Reception - Sparrows
Mrs Packer (every day), Mrs Jew (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday) and Mrs Cox (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) are the teachers in Reception. They work alongside Miss Hollingworth, Miss Trow and Mrs Jones who are the teaching assistants.
Our classroom is a lovely, large room, full of exciting and ever changing areas and learning opportunities. We also have a large outdoor area, a nature garden and pond.
Reception is a happy, exciting and busy place to be. Independence is promoted in both self-help skills and learning development. The children are given the opportunity to develop their skills and knowledge in a wide variety of areas through captivating, topic themed learning opportunities (activities) in their 'Continuing On Our Learning' (COOL) time. The adults in the room support the children in extending their learning through questioning and providing further challenges. This is accompanied by high quality teaching and small group focus tasks.
We have weekly outdoor learning sessions in our on site forest school area, which is great for camp fires, tree climbing and 'cooking' in the mud kitchen! We also have indoor PE session, in addition to use of the school trim trail. The fun and learning never stops!
At Offmore, we love reading and Reception is the time when children begin their journey into the wonderful world of reading. Offmore teaches the Letters and Sounds phonics scheme. Sounds taught are embedded through a myriad of activities in school as well as home learning. Phonics learning moves through segmenting and blending sounds to read words alongside learning high frequency words on sight.
Reading is intrinsic to everything we do. There are, therefore, opportunities for the children to develop both their phonics skills and their love of reading in all areas of the classroom. Offmore also promotes reading at home. Children are able to choose a story book and decodable phonics books to take home and share. Reading at home supports children in becoming enthusiastic, independent readers. Our expectation is that stories should be shared at home a minimum of three times a week. Each week, children who read a a minimum of three times a week at home. Those children that do, get their name put into a hat to get picked for a prize.
Key information
Routines
Book bags and diaries need to be in on Wednesday for their books to be changed.
Please remember we have PE on Wednesday so make sure you come in your PE kit ready to get active.
Forest School is every Thursday – We provide waterproof overalls for all children. We have a welly trolley, so they can keep their wellies at school. Your child will use their wellies anytime, not just on Thursdays.
Learning Powers
At Offmore we believe in giving our children the skills they need to be enthusiastic, positive and successful learners.
The children can also earn points for using their learning powers. These include:
Busy Bee power- given for active learning, such as being focused.
Unicorn powers are given for playing and exploring, using a 'can do' approach.
Magnifying powers are given for creating and thinking critically, such as using learning walls independently to further own understanding.
Early Reading
In Reception we have daily Phonics sessions. We love it when Flump joins us and challenges us, such as segmenting and blending words or reading tricky words on sight. We always have our good sitting, good listening and good looking when learning with Flump. Our activities are based on Phase 2, 3 and 4 phonics.
We also have guided reading sessions where the children develop their reading skills, putting into practise what they have learnt in phonics sessions. individual reading is an integral part of children developing their confidence and fluency, and having a love for reading.
Each child has a reading diary. Every week they get to choose a book to take home and share. In addition to this, they have a schemed book to develop their reading strategies . When at home we would like you to share a story at least 3 times a week and write it in their diary, we would also love a little comment on what you did, maybe their favourite part or what they said. Each week, children who read a a minimum of three times a week at home. Those children that do, get their name put into a hat to get picked for a prize.
If you would like to hear how the sounds we teach are pronounced here is a video showing you.
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Our Topic
Click below to see what we are learning about:
Early Years- What are your children learning?
Photos of our learning environment and amazing work: