Welcome to the Starry Starfish Reception Class 

I am Mrs Mann, the class teacher and I work with the children Tuesday through to Friday. Miss Cook, our class LSPA leads the class to start off the week on a Monday and continues to support us throughout the week along with the rest of our great team Miss Harrington-Groves, Mrs Ratcliffe, Miss Easdon and Mrs Ellis. Mr Boulton is our dedicated PE teacher and he will lead the class in a range of lessons on a Monday and Thursday. 

Our special class mascots are Stella and Stanley who help us on our learning journey and are always watching carefully for children following our school rules of:

Be Kind, Be Safe, Be Responsible.

They both like to have weekend adventures and enjoy visiting the children's homes to have lots fun and meet with their families to discover more about them.

Please see the attached welcome pack which gives you an introduction of what your child needs as they begin their journey in Reception and also key information about our class. Our main platform for communication is Class Dojo which we use for notices and messages between home and school. 

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Curriculum

The Reception year is the final year of the EYFS curriculum which spans across 7 areas of learning along with developing positive characteristics of effective learning. The areas are:  

Personal Social Emotional Development, Communication and Language, Physical Development, Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World

and Expressive Arts and Design. 

Learning through PLAY is still a crucial part of our curriculum and we aim to balance this with our discrete sessions to secure firm foundations for the children to build upon and be ready to join KS1.

The children will be measured at the end of the year against 17 Early Learning Goals (ELG's) where the 7 areas of learning are refined into further sub-areas which assess if your child is working towards or working at the expected level for their age. Please see the following document which goes into further detail on each one

In Early Years, we are guided by the children, their interests and areas of their development they are currently working on.  Below, we have outlined topics but these are adaptable as our curriculum is fluid and continually evolving .  The children's skills in all areas of their learning are progressed during the school year to ensure each and every child reaches their full potential and be the very best they can be! :)

Autumn Term

Our initial priority is to welcome you all to our class and ensure that we settle all the children so they are happy and comfortable to be ready to thrive at school.  We spend time getting to know the children and establishing the rules and routines of our class environment before exploring the wider school.  Within this 'getting to know you' period we will complete our baseline assessments to gauge where the children are developmentally so we can establish the children's starting points to progress and flourish from. We will introduce our discrete Literacy and Maths learning sessions through our Read, Write, Inc. Phonics and White Rose Maths programmes this term. I will host parental information sessions with a focus on these so you can understand and best support your child at home also.  The children will also receive homework activities and reading books linked to these also. 

The other focusses for our learning this term will be through topics such as Family, Autumn, Celebrations and Night and Day.  

Forest Fun Sessions will happen on Wellie Wednesday, where the children will need to wear their school PE tracksuit, waterproofs and pair of wellies. PE will take place on a Monday and a Thursday, please send in the basic PE kit of t-shirt, shorts and plimsolls to begin with to make it easier for the children to be independent.  

PLEASE NAME EVERYTHING that you send into school so we can best help the children keep track and be responsible for their own belongings. 

Reception Baseline Assessment

The Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) is a statutory assessment that we complete within the first six weeks of your child starting school.  It is an interactive and practical assessment with an adult within the class where the children complete activities measuring their early literacy, communication, language and mathematics skills.  The purpose of the assessment is to provide a starting point for a new measure that will help parents understand how well schools support their pupils to progress between Reception and Year 6. Please see attached document for further information. 

As a school we use the RBA assessment alongside other play based activities to establish a baseline judgement across all seven areas of the EYFS curriculum which we can then use to best tailor our provision and learning opportunities to your child's stage of development. 

Please don't hesitate to get in contact if you have any questions or if you are unsure of anything especially if it is your first child starting school or you are new to our school community.