Reception

Welcome to Reception!

We are so excited to welcome all the new children to Reception and Daresbury Primary School and are looking forward to the exciting year ahead, where we will learn many new things.

Mrs Unsworth and Mrs Moore are here to support you and your child, so please feel free to grab us in the morning or send us a message via seesaw.

School Day Checklist:

• All uniform and PE kits are clearly labelled
• Wellingtons and, if possible, a puddle suit (to be kept in school for outdoor play)
• Labelled water bottles and school bottles are ideal as they do not leak.
• Book bags, ideally with a small key ring so that children can recognise them.
• Additional pants and socks were placed in PE bags and kept in school.
• Lunch, unless your child is ordering a hot lunch
• Snack unless your child is ordering toast. We suggest that snacks be placed inside book bags rather than lunch boxes as this can confuse children.
• Reading records and books to be in bags every day
• Library books returned on a Friday, ready to change on a Monday

Communication between school and home-Seesaw

Mrs Unsworth and Mrs Moore are here to support both the children and parents, and their primary form of communication this academic year is Seesaw. We are aware that most of you are new to Seesaw, so if you need any guidance on how to work the app, please do not hesitate to ask. If you need to send a message, please try to do this through the inbox tool on Seesaw. Although Seesaw is monitored continuously, we would ask that messages concerning attendance or picking up/collecting are done via the office, as we would hate to miss anything important. Mrs Unsworth and Mrs Moore have families at home, and although you work late into the evenings, please do not always expect a message to be returned outside of school hours of…

Rules, learning behaviours and rewards

Within our school, all children are taught to follow three key rules: always to be kind, safe and ready. Alongside this, we are developing children's ability to discuss their learning and helping them develop a language to discuss their learning. The children in school today are going to be facing considerable challenges in the wider world, and we are working with them to develop skills and attitudes that will help them be successful in the wider world. Daresbury’s Learning Behaviours are Collaborating, Active Listening, Showing Curiosity, Being Independent and Reflecting. We consistently give out pom poms (team points) to their teams when school rules and learning behaviours are demonstrated. We will also celebrate successes on a Friday within our whole school celebration assembly. Your child could be chosen for:

• Special Mentions
• Mathematician of the week
• Read of the week
• The Wall of Success

In addition to recognising achievements and positively reinforcing our school rules, we have systems in place for when our school rules, behaviour expectations and learning behaviours are not followed.

Step 1: a reminder of the rule that they have broken

Step 2: children will receive a verbal warning (this will be done 1:1 and not in front of others

Step 3: a 2-minute reflection time with an adult

Step 4: a 15-minute reflection with an adult. Parents will be informed, and the incident will be logged onto the school monitoring system.

Step 5: Follow up-repair and restore. Class teacher to discuss the behaviour with child/children and consider collaboratively how to repair the problem/behaviour best. For example, this could be completing work missed in their own time, like at break times.

Reading expectations and Reading diaries

Homework

All children are expected to read every night or at least three times per week. Alongside this, to begin with, Reception homework includes:

Autumn 1: Weekly practice of new letter sounds. These will be put onto Seesaw on a Monday)

As the year progresses, homework may increase and include elements of the Maths and further EYFS curriculum. We will continually assess this individually and communicate this with you in line with your child’s progress.

You will receive a half–term update about your child’s reading progress via SEESAW, and when possible, we will write in the diaries if your child has been listened to. In every phonic session, each child will have the opportunity to read.

PE

Reception children will have two sessions of PE a week. PE lessons for Reception will take place Tuesday afternoon with Mrs Unsworth and Thursday morning with Coach Craig and Mrs Unsworth. Alongside this, we have continued access to our outdoor play area, where the children can develop their physical development throughout the week.

Children are required to come into school wearing their PE kits on their PE days. We request the children to wear a school PE kit with a logo or a plain white T-shirt with plain black shorts/bottoms. We also have a school hoodie, which can be worn as a jumper on PE days as part of the PE Kit.

PPA

Every Thursday afternoon, Mrs Unsworth would be out of class to have time for planning, preparation and assessment. During this time, Reception will be taught Music and PHSE by Mrs Moore.

Academic planner

Please click the link to see the Reception classes academic planner for the first half-term. Our first topic is All About Me, so please look at what your child will be learning about.

​​​Apps

We are often asked in school if we can recommend any apps. Below is a list of apps which we use in school to support learning:

• Doodle Budd
• Toca Boca apps
• Beebot
• Pocket phonics
• Sparkle Paint
• Hickory dickory dock
• Bugs and numbers
• Reading eggs
• Hairy letters
• Teach your monster to read