Welcome to Reception

A very warm welcome to the Reception class page.

Our team

Miss Turner is Foundation Stage Leader and one of the Assistant Headteachers.  Although Miss Turner is in school everyday, she teaches in Reception on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. 

Miss Felgate is in class every day apart from a Wednesday afternoon.  Miss Palmer comes to help our class on a Wednesday. 

.

Here are the other adults who help us in Reception;

Sharing Stories

We love sharing stories together at school. We thought it would be nice to introduce ourselves to you and share a story before we meet you all in September.

Here at Ranelagh we work as an Early Years Unit.  Each morning the nursery and reception classes share the same learning spaces.  This helps the children become familiar with all staff and helps to make transitions from nursery to reception much smoother for the children.

The children have continuous use of indoor and outdoor environments all year round and in all weathers so please ensure your child has the appropriate clothing for the weather conditions!  Please NAME all of your child's uniform including their coats, plimsolls and shoes. We also advise that you provide a spare set of NAMED clothes in a drawstring bag that can remain on your child's peg in case it is needed.  Please can we also ask that you provide your child with a pair of NAMED plimsolls to wear inside the classroom.

Starting School

During the first few weeks as we all settle in, we will be enabling children to explore the indoor and outdoor learning environments, learning how to play with and use resources with each other and the importance of taking care of things. At the end of sessions we begin to teach children new routines incorporating tidying inside and outside and transitioning to the next part of our day. They will be learning how to make new friends and build relationships with adults as around half of our new intake have joined us from other settings. We will introduce story times and will be using lots of positive praise to children during these times to model and reinforce listening and attention skills.              

We follow an approach known as 'In the Moment Planning.' This enables staff to observe the children and their interests very carefully. Following this, staff will engage in children's play with them, modelling language and supporting them through sustained shared thinking as they work through ideas and develop new skills and embed learning. 

As the half term goes on, and as the children become more settled, we gradually begin to build in more structured learning, including phonics and maths sessions. This happens when the children are able to participate in group activities. 

Maths

As the term progresses, we will begin having daily teacher input for maths.  We deliver maths input through stories, songs, games, and teacher led activities, both inside and outside. We plan lots of activities for children to explore maths opportunities in their play.

Please support your child with learning maths at home. Some ideas to help include; noticing - this could be seasonal changes or the amounts of pasta on their plate "I can see a one and a one and a one." Other ideas such as counting how many steps as you go upstairs, noticing digits on houses and street signs as you walk to school, look at the shapes of street signs as you walk to the shop, compare the height of family members... Who is the shortest/ tallest? Who has the biggest/ smallest feet? Cooking together is also a great way to introduce early maths skills, alongside weighing and measuring, you might count the number of spoonfuls of flour for the recipe and the number of cake cases for the holes on the cake tin. Talk about the days of the week and time connectives such as yesterday, today, tomorrow.

Snack Money

Please be reminded that we ask for a voluntary contribution of £5.00 snack money per half term.  This small amount of money enables us to provide snack such as crackers, bread sticks and yogurts in addition to the fruit that the children are provided with.  The money also allows us to buy supplies for fun cooking activities.

We ask that the money is paid promptly at the beginning of each half term to enable us to continue with this successfully. We would also be happy for you to pay in advance for a whole term which is £10, or you can pay for the full three terms.

Many thanks.

Our Learning Journey Display Squares

Each child has their own display square in our classroom, which is their own space to display fantastic work, pictures and photographs. We ask that you please send photos in which reflect your children individually and celebrate their personal experiences and achievements from home, as we will share these photos together and put them up on your child’s learning journey display square. A reminder of our class email address; reception@ranelaghprimary.net

Woodland Learning

Once we are settled into class and the children are more familiar with the setting, reception children will start going to the woodland area on the school site. They will learn about the changes that occur through the seasons, to look for insects, to learn how to care for living creatures, and to take part in team building exercises such as den building to name a few activities. We experience the outdoor area in all weathers so please ensure children have appropriate clothing at school. 

If they have their own pair of wellington boots, it would be helpful to bring them to school once this is up and running, we will keep you updated!

Messy Play

In reception we have lots of opportunities for independent learning, and some of our play can be messy! The children look very smart in their new uniforms, and while we try our best to make sure they are wearing aprons at certain activities, sometimes the children are very keen and get there before we do.  We spend lots of time at the beginning of term teaching the children about wearing aprons at messy activities but inevitably they will get a little messy, and it is okay!