Reception / Year 1 Class

Welcome to the Reception class.

Mornings – Class starts at 8.50m. The school doors open at 8.40am, parents are welcome to walk their child to the classroom door where they will be met by the class staff. Breakfast club starts at 8.00am to 8.30am and cost £1 per day.

End of the day – Class finishes at 3.15pm. Parents are asked to wait outside the classroom gates for their child.

P.E. – This will be on Monday. They will need a change of clothes for this lesson and during the summer term will need to be wearing trainers. Please make sure that all their clothes are labelled and kept in a named bag on their peg as they do tend to get mixed up after our P.E. lesson. The children are not allowed to wear ear rings for the PE lessons; please make sure that you take them out at home on the days that we have PE.

The class will go swimming for half a term during the Summer Term.

Reading – Please make sure that your child has their reading book in school every day to ensure that we are able to listen to them. The reading books must be put into the box in class. We aim to listen to your child read individually at least once a week, but we also do daily reading activities in class. If you listen to your child read as often as possible and you feel that they are ready to move on to a new book, please feel free to tell me and I will make sure that I listen to them on that day and if necessary change their book.

Snacks – We try to encourage the children to eat fruit, cheese or yogurt at playtime, Crisps, biscuits, cereal bars etc. are not allowed as part of our Healthy School Initiative. (Please label your child’s snack so that they do not get mixed up) We usually keep the snacks in a separate box from their lunch so please wrap them separately. Fruit is sold in school for 30p.

Lunch – The children will sit in the hall for their lunch. If they are having school dinners please make your child aware and they can order it with me when we do the register. Drinks are not always provided with the school meal so you might want to send one in as well. School dinners are paid for through ParentPay.

Seesaw – I use seesaw to send all messages out and also photographs of the children doing activities. I will be sending out invitations during the first week of term so please register as soon as possible. More than one person can register using the same code if you want both parents, grandparents etc to have access to messages.

Maths— We are aiming for your child to be able to count to 20 with ease and recognise and write the numbers by the end of the year. It is important that you count with your children in their everyday routines i.e. getting dressed, bath time, making tea etc. and encourage them to find numbers on signs, food packaging, when shopping etc. In class we learn the numbers through Numicon. If you have any questions regarding this please do not hesitate to come and see me.

Sounds — We are learning sounds using the Read, Write, Inc. Phonics programme. The children are introduced to a new sound everyday and start to put them together to make words. It is important that you help reinforce this at home by using the letter sounds not names when talking to your child about them. Please keep an eye on how they are writing their letters, as it is very difficult for them to form them correctly if they have been used to forming them incorrectly.

Writing — When you are helping your child with their writing at home please make sure that they are holding their pencil correctly, as this is very hard to rectify as they get older. Could you also make sure that they don’t use capital letters unless it is at the start of a name or the beginning of a sentence.

I.T. – Your child will be working a lot on the interactive whiteboard and ipads in class, so if you have a computer or tablet at home, please allow them to use it as often as possible.

Some useful websites that we use in school include: –

www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies

www.primarygames.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk/schools

The majority of our activities in school are play based as it has been proven that this is the way in which children of this age learn best. The children do not realise that they are learning such valuable skills as they are delivered through a child’s normal play.

It is important that your child is happy in school and that you are happy with everything that is going on in school. If at anytime you have any concerns regarding your child’s education or welfare at the school, please feel free to come and see me.

Thank you for your support and cooperation.

Sarah Gerard.