Welcome to Reception Class at St Hugh’s Catholic Primary School. We aim to provide an enabling environment in which all children learn and develop well, with teaching and support from all adults. Every child is unique and has their own interests and needs, we support each child to build positive relationships and develop the confidence and resilience to become active learners.

Please see the following booklet for children who will be starting with us this year, Reception Booklet

Who’s who in Reception?

Mrs S Baddeley - Class Teacher
Miss T Newport - Learning Support Assistant
Miss E Prince - Learning Support Assistant

Please click the following links for more information about, Learning and Development within EYFS

Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum

When creating the curriculum our emphasis is on developing each child’s communication and language skills, building and extending vocabulary and early reading. All of which will enable children to access and explore all areas of the curriculum and develop a life-long love of reading.

Please click on the following links for more information.

Autumn 1 2024

Phonics in EYFS

The children begin the process of learning to read and write in Reception using Read Write Inc.

The children learn to:

• read accurately and fluently with good comprehension
• form each letter, spell correctly, and compose their ideas step-by-step.

Firstly, they begin the process of learning one way to read the 40+ sounds and blend them into words. Then they begin to learn to read the same sounds with alternative graphemes. They experience success from the very beginning. Reading books are closely matched to the children’s increasing knowledge of phonics and ‘tricky’ words. As children re-read the stories, their fluency increases. When the children are ready, they are encouraged to take home the phonics books they have been reading in school to practise and consolidate their reading and phonics skills. You will be given more information about this at the appropriate time.

During Read, Write Inc. lessons, the children are also taught to write letters and simple words early on and build on their success. They write every day, rehearsing out loud what they want to write, and composing sentence by sentence, until they are confident enough to write independently. They use their knowledge of the alphabetic code and the ‘tricky’ words they have learnt. They practise handwriting every day: sitting at a table comfortably, learning correct letter formation and joining letters speedily and legibly.

Read, Write Inc. is taught daily throughout EYFS. Children are grouped according to ability and taught by a trained adult. The children are assessed every half-term and groups are re-arranged to ensure they are always making progress relative to their ability. Any child falling behind is given intensive support to ensure they catch up as rapidly as possible.

You can help your child at home with reading by:

• reading daily to and with your child
• making story time a fun and relaxing activity
• re-reading familiar books in addition to introducing new stories
• talking to the children about the stories
• showing the children that you like to read too
• following any advice given to you by your child’s teacher

For more information please click the following link Parents Phonics booklet

How to help your child

Fun activities that you do with your child at home are important in supporting their learning and development, and can have a really long lasting effect on your child’s learning as they progress through school. Even when your child is very young and not yet able to talk, talking to them, helps them to learn and understand new words and ideas. Making the time every day to do some of the following things with your child will make a real difference:

 - Sing songs and nursery rhymes
 - Count together e.g. count stairs
 - Cook/bake together
 - Explore the park
 - Talk to your child
 - Talk about what you can see when going to the shops.

Listening to stories is crucial to your child’s language and vocabulary development. It will help them to develop a lifelong love of books. Click on the following links to some stories your child can listen to.

Jackanory Junior

Storyteller videos: Traditional Tales

Toxteth Library

We really enjoyed our visit to our local library. We explored the different variety of books with support from our adults and then listened to a story altogether.

Some of our Reception children joined the library and were very pleased to show their new library cards. Now they can borrow books to share at home with their adults

Our first half term

Our first half term in Reception Class has been full of excitement! We’ve loved exploring our new classroom, both indoors and outdoors. We have really enjoyed playing with sand and water, painting, and using chalk to create colorful drawings. We’ve also started taking books home to read with our grown-ups, sharing wonderful stories together.

Reception and Year 1 parents have been learning about phonics and how they can support their children at home to develop early reading skills. Mrs Flood (Head of School) demonstrated some of the resources and explained how phonics is taught at St. Hugh’s using Read Write Inc. (RWI). Mrs Baddeley also taught a small part of a phonics lesson to the parents so they could see how much fun the children have while learning to read!

 

We enjoyed a lovely day at the beach in New Brighton. We paddled in the water and then used our buckets and spades to dig holes and build sandcastles.

We also explored floating and sinking. Then using the shells everyone had collected we wrote a message on the sand. After eating our packed lunches, two police officers came to chat with us and everyone took turns on their quad bikes. Finally, we had ice-creams before returning to school on the coach, tired but happy.