The Reception Team

RB

Miss Brunt

RC

Mrs Carby - Monday to Thursday

Miss Burton - Friday

The teaching assistants will swap between both classes each half term.

Ms Alizadeh Ms Brennan

General Reminders

Water Bottles, Wellies, Book Bags and PE kits
Please could you ensure that your child brings a named water bottle to school every day.

We also ask that you bring in a pair of wellies, which will be kept in school, from your child's first week so they can access our outdoor learning environment.

To help your child carry important letters and shared/guided reading books, they need to bring a St Peter's school book bag to school and not a backpack. We have limited space in our cloakrooms but each child has a designated tray for their book bag.

PE lessons kits must be kept in school on your child's peg.

Important Dates:

Please note dates may change so keep a check on this web page.

• Thursday 17th September - Meet the Teacher - 9.00am - 9.30am - Infant Hall
• Friday 25th September - Wear Green for Macmillan
• Tuesday 6th October - 5 minutes slots released on Arbor
• Tuesday 13th October - Phonics Workshop - RC 9.05am-10.30am - RB 1.30pm-3.00pm
• Thursday 22nd September - Break up for Half term
• Friday 23rd September - Teach Training Day
• Monday 26th to Friday 30th October - Half Term

Our topic for this term is:

All About Me

Religious Education

At St Peter's we use Jack in the Box which is a children’s Bible story resources designed for Early Years. It features Jack, a lovable Labrador puppet, who helps the children learn about the Big Bible Heroes of the Old Testament and the significance of Jesus' love for the world. We sit for worship time every week and use interactive stories and activities which encourage the children t explore and reflect on biblical themes. This term our stories are:

• Abraham and the promise of Isaac
• Moses and the burning bush
• Moses crosses the Red sea
• God sends Manna to Moses and the people
• Moses obeys
• Gideon is courageous
• David Prays and sings to God
• David is chosen as King
• David stands up to Goliath
• David and Johnathan
• Waiting for Jesus
• Gods son is born
• Angels bring good new to Shepherds
• The wise men visit Jesus

Phonics

This half term we will start Phase 1 Phonics. This is the foundational stage of the phonics teaching program, focusing on developing children's speaking and listening skills. It lays the groundwork for phonic work that begins in Phase 2. The program is divided into seven aspects, each containing three strands: Tuning in to sounds, Listening and remembering sounds, and Talking about sounds. Our activities are designed to help children listen attentively, enlarge their vocabulary, speak confidently, discriminate phonemes, reproduce audibly the phonemes they hear, and use sound-talk to segment words into phonemes. These activities are intended to continue throughout the following phases, as children need regular practice to become confident in their phonic knowledge and skills.

At St Peter's we follow Supersonic Phonic Friends. It is an education initiative created by phonics and early reading experts Anna Lucas and Emma Carey. The program employs a fully systematic synthetic phonics approach, which is designed to build children's confidence in reading and writing by developing their phonetic knowledge and skills. It's key features are engaging characters, structured lessons and a focus on speaking and listening.

Literacy

In autumn we start work on our first spine book 'Rosie's Walk' by Pat Hutchins. We have linked out literacy learning to our Expressive Art and Design topic about different types of lines. The children will draw story maps and order the story using pictures as well as writing initial sounds for familiar characters and objects in the story. Later on in the term the children will learn the traditional tale 'The Little Red Hen'. The will memorise the story using a story map and talk for writing and will act out the story as a class. When the children are confidently retelling the story we will support them to write initial sounds and cvc words. Linked to the story the children will then learn to follow a recipe and with support will order instructions.

Mathematics

We use White Rose Maths which is an initiative designed to enhance mathematics teaching and learning. It emphasises a comprehensive understanding of mathematical concepts rather than just rote learning, focusing on mastery and problem-solving skills. The program is into manageable steps, ensuring that children build a strong foundation before moving on to more complex topics. This autumn our topics are:

Match, sort, compare - recognising and grouping similarities/differences

Talk about measure and patterns - understanding size, patterns and language

It's me 1,2,3 - early counting to 3

Circles and triangles - introduction to 2D shape

1,2,3,4,5 - counting, subitising, more, less and composition

Shapes with 4 sides - exploring quadrilaterals and shape attributes

Understanding the World

This term we will be teaching the children how to draw and follow simple maps. We will link it to our Spine Book Rosie's Walk. The children will pretend to be Rosie and the fox and they will learn to use prepositions correctly when in conversations with each other.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

As a school we use SCARF which is a whole-school approach supporting primary schools in promoting positive behaviour, mental health, well-being, resilience and achievement. More than just a PSHE scheme of work, SCARF supports great learning every day. SCARF represents our values for children of Safety, Caring, Achievement, Resilience and Friendship.

This term we will be covering:

• Class and garden rules
• All about me
• What makes me special
• Me and my special people
• who can help me
• My feelings
• I'm special, you're special
• Same and different
• Same and different families
• Same and different homes
• I am caring
• I am a friend
• What's safe to go onto my body

Physical Development

This term in 'Get Set for P.E' the children will be eased into structured PE through a 'fantasy and adventure' theme. This unit focuses on foundational elements for a PE lesson - finding space, freezing on command, sharing equipment and working individually, with a partner, and in groups. Core movement skills are introduced such as running, jumping and skipping and introduced.

Expressive Arts and Design

We will start the school year by learning about the famous author and illustrator Pat Hutchins. The children explore a range of Pat Hutchins books and illustrations to see if they can notice any similarities and differences. We will focus on a couple of pages and ask the children to draw the patterns and lines they can see.

The children will move on to investigating different lines and producing lines of different thickness and tone using a pencil. We will teach the children how different textures are created using lines for the character’s fur and feathers. Children to have a go at re-creating the fur and feathers using a variety of drawing tools – graphic tools, hands, chalk, pens and pencils.

Children to draw their own versions of the illustrations in a Pat Hutchins story or use templates to create their own piece of work. Children to have access to a range of different surfaces and coloured paper.

Make sure you check out our Art and DT page to see what we've been up to.

In fortnightly guided drawing sessions, the teacher will model a variety of techniques and tools linked to the skills the children have been learning in their EAD lessons.

Also, every week the children will take part in a music lesson. They start by learning different songs and thinking about their breathing techniques. Within this the children are taught about pitch, tempo, pulse and rhythm. They also have the opportunity to play the glockenspiel.