Welcome to Warren Mead Reception

Reception

 

Welcome to Warren Mead Reception

 

Vision for EYFS

We believe that all children in Early Years are at the start of their Warren Mead learning journey and need strong foundations, academically, socially and emotionally, from which to build on to be prepared for the rest of their journey through school.

 

We know that experiences in the early years have a major impact on future life chances. Our holistic approach will provide children with the knowledge, skills and abilities to make sense of their world. This will establish a real love and thirst for learning which will enable the children to reach their potential and become successful, confident lifelong learners. 

 

We firmly believe that children need to be provided with the opportunity to not only develop in all areas of the Foundation Stage, but to flourish in them, both indoors and outdoors. This needs to happen in a safe and highly engaging environment where children can learn, practice and succeed, through practical, play-based learning experiences supported by experienced practitioners.

 

Warren Mead Early Years provision is committed to giving our children the best possible start to their school life to ensure that they become resilient, aspirational learners and considerate individuals who are proud of themselves every day.

 

Warren Mead has three classes in Reception; Robins, Squirrels and Moles. All classes have a full time Learning Assistant who support the children and their learning throughout the school day. The Reception classes and staff are listed below:

 

Reception	Robins Class		Teacher;  Mrs D McHugh   Learning Assistant;  Miss K Johnson
Reception	Squirrels Class		Teacher;  Miss K Trease   Learning Assistant; Miss K Clinton
Reception	Moles Class		Teacher;  Miss J Lambart   Learning Assistant;  Mrs M Moore

 

All three classes share a large zoned indoor and outdoor learning environment which they can access independently.

 

A typical day in Reception is structured this way:

8.40 Self registration, planned activities

9.10 Phonics teaching session

9.50 Free flow play – children can move freely between the indoor and outdoor areas

11.30 English teaching session

12.00 Lunch

1.00 Maths teaching session

1.30 Free flow play – children can move freely between the indoor and outdoor areas

2.40 Story time

3.00 Home

 

In the Reception we follow several methods of teaching.

 

Maths

In Mathematics, we follow an adapted version of the White Rose Maths scheme. This breaks the curriculum into manageable ‘small steps’ with each one focussing on one key concept. Each lesson is carefully designed to identify the new mathematics to be taught and carefully sequences a journey through the learning.  Children are taught through whole-class and small group interactive teaching, where the focus is on all pupils working together on the same lesson content at the same time.  This ensures that all can master concepts before moving to the next part of the curriculum sequence.

 

Phonics

For our phonics teaching we use the Read Write Inc. (RWI) programme.  In RWI lessons children learn to read accurately and fluently with good comprehension.  They learn to form each letter, spell correctly and compose their ideas step-by-step.

 

Throughout the programme, children learn the English alphabetic code: the 150+ graphemes that represent 44 speech sounds.  They rapidly learn sounds and the letter, or groups of letters, they need to represent them in three sets of Speed Sounds lessons.  Simple and enjoyable mnemonics help all children to grasp the letter-sound correspondence quickly.  This learning is taught and consolidated every day.  High frequency words that are not phonically regular are taught as Red Words and are practised frequently.

 

Phonics books are closely matched to children’s increasing knowledge of phonics and red words so that early on they experience plenty of success.  Re-reading the same book helps children to become confident readers. Each time they re-read, they build their fluency/speed and comprehension.  They love reading and want to read because they can read all the words in the book.

 

We set a focus for each re-read in school. The first read focuses on reading every word accurately. The second on reading the story more quickly. The third read on comprehension - understanding what they read. Then your child brings the same book home to read and enjoy with you again and again at home.

 

We do not send stories home the children cannot read because we always want them to be successful in their reading. We want to make sure they enjoy reading so that they want to read. The more they read, the faster progress they will make.

 

Writing

To enable children to become successful writers they need to have something to write about.  It is essential that we equip the children with the vocabulary and ideas to support these developing skills. We use Talk for Writing which encourages children to talk and share their ideas with others before committing their ideas to paper. In Reception we use visual story maps and decide on actions as a class to help us to remember what we are going to write.  We believe that writing should be purposeful, and activities are planned that are meaningful for the children (for example; shopping lists, signs, labels, instructions).  Opportunities for children to write independently are available in all areas of learning.  We also have weekly storytelling sessions called Helicopter Stories which enable the children to use new story vocabulary and ideas to tell and act out their own stories.  Our weekly poem from the Poetry Basket enables the children to understand the rhyme and rhythm of how words can sound. 

 

Other subjects

We are also fortunate to have specialist teachers that take the children for music and PE sessions every week.

 

In Reception, we have overarching topics which are used as a starting point for learning. The children’s interests are also considered and used when planning learning. The topics for Reception are;

 

Autumn 1	Autumn 2	Spring 1	Spring 2	Summer 1	Summer 2
All About Me	Where We Live	Fairy Tales	Growing & Changing	Superheroes	Around the World