Welcome to Reception - Early Years Foundation Stage
Mrs Cullum - Candytuft Class mcullum@gordon.greenwich.sch.uk
Mrs Beattie - Bluebell Class mbeattie@gordon.greenwich.sch.uk
In Early Years, we have created a happy, secure and stimulating environment in which the children can develop as unique individuals and where they develop emotional, social and academic skills needed to become independent, motivated learners and responsible members of the community.
Learning takes place both inside and outside the classroom. We also have a Forest School site where the children develop their awareness of nature, the environment and skills such as collaboration and enquiry.
The Early Years curriculum is designed to meet the needs of the youngest children in our school. Delivery of the curriculum is led through adult-led activities that introduce new skills and extend learning. There are also planned purposeful play opportunities and enhancement of provision, where adults observe and intervene with higher ordering questioning and engagement to extend the learning taking place.
Communication with parents is a strength in Early Years. We communicate with the parents on a daily basis and use an online platform called ‘Interactive Learning Diary’ which enables us to inform parents of their child’s weekly learning through observations, photos and videos. It also allows the parents to contribute to their child’s learning as we are all instrumental in ensuring that our children’s development is outstanding.
Summer Term 2025 Learning
This term, we have many exciting things planned under our topics of 'Life Cycles/Growing' and 'Wonderful World'. Some of the texts which support these topics are: Titch, Ten Little Seeds, Once there were Giants, On my Way Home, What the Ladybird Heard, The Hungry Caterpillar, Jack and the Beanstalk, Caterpillars and Butterflies, and The Snail and the Whale
In Communication, Language and Literacy, the children will:
- Be proactive in seeking adult support and able to articulate their wants and needs.
- Extend vocabulary: blossom, buds, bulb, evergreen, deciduous.
- Use correct terms e.g. chrysalis, pupa when observing the life cycle of butterflies and ladybirds.
- Hold conversations when engaged in back-and-forth exchanges with their teachers and peers.
- Express their ideas and feelings about their experiences using full sentences, including the use of past and present and future tenses and making use of conjunctions, with modelling and support from their teacher.
- Be able to recall and discuss stories or information that has been read to them, or they have read themselves.
- Listen and respond to ideas expressed by others in conversation or discussion.
- Understand questions such as who; why; when; where and how.
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In Personal, Social and Emotional Development, the children will:
- Describe their competencies, what they can do well and are getting better at describing themselves in positive but realistic terms.
- Be increasingly socially skilled and take steps to resolve conflicts with other children by negotiating and finding a compromise; sometimes by themselves, sometimes with support.
- Recognise that they belong to different communities and social groups and communicate freely about their own home and community.
- Attempt to repair a relationship or situation where they have caused upset and understand how their actions impact other people.
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In Physical Development, the children will:
- Develop and refine a range of ball skills including: throwing, catching, kicking, batting and aiming.
- Watch and talk about dance and performance art, expressing their feelings and responses.
- Negotiate space and obstacles safely, with consideration for themselves and others.
- Demonstrates strength, balance and coordination when playing.
- Move energetically, such as running, jumping, dancing, hopping, skipping and climbing.
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In Literacy, the children will
- Read some letter groups that each represent one sound and say sounds for them.
- Read simple phrases and sentences made up of words with known letter-sound correspondences and a few exception words.
- Describe main story settings, events and principal characters in increasing detail.
- Give explanations of why events happened in a story.
- Be able to recall and discuss stories or information that has been read to them, or they have read themselves.
- Write short sentences with words with known sound-letter correspondences using a capital letter and full stop.
- Write sentences, sequencing them to form short narratives.
- Re-read what they have written to check if it makes sense.
- Form lower-case letters in the correct direction, starting and finishing in the right place.
- Form capital letters.
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In Maths, the children will:
- Have a deep understanding of numbers to 10, including the composition of each number.
- Subitise (recognise quantities without counting) up to 5.
- Automatically recall (without reference to rhymes, counting or other aids) number bonds up to 5 (including subtraction facts) and some number bonds to 10, including double facts.
- Verbally count beyond 20, recognising the pattern of the counting system.
- Compare quantities of up to 10 in different contexts, recognising when one quantity is greater than, less than or the same as the other quantity.
- Explore and represent patterns within numbers up to 10, including evens and odds, double facts and how quantities can be distributed equally.
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In Understanding the World, the children will:
- Understand the effect of changing seasons on the natural world around them.
- Have some understanding of growth and change.
- Compare and contrast characters from stories, including figures from the past.
- Talk about past and present events in their own life and in the lives of family members.
- Describe their immediate environment using knowledge from observation, discussion, stories, non-fiction texts and maps.
- Explain some similarities and differences between life in this country and other countries, drawing on knowledge from stories, non-fiction texts and maps.
- Explore the natural world around them, making observations and drawing pictures of animals and plants.
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In Expressive Arts and Design, the children will:
- Respond imaginatively to artworks and objects.
- Explore, use & refine a variety of artistic effects to express their ideas and feelings.
- Express and communicate working theories, feelings and understandings.
- Sing a range of well-known nursery rhymes and songs.
- Perform songs, rhymes, poems and stories with others and, when appropriate, try to move in time with music.
Additionally, in Music lessons this term, we will start by exploring pitch through our topic ‘Climb, Buzz, Wriggle’.
- The children will use movement and songs to explore sounds that move between high and low.
- The children will experiment with different tuned percussion instruments and play musical games.
- The children will explore timbre, looking at different instruments and their sounds. They will match instruments and vocal sounds to characteristics of sea creatures and play sea sound effects on percussion instruments. They will listen to a range of sea-related pieces of music and respond with movement.
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General Information
Reminders:
- Your child should read or be read to for 10 minutes every day. Please talk to your child about the book and check their understanding by asking questions about events and the characters’ actions. Please also explain new or unfamiliar vocabulary. Their bookbag should come into school every day.
- Your child needs to bring in a named water bottle every day.
- Please name all items of clothing.
- We are a Healthy School. Please do not put sweets or chocolate bars in your child’s packed lunch. Please do not send in sweets or other treats when it is your child’s birthday. If you want to celebrate your child’s birthday with their classmates, you could buy the class a book, send in a healthy snack such as boxes of raisins or buy stationery such as pencils, but due to the impact on the environment, we ask you not to send in plastic toys.
- The weekly 50p donation that purchases snacks and other miscellaneous items is collected on a Friday morning. You are welcome to pay weekly, half-termly or termly.
- If your child is absent from school, please contact the school office: 020 8850 5486 and leave a message detailing why your child is absent. If your child has had an upset stomach, they can return to school when they are better.
- Please try to book medical appointments outside the school day and note that family holidays will not be authorised.
- If you have any questions or wish to raise a concern, please contact the class teacher in the first instance. Please use the email addresses above.
Diary Dates
Please see the school calendar and weekly newsletters for information about events for Reception.