Reception
Welcome to Marvellous Maple!
Our reception class is where the children take their first steps into the world of primary school. This a big step for them as well as for you as a parent so ensuring the smooth transition from nursery, preschool, childminder, or home for us is key to a good start for all.
We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum and have created a curriculum that is ambitious and designed to give children the knowledge, self-belief, and cultural capital that they need to succeed in life.
The children’s learning is underpinned by the Characteristics of Effective Learning, that is how children learn. These are Playing and Exploring, Active Learning and Creating and Thinking Critically. We cover 17 Early Learning Goals across the course of the year which come under the prime areas of learning; Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development, Communication and Language and the specific areas of learning: Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World, and Expressive Arts and Design. We try to follow the interests of the children and adapt our teaching to this. We build on the children’s point of entry and support them to secure strong foundations.
Communication and Language development involves children experiencing a language rich environment whilst developing their confidence and skills in expressing themselves.
Physical Development involves opportunities for young children to be active and interactive; and to develop their co-ordination, control, and movement. Children will be helped to understand the importance of physical activity, and to make healthy choices in relation to food.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development involves helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves, and others; to form positive relationships and develop respect for others; to develop social skills and learn how to manage their feelings.
Literacy involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Children will be given access to a wide range of reading materials including books, poems, and other written materials to ignite their interest.
Mathematics involves children developing and improving their skills in counting, understanding, and using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems; and to describe shapes, spaces, and measures.
Understanding The World involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology, and the environment.
Expressive Arts and Design involves children sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and technology.
Reading is an incredibly important part of our school curriculum. The enjoyment of sharing a book with the children and encouraging their interest and curiosity about stories, characters and books is paramount. Phonics is taught using The Ruth Miskin Read, Write Inc phonics scheme which teaches the children step by step, letter sounds and then how to blend for reading and sits alongside their learning to write the letter sounds, progressing to words and then sentences. The children have daily dedicated phonics sessions and as they progress, they will have decodable books to take home to read with you.