Welcome to Reception

Communication is a key skill which underpins the process of learning. We give children opportunities to develop listening, attention and understanding skills, teaching them how to express their own views and ideas, talk through processes and respond to the ideas of others.

Children develop these skills daily through our Plan, Do, Review sessions. Adults model the correct use of spoken English, connecting ideas using sentences to add detail and explain thinking. Children are then asked to share their ideas and plan their learning.

Adults support the children during their play, using their questioning skills to deepen the learning process and extend children’s thinking.

Children are then asked to review their learning and talk through the processes that they have used. Adults extend their ideas through questioning and extending children’s sentence structure. This supports children to develop turn taking and conversational skills so that they become confident communicators.

As children move from nursery into reception, their control and coordination will continue to develop. Children will continue to develop their gross motor skills (large movements) and refine their hand eye coordination.

Children will develop core strength, balance, coordination and spatial awareness both through taught skills based sessions and by a carefully planned environment, providing opportunities for children to practise their skills.

Children have continuous access to the outdoor environment where learning is carefully planned to ensure children are given a range of opportunities to support their gross motor skills development.

Fine motor skills development involves children using smaller movements with dexterity and precision.

Children will be given opportunities to strengthen the muscles in their hands and will be taught to use objects such as pencils, scissors and cutlery with accuracy and control.

Children are taught the skills and strategies they need to develop personally, socially and emotionally. We support children to understand who they are and what they can do as well as understand themselves in relation to others, making friends and the rules of society.

We support children to understand their emotions and how we can understand the feelings of others. This helps children to build positive relationships with their peers and show empathy and compassion towards others.

In reception, we teach children to have a secure understanding of number which enables them to build firm mathematical foundations. Children will be taught the key concepts within cardinality and counting, comparison, composition, pattern, shape, space and measures.

In reception, all children take part in daily maths sessions where they are taught specific skills. The learning environment is then carefully planned to give children opportunities to apply these skills to solve problems, investigate and reason.

Reading – In reception, children are taught the skills they need to begin to read with fluency and understanding. Children are exposed to a range of stories and books everyday through fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

Children are taught how to recite familiar stories and poems as well as compose their own.

Phonics is taught daily following the Read, Write Inc. approach. Children are taught to recognise letters and their sounds to enable them to begin to read and write simple sentences and beyond.

Writing – In reception, children are taught to write through their daily phonics sessions and our whole school writing approach ‘The Write Stuff’

We teach children about the world in which they live, other people and communities and the role of technology. Children will be given opportunities to make sense of the world around them and develop the knowledge and vocabulary needed to enable them to explain their thinking.

The children will be taught about diversity, learning about other cultures, traditions and families. They will find out about the roles of important members of our society and the impact they have on our lives.

They will learn about the natural world around them, deepening their understanding of important processes such as the seasons and changing states of matter.

This part of the curriculum is about enabling children to experiment with media and materials, finding out about their properties and modifying and manipulating them. It includes exploring sounds, patterns, movement and different tools and techniques.
Children will be taught the skills they need to join materials, thinking about cause and effect.

The learning environment provides planned opportunities for children to perform, building a repertoire of songs and dances. Children also take part in taught music sessions where they learn how to create sounds using instruments.