Reception
Teachers: Mrs Ellis
Teaching Assistants: Miss Platts
A very warm welcome to our Reception class page! Here you can find out about what we are learning, our daily routines, important events and see what Early Years is all about!
Here at Mackie Hill J & I, the staff and children are really proud of our Early Years Foundation Stage and love coming to school to learn. Our main focus is to give children the best possible start to their school learning journey and inspire a passion for life-long learning. We want the children to feel secure, safe and happy, in an enabling environment where every individual is respected and valued and reach their full potential.
Play is central to learning and alongside first-hand experiences, the school day is centred around a balance of structured and child-initiated learning, alongside high-quality adult interactions to support effective scaffolding and teaching.
We are dedicated to ensuring that your child makes a strong start learning to read and write. Nursery children access pre-phonics activities which develop children’s listening and attention skills. In the summer term, Nursery begin to learn sounds and play lots of games to encourage oral blending in preparation for Reception. In Reception, using our phonics programme, Read. Write. Inc, we teach children systematically to read and write sounds and, over time, they learn to blend independently in order to read books with sounds they can read.
Developing children’s communication and language is another key priority. Key ambitious vocabulary is carefully selected, shared and modelled to enhance children’s speaking and listening skills. In Nursery, children learn and sing nursery rhymes every day and the teacher reads to them daily. Children repeat books, to develop vocabulary and knowledge of stories In Reception, we have daily Drawing Club sessions which focuses on children learning ambitious vocabulary and provides opportunities for speaking and listening, mark making and consolidation of maths skills.
We plan and deliver learning opportunities using the EYFS Framework. This covers the seven areas of learning and development:
Prime Areas
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Communication and Language
- Physical Development
Specific Areas
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the World
- Expressive Arts and Design
We use tapestry to share information and observations of your child. We aim to ensure each child has an observation uploaded at least every two weeks. See below for more information.
What is Tapestry?
Tapestry is a secure, online learning journal that we use to record photos, videos and observations of your child. This is in line with the Early Years Foundation stage curriculum, to build up a record of your child's time while they are with us at Mackie Hill J & I School EYFS. The system allows us to communicate with parents and to share their learning experiences. It also presents the opportunity for parents to upload comments, videos or photos of their child to create a holistic view of each child.
How does Tapestry work?
The tapestry app can be downloaded onto android and apple phones. A step by step instruction guide to help you to get set up is shown below.
Once you have downloaded the application, have provided school with your email address and agreed to the terms and conditions of using Tapestry, you will be sent an activation link to your email address. Following the link will direct you to the tapestry app, where you will be able to set up a secure password to access your child's learning journey.
All staff have their own secure login. They can then upload observations onto your child's secure learning journal. Once these have been uploaded, you will receive an email letting you know there is an observation to view. We aim to upload an assessment at least every two weeks for your child.
Please see the tapestry parent’s guide for more information.
Home Learning Expectations and Information
Nursery:
Nursery children will be set homework via tapestry. This will be an activity based on the topic or child’s interest.
Nursery children will access the school library every Tuesday and bring home age appropriate library books which we ask parents to read to them as part of their daily bedtime reading routine. These need to be returned every Tuesday.
Reception
At the start of the year, children will be given a homework bag containing a homework book and set topic homework for the autumn term. They will also have daily phonics based homework through autumn term.
Once your child progresses through our phonic scheme, they will begin to bring home words and books which will be the main homework.
- Reading books will be changed every Friday.
- Please hear your child read their book at least 3 times a week to develop fluency. Please comment/sign the reading record book every time your child has read at home.
- Additional homework will be set on an individual basis via tapestry or set in homework books, for example, links to phonic videos and home-based play activities.
- From spring term, you will receive a weekly memo detailing the vocabulary we have been learning in Drawing club that week.
PE Information
- Pale blue round neck t-shirt
- Navy PE shorts or PE skirt
- Tracksuit and trainers to wear for outdoor PE lessons - this can be any colour/style to help reduce costs
- Please ensure all PE kit is labelled with your child's name.
- PE lessons for Reception are on Monday’s and Thursdays. Your child is asked to come to school wearing their outdoor PE kit on this day.
Foundation Stage Curriculum Information for Parents
Foundation Stage in Pictures 2024/2025
Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the support that enables them to fulfil their potential. Children develop quickly in the early years and a child’s experiences between birth and the age of five have a major impact on their future life chances’.
(Early years Foundation Stage development matters).
Curriculum information for parents autumn 2
Knowledge organiser autumn 2
Reading Books
Reading books need to be in school every day.
Learning Links