Welcome

Welcome to Newington Community Primary School and a warm welcome to Reception.

Reception marks most children’s very first step into formal schooling. This can be an exciting and nerve-wracking time for children and parents alike, but we hope you will feel welcomed and listened to as we support your child into school life at Newington.

Throughout the reception stage of education, your child will start learning through play. They will be busy exploring and discovering a range of exciting activities both in and out of the classroom, making new friendships, listening to stories and taking their first steps into a world of learning. Play remains to be the centre of our curriculum, and we plan lots of rich, exciting and new experiences for the children.

We are so excited that you are going to be starting Reception with us and cannot wait to get to know you and to help you make lots of new friends. Being in Reception is the most wonderful adventure, where you will play and learn new skills every day. By the end of the year, you will be able to do so many amazing things. You will have explored the world around and most importantly had so much fun! 

Staff photos

	Mrs Gower Assistant Head Teacher Early Years Lead
	Miss Gardner Class Teacher
	Miss Musselwhite Class Teacher
	Mrs Taylor Class Teacher Mrs Warren Class Teacher
	Mrs Powell Early Years SENCo Assistant
	Mrs Tang Teaching Assistant
	Miss Stritch Teaching Assistant
	Mrs Moffat Teaching Assistant
	SEN Teaching Assistants Mrs Resinelli, Mrs McSkeane, Miss Champion, Mrs Rice and Mrs Hughes

Our curriculum

EYFS Curriculum - All children in Reception will follow The Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage – a stage that caters for all children under 5 years of age. Our EYFS Curriculum is at the heart of our learning journey approach and is reviewed in the light of national developments, new thinking and research and development. It includes a balance of child-led and adult-led learning within a child centred approach. This year we will continue to embed the updated EYFS curriculum with a greater focus on communication and language. 

There are 7 areas of the curriculum and they are split into prime and specific areas.

The Prime Areas

The prime areas begin to develop quickly in response to relationships and experiences and run through and support learning in other areas. They are fundamental in the EYFS and are:

• Communication and Language
• Personal, Social and Emotional development
• Physical Development

The Specific Areas

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts and Design

Characteristics of Effective Learning

All children engage with other people and their environment in different ways and we recognise that children have individual needs, interests and develop at different rates. In our planning and teaching, we reflect on our knowledge of each individual and encompass the characteristics of effective teaching and learning:

• Playing and Exploring – children are given opportunities to investigate, experience new things and are encouraged to ‘have a go’.
• Active Learning – we encourage children to persevere if they encounter difficulties and to enjoy their achievements.
• Creating and Thinking Critically – we support children to have and develop their own ideas, encouraging them to make links and develop their own strategies for doing things.

These characteristics underpin learning and development across all areas and support children to remain effective and motivated learners.

Early Learning Goals

The Early Learning Goals (ELGs) are the goals or targets children are expected to achieve at the end of their reception year. These are an end point measure of what a child should be demonstrating at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage. There are 17 ELGs across all the areas of learning. As shown below.

Timetable in Reception

Our school day starts at 8.30 am but you have a window of 20 minutes to drop your child to their class and finishes at 3.20pm.

 

 

Early reading and Read Write Inc (RWI)

Read Write Inc is our phonics scheme.

Here at Newington Community Primary School, we are using the Read Write Inc (RWI) programme to get children off to a flying start with their English. RWI is a method of learning based upon letter sounds and phonics, and we use it to aid children in their reading and writing.

The children are assessed regularly and grouped according to their ability. They will work with an RWI trained teacher or teaching assistant.

Read Write Inc., developed by Ruth Miskin, provides a structured and systematic approach to teaching literacy. It is used by more than a quarter of the UK's primary schools and is designed to create fluent readers, confident speakers and willing writers.

Each Read Write Inc. programme meets the higher expectations of the new curriculum and uses effective assessment to accelerate every child's progress.

Our Read Write Inc 'Reading Leader' is Mrs Clements (Assistant Headteacher)

Children in Reception are taught daily phonics lessons according to their ability. In the first weeks of Reception, the initial sounds (Set 1 Speed Sounds) are taught in class groups. After this period, children are individually assessed and grouped according to their stage. Children receive daily phonics teaching in these groups using the structured speed sounds lesson plan.

It is our aim that all children leave Reception on track to achieve the expected standard for reading, following the RWI programme.

Reading

When using RWI to read the children will:

• Learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letter/letter groups using simple prompts
• Learn to read words using sound blending (Fred talk)
• Read lively stories featuring words they have learnt to sound out
• Show that they comprehend the stories by answering 'Find It' and 'Prove It'

 

Blending

Help your child learn to read words by sounding-blending (Fred talk) e.g. c-a-t = cat, sh-o-p = shop. Children learn to read words by blending the letter-sounds that are in the Speed Sounds set (shown further down the page).

Help your child to say the pure sounds ('m' not 'muh', 's' not 'suh' etc.) as quickly as they can, and then blend the sounds together to say the whole word.

As your child learns each sound (phoneme), they are taught how to blend the sounds together to make two and three letters words (CVC words - consonant, vowel, consonant - such as the word 'dog').  Your child will learn how to read real and nonsense words.

Writing

When using RWI to write the children will:

• Learn to write the letter/letter groups which represent the 44 sounds
• Learn to write words by saying the sounds and graphemes (Fred fingers)

Talking

When using RWI the children will also work in pairs:

• To answer questions
• To take turns talking and listening to each other
• To give positive praise to each other

Reading Books Sent Home

Children in Reception who are learning the first 44 letter sounds and are not blending fluently will bring home picture books and a library book for you to read with them.

Once children can blend fluently and know the first 44 sounds they will bring home a red a sound blending book or a Red Ditty book.

 

Read Write Inc Books

Please encourage your child to read each word carefully. There will be sessions in school where you will be invited to learn more about RWI and helping your child throughout the year.

Don't worry if your child is struggling at first with their sounds and words, they will get there in their own time. If you have time (we know it is very precious!), we would urge you to try and read stories to your child before they go to bed. This will help develop a wider vocabulary which makes a vast difference to their quality of writing but it will also encourage them to enjoy a good story.

Handwriting in reception

In reception we focus on developing hand strength way before we encourage the children to pick up a pencil and form letters or shapes.

We use playdough, tweezers and a wide variety of fine motor activities to develop their fine motor skills. Children are encouraged to do this daily and lots of practise is needed.

Holding a pencil is tricky and needs to be taught correctly.

We follow a handwriting pattern programme and there is a specific order in which we teach the patterns. Children need to be able to form static patters, such as dots, circles and lines before they can move left to right, with formation patterns.

 

Physical Development

Physical Development is one of the three prime areas as stated in the statutory framework for the early year’s foundation stage. Physical Development in EYFS consists of two aspects: gross motor skills and fine motor skills.

We encourage the children to free- flow between inside and outside play, during the course of their day and to be as physically active as they can be.

Gross motor movements involve larger-scale whole-body movements, such as walking, jumping and riding a bicycle. As such, gross motor development begins when a child is born as they start to kick their legs or lift their arms. In early years settings, it's important to provide activities that support children's gross motor development, both indoors and out. This will additionally help to develop children's core strength; an important factor in successfully developing effective gross motor skills.

Whilst gross motor development involves larger body movements, fine motor development involves the smaller, more precise movements of the hands, wrists and fingers. Fine motor skills are needed for activities, such as fastening buttons and effectively cutting with scissors.

 

Maths in reception

Maths Mastery is a teaching and learning approach that aims to help pupils develop a deep understanding of maths. Learning outcomes are the same, but the approach varies depending on a student’s level of understanding. We use the Maths Mastery Programme to support all of our children, from nursery to year 6. It is taught daily and in the morning. We have a range of mathematical opportunities during our day and a maths meeting every afternoon, which consolidates previous learning. This might be singing, chanting and recapping in other ways.  

Maths mastery at EYFS consists of developing children’s mathematical abilities by:

• Developing fluency in basic number skills;
• developing a flexible approach to applying concepts, processes and knowledge to different problems and situations;
• gradually increasing difficulty, with an approach that focuses on developing already-established skills or knowledge,
• using the Concrete - Pictorial - Abstract (CPA) approach to teach representation.

The programme in reception heavily relies on the use of manipulatives. We encourage the children to be critical thinkers and ask questions. They can explore a range of ideas and strategies to enhance their mathematical way of thinking; all by using a range of resources.

Baseline

At Newington, the children will be baselined in a variety of ways. We have the reception baseline assessment (RBA) and our own school assessments. All of which, helps us to find your child’s starting points and entry assessment levels. This in turn helps us plan accordingly to your child’s stage of development. The RBA has been a statutory assessment since 2021. All reception pupils must take it if they attend a maintained school.

We also complete a speech and language screening on your child to identify if they need any further support in their use of language or spoken speech sounds.

Further information and any results will be share with you.

 

Seesaw

Seesaw in an app that we use at Newington from nursery – year 6. When you join us, you will receive a QR code and then have online access to your child’s class page and opportunities to receive photos, letters and updates but also to message your class teacher directly and privately.

Tapestry

Tapestry is our platform for observing children in both nursery and reception. There is an app that you are able to join, once your child is with us and you will be updated with their progress and attainment at nursery and school. Further details can be found here –

https://tapestry.info/parents-carers/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKWS5eB4fZL5HVJNNDXKlPw

 

Home learning

In Reception, home learning will be set once a term and be based on the new topic. A task will be set and a few examples of how this could be completed will be suggested. For example:

• Our topic this term is ‘All about me, you and us’ so we would like you to complete a family tree You can decide how this would look, for example by using photos, a drawing or perhaps a collage”.

The children will have their own book to complete the task or they may be asked to add photos, a written description or even make a model! Further details will be sent out by class teachers and this is once a term.

Reading books

Once the children start school full time, they will come home with a book of their choice, to begin their home reading journey with you. They will be asked to bring back their zippy wallets back every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and we ask that you read with your child as least3 times a week. You are expected to take great care of our books, keeping them in the zippy wallet and return them in the condition they go home in.

Once they have started RWI, they will soon bring home a book, appropriate to the level in which they are learning to read. Their phonic ability will always match their reading ability.

Reading daily with young children, starting in infancy, can help with language acquisition and literacy skills. This is because reading to your children in the earliest months stimulates the part of the brain that allows them to understand the meaning of language and helps build key language, literacy and social skills.

 

Gallery

ADD PHOTOS

 

School ready flyer

SEE ATTACHED FLYER

 

Further information

During the summer term you will be invited into school for an adult only event where many of your questions will be answered about school life. You will meet the team and spend time in the classrooms.

Your child will come to school for 3 settling in sessions, where they will spend time with all of the adult, children and different classrooms, before we decide which class they will be in.

You will be given a home visit appointment where you get to have 1:1 time with your child’s class teacher and have the opportunity to start building a relationship as we move forward.

Settling in dates are given at the transition evening and we are always available to answer any questions you may have.

We look forward to you being part of our school community.