we will also send home details of a longer homework project linked to our learning in class. Please let us know if you would like any support or advice regarding homework.

Reading

The children receive two reading books from school every week. Each book should be read at least three times to build up a variety of skills. 

  1. On the first read the children will use their skills of segmenting and blending to read the words. It is unlikely during the first read that they will fully grasp the story line as their main focus will be on decoding. 
  2. On the second read the children will have developed more fluency and will be able to read most of the words without having to segment and blend them. This will allow them to focus on the story line better.
  3. On the third read the children will be able to read all the words with fluency and prosody. They will now be able to focus on the storyline better and be able to answer questions about what they have read.

Reading should be recorded using the BoomReader app. This is checked weekly and if reading is recorded at least five times in a week books will be changed. Please ensure that you bring your child's book bag into school every day as we do daily 'Drop Everything and Read' sessions where we listen to readers. Please remember that the children should only be bringing in their red, school book bags.

Maths

This year we are focusing on mastering the numbers 0-10. We will do lots of work on each specific number so that the children are secure with these before beginning to manipulate them when introduced to calculations. We will also be focusing on their number bond addition and subtraction facts to five, and then ten and other numerical patterns such as odds and evens, sharing and double facts.

P.E.

We will have P.E. every Tuesday and Wednesday this term. Tuesday's session will be taken by Miss Collins and Wednesday's session will be taken by a professional coach from Signature Sports. On these days, your child will need to wear their P.E. kits into school (black or white shorts, red polo top and black plimsolls). It is really important that all pieces of uniform, not just P.E. kits but school jumpers etc. too, are labelled clearly with your child's name. For your child's safety it is also highly important that long hair is tied back and that no earrings are worn on P.E. days.  If for any reason earrings cannot be removed, you will need to provide your child with tape or plasters that can cover them instead. 

Children should also bring a bottle of water into school every day. Juice/squash is NOT allowed in class.

Forest School

We will be doing Forest School and outdoor learning in some areas of the curriculum. A message will be sent via Class Dojo giving notice when additional outdoor clothing is required. Wellington boots can be stored on the pegs provided outside the classroom - we do use these a lot!

Should you have any questions about the curriculum do let us know. We can be contacted directly via ‘messages’ on Class Dojo. Class Dojo is the main communication platform for all things relating to Reception, so please check our Class Story regularly for updates, photos and weekly highlights. Overviews of the curriculum to be covered each term can also be found in the attachments below.

Warm regards,

Miss Collins and the Reception Team