Welcome to Our Reception Class at St. James’
Welcome to Reception Class, my name is Miss Guthrie and I am the Class Teacher along with Ms Capot (Class Teacher) who works in Reception one day per week. Mrs Watson is our Nursery Nurse and we are supported by Teaching Assistants Mrs Gibbons and Ms Walton at different times during the week.
Reception Noticeboard
- All children have a home school reading book which is kept in their book bags. We ask that book bags are brought to school every day. We will hear your child read once a week. Reading books are changed weekly.
- PE in Reception is on Thursday. Make sure you have your full St James PE kit.
- We use Tapestry as a means of sharing our learning, celebrations and activities.
- Please bring fresh water daily.
- We pray every day in school. Please help your child to become familiar with our prayers here Little Book of Prayers EYFS and KS1
Summer Term in Reception Class
This Term's Topic
We will begin the new term with an exciting topic about real superheroes, focusing on the people who help and care for us at home and in the wider community.
People Who Help Us
Our early discussions will explore the role of family members who love and care for us at home. We will then widen our focus to community helpers, including teachers, doctors and police officers. A local police officer will visit to talk about how he helps people in the community.
Stories and Play
We will read A Superhero Like You by Dr Ranj and think about the kind of superhero we would like to be when we grow up, including the superpowers we might have. In our play, we will design and build emergency vehicles, dress up as real-life superheroes who care for others, add a fire station to our small world area, and become bakers in the playdough area.
Staying Safe and Healthy
We will learn how to keep ourselves safe and make healthy choices in everyday life.
Transport and Travel
Later in the term, we will explore transport and travel as we learn more about our wonderful world and the different ways we move around it. We will find out that different types of transport have different purposes, compare transport from the past with transport today, and continue developing our understanding of how things change over time.
Life Cycles
To end the year, we will explore a variety of life cycles, including the life cycle of a bean plant and a butterfly. Children will observe how living things grow and change over time through hands-on activities, stories, and discussions.
Across the Curriculum
- In maths, we will explore numbers to 20 and beyond and continue learning about shape, with a particular focus on 3D shapes. We will develop our understanding of concepts such as doubling, halving and sharing and will complete a short topic on map building.
- In phonics, we will learn new sounds and spellings, including sh, ch, th, ng, wh, tch q, u.
- In Religious Education, we will learn about Pentecost and celebrate the Good News of the Holy Spirit coming to be with us after Easter. We will then explore the topic of Our World, focusing on caring for God’s creation, appreciating the beauty of the natural world, and learning how we can share and look after the world together.
Things to help your child at home this term:
- Practice ways of staying safe and healthy:
- Remember to brush teeth twice a day for two minutes. The two minute toothbrushing song available on YouTube is good fun to brush along to.
- Choose healthy snacks, drink plenty of water and keep active.
- Learn ways to stay safe when online, outdoors and when travelling.
- Create a plan for what to do in an emergency at home.
- Plant your own seeds and watch them grow as you care for them.
Spring Term in Reception Class
In Reception Class we begin the new term by exploring seasonal changes around us. We look at winter and the effect this has on the environment and living things. We learn how to protect ourselves from the cold weather and we learn how to help wildlife survive in the winter months.
We explore the polar regions, learning about arctic animals and indigenous people. We learn about freezing and melting processes and conduct a scientific experiment with blubber to learn how arctic animals keep warm in freezing conditions.
We continue to listen to the children read at least once a week and encourage parents to listen to children read at least three times per week. In Literacy, the children continue to learn about the structure of writing, building sentences and practise forming letters correctly.
In Maths we continue to improve number sense by working on numbers to 8. We will also explore weights and measures, looking at mass, capacity, length, height and time.
The celebration of Chinese New Year will provide some nice crafting opportunities as well as developing our knowledge and understanding of celebrations around the world.
In RE, we look at Celebrations, both at home and as a church family.
Later in the term Reception Class will enjoy listening to a range of traditional tales and will explore them through a range of creative and writing activities and re-enacting them through role-play.
We will continue our super writing skills as we try hard to write simple sentences that can be read by ourselves and others. We will continue to display a good understanding of our phonics in our daily phonics sessions, and our reading will become more fluent.
In Maths we will explore the composition of numbers to 10 and will develop our understanding of number bonds through simple addition and subtraction. We will also develop our understanding of measurement through activities involving length, weight, time and capacity.
In RE we will think about times in which we gather – to worship, learn, celebrate and play. We think about how our mothers are special to us and we showed how much we love and appreciate them by making colourful Mother’s Day cards.
Tips on how to help your child's learning during the Spring Term:
- Use these questions to talk about winter at home:
- What is the weather today?
- What should we wear outside today?
- Can you describe how it feels?
- What can you see?
- What colours can you see?
- What has happened to the leaves on the trees?
- What are your favourite things to do in winter?
- How could we help the birds during winter?
Use this information to support the development of reading and writing at home:
https://www.stjameshebburn.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Spring-Parent-Curriculum-Map.pdf
Autumn Term in Reception Class
To begin our learning journey in reception class we will be learning about ourselves. We will spend some time getting to know one another and will have lots of fun playing and making new friends. We will learn about our school rules and routines and will grow more confident as each day passes.
We will read The Colour Monster Starts School to support our understanding of the different feelings and emotions that we may go through each day, and we will read Elmer to help us to understand that we are all valued and unique.
In R.E. we will learn about our names and will learn that we are all part of the St James family. We will learn our daily prayers and will spend some time learning new hymns. The first hymns we will learn are Faith as Small as a Mustard Seed and If I Were a Butterfly.
Phonics will begin within the first few weeks of term. We follow the Sounds Write programme and in Reception Class we learn the initial code. We will work through units 1 – 7 by the end of the autumn term, learning to read and write CVC words with the sounds; a, I, m, s, t, n, o, p, b, c, g, h, d, e, f, v, k, l, r, u, j, w, z, x, y, ff, ll, ss, zz. We will also learn to read and write our name.
We follow the White Rose Maths curriculum and begin the term by learning to match, sort and compare. We also explore shape, measure and pattern before moving on to explore numbers to 5.
In our exploration of the natural world the children will learn about our local environment and seasonal changes. We will visit our local park and search for signs of autumn. As the term progresses the children will learn about hibernation and explore different animals that hibernate with a focus on hedgehogs.
We will find out about farmers and their crops, and we will learn why harvesting is important and why it happens at certain times throughout the year. We will learn about harvest festivals and why/how people celebrate harvest time.
Tips on how to help your child’s learning during the Autumn Term:
- Look at family photos together, drawing attention to the people and the places in the photos.
- Talk about things that you have done or are going to do together as a family.
- Develop and reinforce good hygiene practices such as washing hands and brushing teeth.
- Develop good bedtime routines.
- Draw children’s attention to seasonal changes you notice when outside. Talk about the leaves changing colour and falling to the ground, search for autumnal items together.
- Read a story daily with your child, talking lots about the illustrations and characters. Can you predict what might happen next in the story? – Access the free Sounds Write Training for parents available at – https://sounds-write.co.uk/support-for-parents-and-carers/ to help your child learn to read and write.
- Help your child to complete their phonics homework each week.
- When reading books are issued later this term, read with your child at least 3x per week, to support them with their reading journey.
- Return reading books to school each day so that they are available for your child to read in school with a member of staff.
- Help your child to learn to write their name by practicing this with them.
- Play with playdough to help develop fine motor skills. This will help with their pencil grip when writing.