Welcome to Reception!
November 2024
Welcome back to the next part of our learning journey at St Christopher’s. We are looking forward to an exciting term of learning with lots of fun things planned as we head towards Christmas.
The children will take part in a wide variety of activities in both our indoor and outdoor settings, covering the 7 areas of learning:
Prime Areas
Communication and Language
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Physical Development
Specific Areas
Literacy (including Comprehension, Word Reading & Writing)
Mathematics (including Number & Numerical Patterns)
Understanding the World
Expressive Arts and Design
During the first half term we place a big emphasis on the Prime Areas to ensure that children are happy and settled at school and have a strong foundation on which to build further learning.
The Reception Team
We are fortunate to have a number of experienced staff who will all play a part in your child’s learning during their year in Reception:
Class Teacher: Mrs Poole
Class Teaching Assistant: Miss Thorp (Mon – Wed)
Additional TA: Mrs Onions
Extra support: Mrs Grabic (Mrs A), Mrs Burns, Mrs Cook, Mrs Hughes
Our topic for the next half term is:
‘Celebrating Autumn & Christmas’
Over the next few weeks we will be exploring:
- Bonfire Night
- The Changing Seasons
- Autumn
- Multi-cultural Week (including Diwali)
- Advent
- The Nativity
- Christmas
…and much more!
Our focus stories for this half term are:
- The Ugly Duckling
- It Was a Cold, Dark Night
- The Nativity story
- Dear Santa
The children will explore these stories in detail, in order to learn and retell them. Other books we will be reading include:
- Percy the Park Keeper (After the Storm)
- The Scarecrow’s Wedding
- Fletcher & the Falling Leaves
- The Prickly Hedgehog
- Brave Bitsy & the Bear
- Non-fiction texts about autumn
- Christmas stories
- The Jolly Christmas Postman
Please look at the Topic Briefing posted at the bottom of this page for more detailed information about what we will be covering in each Area of Learning.
Religion
As a Catholic school, Religion is an important part of our curriculum. We will continue our learning about ‘People Who Care For Us’ with a focus on Jesus’ life when He lived on the earth and ways in which He cared for and helped people. At the end of November, we will move on to ‘Advent’ as we begin preparing for the birth of Jesus. In our last few lessons we will start to learn about the Christmas story, which will also link to our much-anticipated Nativity performance! Our Religion lessons are taught in a simple and sensitive way that the children understand, including drama, creative activities, singing and stories.
Phonics
Phonics is taught daily in Reception and is vitally important as it provides the early building blocks used to teach children to read and write. At St Christopher’s we follow the Twinkl Phonics Scheme. This half term we will be focusing on Level 2, including sounding out and correctly forming the Level 2 phonemes, learning the first 5 tricky words, blending to read cvc words and simple captions, and segmenting to begin to write cvc words and captions. Children will bring home a phonics Mini Book each week to practise the phonemes they have learnt in phonics lessons, and some children will also start reading books from our Rhino Readers reading scheme. Please support your children with reading at home – it has been proven that this is the most important thing you can do to help them progress at school. Hearing your child read for a few minutes every day will help them in every area of the curriculum. Busy Book homework will also link directly to phonics lessons at school.
PE
Our PE days are Wednesday and Thursday. Children do not need to bring a PE kit to school but come to school dressed in their PE clothes: blue shorts or plain dark blue jogging trousers (depending on the weather), a white T-shirt, school jumper/cardigan, trainers (without laces please). Please adhere to the school uniform guidelines for PE – no other T-shirts/sweatshirts are allowed. It is also important that no jewellery is worn and that hair below shoulder length is tied back.
Outdoors
Please remember to send your child with a waterproof coat if necessary as we will be using our outdoor area every day. Don’t forget to send in a named water bottle every day. Please do not put water bottles in book bags as we have had spillages and ruined books as a result of this. Thank you.
Please make sure all clothes, including PE kit and especially jumpers/cardigans and coats are clearly labelled.
Weekly Topic Focus
At the start of each week, a Topic Focus will be posted at the bottom of our class page giving details of what we are learning at school and suggestions of things you can do at home. It will also contain any dates, information or reminders that you need to be aware of. In addition to this, don’t forget to check your child’s book bag every day for letters, pictures and information.
Dates for your diary
Thurs 6th Nov: Mini Bonfire Singing Celebration – 3pm on playground weather permitting
Fri 8th Nov: Whole School Mass – Remembrance Day (YR will be attending from now on)
Mon 11th & Tues 12th Nov: Parents Evenings
Fri 15th Nov: Children in Need
Fri 22nd Nov: Visit to Codsall Library
Fri 29th Nov: Whole School Mass – St Andrew’s Day
Wed 11th Dec: YR/Y1 Nativity performances – 1.45pm & 6pm
Thurs 12th Dec: Christmas Lunch & Christmas Jumper Day
Fri 13th Dec: Whole School Mass – Advent
Tues 17th Dec: Pantomime (in school)
Thurs 19th Dec: YR Christmas Party (date changed)
We will update this webpage with news, dates and other information so please check it out regularly. If you have any questions feel free to email on:
We look forward to the next part of our learning journey together.
Mrs Poole & the YR team
xx
