We hope that you had a lovely Easter break. Welcome to the fun, exciting and busy summer term. We’ll continue to work in partnership with you to ensure that your child’s final term in Reception is happy and memorable, while also ensuring your child’s readiness and confidence for their transition to Year 1.
Reading
Our goal is to create confident, fluent, independent readers. We prioritise reading at Latchmere School and have very carefully chosen the texts your child will study this term. We focus on word reading to develop fluency and encourage the whole class to join in through strategies such as choral reading (the whole class read together) and echo reading (the teacher models the reading and the class echo back). We also have the Latchmere Reading skills. In Reception these are based on decoding, prosody, comprehension and vocabulary.
In Reception, here are some of the texts we will be looking at in the summer term:
We will be continuing to embed the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds phonics programme. This involves daily teaching of phonics and three reading sessions per week for every child focussing on decoding, prosody and comprehension.
Please see the phonics page on the website for further information.
Maths
Our curriculum is based on the NCETM Mastering Number and White Rose Maths programmes. These research-based initiatives ensure that the skills and concepts children taught are fully embedded before moving on.
This half-term we will focus on:
- consolidating our counting skills, counting to larger numbers and developing a wider range of counting strategies counting on and back beyond 10
- exploring a range of representations of numbers, including the 10-frame, and see how doubles can be arranged in a 10-frame
- continuing to identify when sets can be subitised and when counting is necessary
- developing conceptual subitising skills including when using a rekenrek
- using shapes to make patterns, arrangements and new shapes and explore pattern rules
- describe position and explore mapping
Curriculum Highlights
This half-term, we will be learning about ‘Spring’, ‘Lifecycles’, ’Minibeasts’ ‘Growing’ and ‘Kings and Queens’.
You can find out more information about the summer 1 learning by looking at the Reception medium term plan on the website.
As you may be aware, we closely monitor the attendance of pupils at our school as there is clear evidence which shows the correlation between attainment and attendance and pupil well-being.
We believe working with families is very important, therefore when a child’s attendance falls below 94% we intervene quickly to work with parents to identify any barriers to regular school attendance and identify how we can support further.
We hope you have found this information helpful. We aim to keep parents as involved and informed as possible. Please do not hesitate to ask your child’s teacher or other members of the Reception team if you have a question.
Thank you in advance for all of your support in the term ahead.
Best wishes and thank you for your support
The Reception Team
Miss Davison and Miss Khiytani
Updates and reminders
Learning journeys - We hope you enjoyed looking at your child’s Learning Journey over the Easter break. Please can these be brought back into school by Friday 26th April so we can continue to add to them. You are, as always, invited to contribute to the Learning Journey by sharing your child’s “WOW” moments with us.
Named property - May we remind you to label ALL children’s clothing, snack pots and water bottles, etc with your child’s name.
Parent Readers/Helpers – Thank you to all the parent readers who came in to read with the children last term. We look forward to more of you coming in this term.
Reading Records - With all the phonics skills that the children have gained in Reception, this term is a good opportunity for children to use that knowledge to experience a variety of texts. Please ensure that you are reading frequently with your child at home and recording your comments in their reading record.
Reading practice books – Please ensure these are brought into school everyday along with your child’s reading record and they are kept in a good condition. We recently have had books come back to school which have been damaged by leaking water bottles or snack pots. We recommend that you may like to use a plastic wallet to protect your child’s reading practice book and reading record.
Sports Day - Reception and KS1 Sports Day will be held on Tuesday 25th June. More information will be given nearer the time.
Class Assemblies – This term, Reception children are very excited to be creating and performing individual class assemblies, to which parents are invited. These take place in the Drama Hall at 9.30am.
Foxes class Thursday 2nd May
Owls class Thursday 9th May
Transition to Year 1 - The Reception team work hard to ensure each child experiences a smooth and successful transition to their new year group in September. This involves lots of appropriate discussion with the children and opportunities for them to become familiar with their new classrooms and teaching staff, where possible. In July, the children will spend the morning in their new Year 1 class with their new teacher. Further details will be sent out nearer the time.
Key dates
Thursday 2nd May 9.30am – Foxes assembly
Monday 6th May – Bank Holiday (May Day)
Thursday 9th May 9.30am – Owls assembly
Tuesday 25th June – Reception & KS1 Sports Day