Welcome to Reception!

Welcome to Reception!

Who is in our classroom?

In Reception, Mrs Ralph is our class teacher and Mrs Williams and Mrs Peck are our teaching assistants.

What does my child need to bring to school?

Everyday children will require: a water bottle, a waterproof coat and an Orchard Primary School book bag. Within your book bag you will need your reading diary and a guided reading book.

At the start of each half term we also recommend that you bring your PE kit, in an appropriate bag, and leave it in school for the duration of the half term. Within your PE kit you will need an Orchard Primary PE top, appropriate bottoms (shorts and jogging bottoms to choose dependent on the weather), PE pumps and an additional pair of socks.

This year in Reception, we will have PE on Monday afternoons with Mr Ferman, and Woodland Explorers on Tuesday afternoons. Mrs Hadley teaches us PSHE on Friday afternoons.

In our class...

Our Superpillars overarch all of the children's learning and we aim to make them explicit to the children as they move through the day. We aim to promote a positive attitude to equip children with the tools they need to challenges with confidence, calmness and creativity.

Every parent has access to their child's online learning journal, and this year, alongside the new Early Years Foundation Stage, we are sharing "wow" moments that your child has achieved at school, through MarvellousMe. At the end of each term, we will share a snapshot of your child's "Memory Book", where you will be able to look back on and reflect on their term at school, as well as encourage your child to talk about their learning.

Here are a few things we have been up to recently in Reception.

Talk for Writing is an important part of our curriculum and we explore this through writing, story telling, role play and stories. We provide frequent opportunities for the children to develop their story telling.

We explore Physical Development in Reception through the development of fine and gross motor skills. Each week, we take part in a focused PE session linked to our focus them for the term. We also practice our fine motor skills daily, through our Play Dough Play songs and rhymes. 

We try to make Maths as fun and practical as possible and incorporate maths everywhere; indoors, outdoors, in the mud kitchen and during water play.

"We've put the Numicon in order! Let's count backwards; 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!"

As a class we love being creative and exploring the Arts. We learn familiar songs and nursery rhymes (alongside playing musical instruments!) in our weekly music sessions, and we love creating and making in our art sessions. 

"We pushed the potatoes into the red paint, then used cotton buds to paint the stems on our poppies".

Each week we take our learning outside in Muddy Monday. This provides the children with opportunities to learn about the natural environment, how to handle risks and to use their own initiative to solve problems and work co-operatively with others. We also explore seasonal changes in our school forest environment.

"I've collected lots of daisies for my spring pot. Some of them have pink on their petals".

Reception Baseline Assessment

When your child starts in our Reception class, they will participate in an assessment process called the Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA); this will be completed by the class teacher within the first 6 weeks of starting Reception. The purpose of the assessment is to provide the starting point for a progress measure that will help parents understand how well schools support their pupils to progress between Reception and Year 6.