A warm welcome to Catkin Class.
As the new academic year approaches, everyone at Slindon Church of England Primary School is excited to welcome twelve new Reception children to our growing school family. The new reception children will spend the first few weeks in school getting to know each other, learning new routines, and most importantly will spend time exploring their new classroom and outside area. There will also be plenty of opportunities for the children to further explore our beautiful school grounds and to meet lots more members of our school community.
Our class topic for the first half of the Autumn Term will be 'All About Me!’ This topic will offer a wealth of opportunities for the children to explore their own life experiences and those of their peers. There will be opportunities to engage in mini topics about our homes, our bodies and the people who help us. For more information about the learning intentions for this topic and how they link to the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum, please take a look at the ‘All About Me! Topic Web’ available to download on this webpage.
Phonics Shed
This term we will be introducing daily Phonics Shed sessions. This interactive Phonics Programme is narrative driven and employs a multi-sensory approach to the teaching of phonics. This includes the use of songs, rhymes, actions, puppets and is supported with a web based platform of interactive games for your child to enjoy.
We will be focusing in the first half of the autumn term on teaching the Chapter 2, Set 1 – 4 sounds. The children will be learning the corresponding graphemes to these sounds and will also learn to recognise and write the corresponding capital letters. The children will also be introduced to an initial set of high frequency words. More information in regards to the Phonics Shed scheme will be sent home in due course.
Home Reading
Your child will bring home a reading book within the first few days of starting school. They have the opportunity to choose their own home reading books from a specified collection. These home reading books are linked to the sounds they are working on in their phonics lessons. Home reading is therefore a great opportunity for you to practice these sounds at home with your child. We would recommend that you take time to read with your child daily to support with fluency. Please sign your child’s reading record after each read to indicate that your child has read with you at home.
In school we will aim to read with your child individually at least twice a week. We would therefore ask that your child brings their book bag along with their reading book and reading record to school every day. We will change your child’s book every Tuesday and Friday.
You may notice a red heart sticker on some of the reading books that your child brings home. These have been added to books to indicate to the children that they may not be fully phonetically decodable at the child’s current reading level. Please be assured the children are free to choose one of these texts which we refer to in school as ‘Love for reading books’. If your child brings one of these books home they may just require a little extra support to decode some of the text. These books are ideal for parent / carers to share together to promote a love for reading!
PE Lessons
Our PE lessons will be on a Tuesday afternoon. We would therefore request that your child arrives dressed appropriately for PE every Tuesday. This includes ensuring that long hair is tied back and any earrings are removed or taped over.
If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to catch me on the playground at the end of the school day.
With best wishes,
Mrs Emmajane Merrett [Class Teacher]