Welcome to Reception
We are very excited to welcome you all to the start of your school life at St Augustine’s! This year is going to be filled with fun, lots of learning and new experiences.
The Reception Teachers are Mrs Towle and Mrs Jordan; and they are supported by our highly experienced Teaching Assistants, Mrs Beaven and Mrs Shorbagy.
Here you will find all the information you need about what we will be doing in Reception this term and throughout the academic year.
Remember, it is really important to be at school every day, on time and ready to learn.
PE/Forest School:
Our PE/Forest School day is on Friday. Children should come to school dressed in their PE kit on this day.
Reading at home:
Please read with your child each evening. This could be supporting them to read their Rhino Readers reading book; or sharing with them their school library book or a chosen book from home.
Week commencing 9th February
RE: Next week, we will complete our unit on Baptism. We will look more closely at the symbols of Baptism and their meaning, in particular, water, oil, the Baptismal candle and the cross. We will be creating a 'Baptism Symbols' mat to help us remember the symbols and their significance in the Baptism ceremony.
Maths: We will be continuing work on our unit, 'Growing 6, 7, 8'. We will be exploring more deeply '1 more' and '1 less', working with numbers beyond 5. We will be investigating the composition of 6, 7 and 8, representing these larger numbers in different ways. And we will be 'making pairs', learning that a pair is two and arranging quantities into pairs, noticing that some quantities will have an odd one left over.
Phonics: We will learn the next two sounds, 'ear' and 'air'.
English: Next week, we will be celebrating 'Chinese New Year', and listening to the story of the race held by the Jade Emperor, to determine which twelve animals would represent the zodiac years. We will be choosing our favourite part of the story to draw and writing an accompanying caption or sentence using our phonic knowledge.
Week Commencing 2nd February
RE:
We will continue with our unit on Baptism. We will learn that at Baptism we are given a candle and this candle is lit from the Paschal candle in church. We will hopefully go over to St Austin’s Church to look at the Paschal candle and the Font.
Maths:
We will begin a new unit this week, ‘Growing 6,7 and 8’. The children will build on their learning of finding the numerals and quantities of 6, 7 and 8 by making their own representations. They will be encouraged to name their representations and to match numerals to these quantities. They will learn to represent up to 8 objects using a ten frame.
Phonics:
We’ll learn the next two sounds in Phase 3: ow and oi
English:
We will continue working with our focus text, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen. This week, the children will further develop their storytelling skills by retelling the story using their story map. Building on the new animals we introduced last week, we will now explore different settings and learn how to describe them using rich, descriptive language.
Special Reminders:
Week Commencing 26th January
RE:
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Maths:
We will begin a new unit this week looking at mass and capacity. The children will be involved in lots of practical activities exploring and comparing mass and capacity. They will be using balance scales and containers of various sizes as part of this exploration. They will enjoy tackling problems involving prediction and discussion of comparisons of weight or capacity, paying attention to fairness and accuracy. They will become familiar with measuring tools in everyday experiences and play.
Phonics:
We’ll learn the next two sounds in Phase 3: or and ur
English:
Our new focus text is ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ by Michael Rosen. Through this familiar story the children will be able to join in with actions and words to help retell the story. They will create their own story maps to retell the story and begin to invent their own versions with new characters and settings.
Special Reminders:
Week commencing 19th January
RE: We will be starting our new unit, Baptism. We will learn that at Baptism, we are welcomed as members of God's family and we will explore our own experiences of being 'welcomed'. We will take part in a role-play of the Baptism ceremony and focus on the importance of the giving of a name at Baptism.
Maths: Next week, we will continue working on the unit 'Alive in 5', exploring 1 more, 1 less and the composition of numbers to 5. We will also be practising our conceptual subitising skills, playing a variety of games to help us notice and understand that larger numbers are made of combinations of smaller numbers.
Phonics: The next two sounds that we will be learning are long 'oo' (boot), short 'oo' (book), and 'ar'.
English: Following on from our work on 'The Runaway Chapatti', where the chapatti was chased by different jungle animals, we will be moving on to exploring the jungle and the animals that live there. We will be finding out lots of interesting facts about jungle animals and creating our own animal fact files.
Week Commencing 12th January
RE:
We will continue thinking about the Christmas story. We will be thinking about how a special baby was born in a lowly stable and who came to visit Baby Jesus. The children will know that the shepherds were the first visitors. We will think about a secial gift we would give to Baby Jesus.
Maths:
This week we will build on the understanding of numbers from zero to five. We will represent the numbers in many ways and in different practical contexts in order to embed understanding. The children will use both counting and subitising skills as a way of checking their representations. Later in the week we will think about 1 more and 1 less than given numbers.
Phonics:
We’ll learn the next two sounds in Phase 3: igh and oa
English:
Our new focus text is ‘The Runaway Chapatti’ by Susan Price. Through this story we will make links with other stories we already know – in particular ‘The Gingerbread Man’. We will create our own story maps to retell the story.
Special Reminders:
At Saint Augustine’s Primary School, our school rules are simple yet powerful: Be Ready, Be Respectful, Be Safe, and Be the Best You Can Be.
These school rules guide us in everything we do, helping us create a positive, caring, and inspiring learning environment.
Being ready means coming prepared to learn and try our best every day.
Being respectful reminds us to treat others with kindness and value everyone's contributions.
Being safe ensures that we look after ourselves and others, both inside and outside the classroom.
And striving to be the best we can be encourages us to aim high, work hard, and take pride in our achievements.
Together, these rules help us to grow into confident, compassionate, and capable individuals.