Reception Classes

Class Teachers:	Miss Fellows and Mrs Barkworth
Teaching Assistants:	Mrs Shelley and Mrs Burton

Welcome to Reception

Wrens and Robins are two wonderful classes of Reception children who are settling into school life with enjoyment, enthusiasm and excitement. We are working on developing our own independent personalities and learning how to work towards being our own stars. We do this through our school values of Strength, Teamwork, Ambition and Respect. We use these values to help develop friendships, confidence and tolerance to others that enable us to build the right foundations for life at school.
Every Friday, Reception participate in PE lessons. Please make sure that children’s PE kits are always in school. We ask that hair is tied back and all jewellery, including earrings, must be removed. PE kits should consist of:

• Plain navy or black: shorts, skorts, tracksuit bottoms or leggings with no logos
• Plain navy or black jumper with no logos or Long Sutton school sweatshirt
• Plain white t-shirt with no logos
• Black or white trainers

Please ensure all items of clothing including footwear are named to when items are misplaced, they can be return to the correct owner.
When appropriate, Reception love to go out and explore the wooden area on our school field. Please ensure you have a set of wellies in a drawstring bag in school.

Tapestry

As a school we use Tapestry to record children’s wow moments and send out messages and requests relevant to your child’s class. As teachers, we love to see what our children experience and participate in outside of school so please share photos and videos on Tapestry which children can then share with their friends.

Reading

In Reception we have no formal set homework, but we do expect children to be reading at least 3 times a week at home. On a Thursday, children will be sent home their phonetically decodable Little Wandle Book that they have read three times in school as well as a reading for pleasure book they have chosen out of the class book stock.
As well as books a weekly phonics home learning sheet is sent home via Tapestry on a Friday so you can practice the recently taught graphemes, words, tricky words at home together.

Handwriting

Development of fine motor skills is a crucial part of learning within Reception. We start with developing our gross motor and fine motor skills with a programme called Squiggle while you Wiggle and quickly start to practice writing our letters. We use the formation rhymes from our chosen phonetic programme, Little Wandle. Across the year you will be given formation mats to support with handwriting and regular progress updates about their next steps alongside their reading next steps. At home, it isn’t just about using a pencil, but you can practice letter formation in the sand, with paintbrushes and water, in flour on the table. You can be as creative as you like with letter formation as long as you are using the rhymes, and the movements are in the correct direction.