Welcome to our Reception Class at St James’
Welcome to Reception Class, my name is Miss Guthrie and I am the Class Teacher along with Ms Capot (Class Teacher) who works in Reception one day per week. Mrs Watson is our Nursery Nurse and we are supported by Teaching Assistants Mrs Gibbons and Mrs Mazari at different times during the week.
Reception Noticeboard
- All children have a home school reading book which is kept in their book bags. We ask that book bags are brought to school every day. We will hear your child read once a week. Reading books are changed weekly.
- PE in Reception is on Wednesdays. Make sure you have your full St James PE kit.
- We use Tapestry as a means of sharing our learning, celebrations and activities.
- Please bring fresh water daily.
Reception Class have got Special Friends! Our youngest and our oldest children spend time together each Friday. Look at all of our happy faces!
Autumn in Reception Class
We have had a lovely first term in Reception Class and the children have settled well into our St James family. We have learnt lots about the Autumn season and have noticed the changes in weather as this season comes to an end and winter begins.
During this term we explore the topic, Stars in the Sky. We read texts such as ‘Owl Babies’ by Martin Waddell, ‘How to Catch a Star’ by Oliver Jeffers and ‘Whatever Next’ by Jill Murphy. These texts allow our children to explore and compare night and day. We also look at Nocturnal animals, explore space, make paper aeroplane rockets and create our own version of Vincent Vann Gogh’s Starry Night.
In Reception we like to focus on significant days and celebrations such as Remembrance Day and of course Christmas!
In RE our topic is Birthdays, through this topic we focus on the concept of waiting and counting down through Advent. Children create their own Advent wreath, and we look in detail at the story of Jesus birth.
We continue with our daily phonics sessions following the Sounds Write Programme. The learning objective for the term in phonics continues to be to segment, blend and manipulate sounds in words with structure: VC & CVC through the initial code. Every child now has a reading book to take home each week and we are very happy to see the progress children are making with their reading. If parents and carers would like some further information on how to support reading at home they can access free training at: https://sounds-write.co.uk/support-for-parents-and-carers/
In Mathematics we follow the White Rose Maths Scheme. In this half of the autumn term we focus on numbers to five, finding one more and one less, measures such as length, weight and capacity, daily routines which links with day and night, circles, triangles and shapes with four sides.
To boost learning in all areas of the curriculum Reception have access to weekly forest school sessions, which are very popular with the children and staff! The children immerse themselves in nature as they explore a range of hands on experiences in a woodland environment and develop their resilience, self-confidence, collaborative skills and problem-solving skills. This truly is an amazing experience for all.