Reception

Mrs Hallett - EYFS Lead and Reception Teacher                                                                             Mrs Lockyer - EYFS Practitioner

                                Welcome to Reception Class where adventures are a vital part of our day!

Thank you for visiting our class page. My name is Mrs Hallett and I am the Reception teacher and Mrs Lockyer is the EYFS practitioner. We love working as a team with the Reception children and the other staff and children in Nursery. We are an Early Years Foundation Stage Unit which means that children from 3 to 5 years old play and learn together. It is like a happy family in school, with the older children supporting the younger ones and modelling good learning behaviour.

Reception staff believe that it is important to inspire young children and support them in their adventures in the world and in learning. We regularly welcome in parents to share ways to support  and celebrate their child's development and learning, sharing songs, poems and learning at drop in sessions and community afternoons with a subject focus (for example maths, reading, writing or oracy). We have weekly Welly Time sessions to help children to have mini adventures and believe going on trips outside of class is vital to give children a wider, shared experience of the world.

In Reception we love to learn. We do this in different ways. When the year begins we do lots of learning through play and the staff listen to and support our learning conversations. Once we are settled, after a couple of weeks, we start to do some adult led learning for example learning phonic sounds and early maths. As time goes on we do more adult led learning but learning through play continues to be a large and important part of our day. We have high expectations of ourselves and always put our best effort into our learning.

Learning to work and play with others is a vital part of each day and we learn simple techniques to regulate our emotions and manage the emotional challenges that we meet. Children enjoy stimulating activities such as catching and observing newts, joining in the Big Birdwatch citizen science, having themed dress up days and learning in and about nature. Through the RE and PSE Curriculum (Jigsaw) children are encouraged to reflect on pertinent questions for example, How are we the same? and How do our differences make us special? We share the school vision and focus on a key aspect of this  each half term:

collaboration

curiosity

respect

trust

courage

love

We work hard as a staff to model and recognise each value as it is reflected in the children's daily adventures and we are proud of the enthusiasm that is generated in the children as they eagerly plan their learning adventures each day.

As part of our Christian distinctiveness we enjoy weekly class worship and by the end of the year we are joining the whole school for celebration worship. We strive to help children in our care recognise their individual strengths, such as being a caring friend, an imaginative inventor or an inspiration to others to follow pathways of fascination or curiosity. In this way children are able to shine their light on others as they grow in confidence within our early years community.

For more information about our EYFS, please follow the link below to our EYFS Handbook for parents:

St Sidwell's EYFS Handbook for parents

Please keep a close eye on our Dojo page (only open to family members) to see what Reception have been up to in school. We will update the website page at the end of each half term.