Reception

Welcome to Foundation 2

Welcome to all of our new families and welcome back to all those who are coming back to join us in F2! We are enjoying meeting all of the new children and getting to know your families.

We greatly value the important role that the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) plays in laying secure foundations for future learning and development. Our Early Years curriculum is carefully structured to provide opportunities for children to learn through planned, purposeful learning activities.

At SMC, we understand that play is an integral part of learning and this is at the heart of our early years curriculum. We believe that the correct mix of adult directed and uninterrupted child initiated play ensures the best outcomes for pupils. Warm and positive relationships between staff and children, consistent routines and strong relationships with parents are key.

We have an exciting year ahead of us. The curriculum has been planned to meet the Early Learning Goals set out in Development Matters 2021, covering the 7 areas of learning. Each term we will focus on a new topic which has been carefully planned to ensure the children make the small steps needed to achieve in all areas of learning. We will also be learning how to be kind friends and live out our school mission of ‘Love One Another’ every day. Please see the documents below for more information:

Meet the team

We look forward to learning, laughter and lots of fun in our journey together in Foundation 2!  In our classroom you will always find us developing our love for learning with:

Phonics

Our school has chosen Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised as our systematic, synthetic phonics (SSP) programme to teach early reading and spelling. The children will have a daily phonics lesson. We usually teach four new sounds a week and have a review lesson on a Friday. You will get a list of the sounds that we are learning to reinforce at home each week. This will also include some words to practise reading. As well as learning the sounds each week, we will also learn tricky words. These are words that include a tricky part (not pronounced the way they look.)

For information about Little Wandle, please see the links below or come and talk to one of the team.

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

Reading for pleasure

If children are to become lifelong readers, it is essential that they are encouraged to read for pleasure. The desire of wanting to read will help with the skill of reading. To help foster a love of reading, your child will bring home a book that they can share and enjoy with you. This is a book for you to read with your child, not your child to read to you. It is a book to enjoy together.  This book will be changed every Monday. Your child also has a reading record which allows you to add any comments. If your child has not received a new book please speak to one of the team.

In the second half term, the children will also bring a coloured banded book home. This will be for them to read to you to practise their reading skills.

Collins Ebooks

As part of the Little Wandle programme the children will also have 3 reading practise sessions a week in school. The children read the same book three times in a week. The first time we work on decoding (sounding out) the words, the second time we work on prosody which is reading with expression – making the book sound more interesting with our storyteller voice– and the third time we look at comprehension. We read the books three times at school because we want to develop the fluency. The more children see words, the more they begin to read them automatically without having to sound them out. These sessions will be taught in small groups and the books will be matched to your child’s reading level.

Your child will be issued the book that they have read the previous week in school to practice reading at home in order to become fluent, confident readers. This is their reading practise book. Your child should be able to read the practice book with developing confidence and fluency without any significant help. Your role as a parent/carer is to listen with interest and, most importantly, to encourage and praise, acknowledging all achievements. After your child has read the book, it may be helpful to talk about the book, but only so far as your child is interested. Keep the experience positive and avoid turning it into a test. We want the children to develop a love for reading.

This book will be issued as an ebook through the Collins website. Your child will be provided with a login and password to access their account and view the reading books set by their class teachers. If you have any questions please come and ask.

https://ops.collinsopenpage.com/sso/login?service=https%3A//ebooks.collinsopenpage.com/wr/index.html&eulogin=true

Physical Education

PE will be on a Monday each week.

Children need to come to school in their PE kit on this day. Please ensure that all PE kit is labelled with your child name, long hair is tied up and any jewellery is removed. See our PE section on the long term plan to see the skills the children will be taught this year.

Class Dojo

We use Class Dojo in F2 to send you messages and reminders. We will also post pictures and updates to the class page to show you an insight into the children’s day. Please ensure you use the sign up code sent to you don’t miss anything.

Contact

If you need to contact me, please use the class email.

f2@st-margaretclitherow.nottingham.sch.uk or send a message on class dojo. I will get back to you as soon as possible.

I am also available before and after school so please come and talk to me.

Useful links and information