Welcome to Class F – Autumn 2023
We hope you have all enjoyed a lovely Summer holidays and enjoyed what there was of the sun! We hope all your children are all ready to start whether this is their first time at Langtree, they are returning to Nursery or starting their journey as a Reception child! Within our setting we continue to have a big focus on learning through play and small group focus sessions to deepen understanding. All our leaning is practical based allowing children to use concrete objects to explore and expand their knowledge. At Langtree we encourage all our children to develop their skills to build relationships and become responsible, independent, resilient, collaborative and reflective in all they do. Our children are encouraged to accept mistakes as part of their learning journey and thrive when challenged. In Class F we use our ‘Characteristics of Effective Learning’ Dinosaurs to highlight this to the children and encourage them to think about skills they are demonstrating during their learning; that being ‘Playing and Exploring’, ‘Creating and thinking critically’ and ‘Active learning’. There will be a focus on one of these Characteristics each term, and a relevant leaflet will be sent home.
Our learning
This term we have the Class theme of ‘All about me’ in Autumn 1 and ‘People who help us’ in Autumn 2, whereby we will be exploring our ‘wider world’ and different ‘people and communities’. These topics shape the curriculum we provide for the children’s learning and development and are introduced at the beginning of the Term for children to contribute any questions they may want to learn about linked to this.
Class F will be exploring this theme through ‘All about me‘ (What makes me special, Where do we live (putting ‘me’ on the map/ comparing our setting to one in London) and ‘People Who Help Us’ (What are the roles of some of the people who help us/ How can we keep safe/ Who or where do we go if we need help). We will use a range of rich Fiction texts to create our own adapted story (using story mapping as a support), explore how adjectives are used to add descriptive detail to stories such as cops and robbers, and create our own Christmas letter to post. As well as learning about Harvest, we will also celebrate the Jewish festival of Sukkot as part of our learning of different cultures and religions .
OUR NEW EYFS STATUTORY FRAMEWORK 2021
From September 2021, all early years providers in England must follow the new early years foundation stage (EYFS) framework 2021 , Development Matters Non-Statutory Guidance 2021 and Non-Statutory Birthto5matters
The key aims of the reforms are to:
o improve child outcomes at age 5, particularly in early language and literacy, especially for disadvantaged children; and
o reduce workload, such as unnecessary paperwork, so that practitioners can spend more time interacting with the children in their care.
Literacy
As a school we will continue to use the Little Bug Club Phonics Teaching and Learning programme to support progress in reading and writing skills. All children will be encouraged to hold their pencil using the correct grip when mark making, and children will be shown how to form their letters correctly where appropriate. We will also support their development of reading by focusing on their skills for developing inference (predicting, clarifying, questioning, summarising), such as ‘how a character might be feeling or why a character may have carried out a particular action’. We provide a variety of reading opportunities every day in school and would appreciate your continued support reading with your child as often as possible. This can be through hearing your child read the books we send home, using and sharing books from the library or simply reading stories to them.
Nursery: This term we will continue to focus on Phase 1 phonics by encouraging children to go on nature walks to listen aurally for sounds within the environment. This will help support the children to practice their listening skills and will be vital for hearing individual sounds when we begin to aurally segment/blend later in the year.
Reception: We will begin by recapping their phase 1 phonics with some listening games before we begin to introduce Phase 2 sounds. We will be encouraging children to listen to the initial sounds in words, before we move on to spotting for ‘digraphs’ (2 letters – 1 sound) as the term progresses. We encourage this process in order for it to come naturally for fluent reading. This is a particularly important skill as the amount of digraphs and trigraphs (3 letters – 1 sound) increase into the spring term.
Mathematics:
Our aim is to provide your child with a deep conceptual understanding of mathematical concepts and to build a sense of enjoyment, awe and wonder for the subject.
Nursery: This term we will begin to look at Sorting by thinking about how we can ‘group’ different objects together by attributes, Comparing quantities using the language ‘more... less..’ ‘greater... smaller..’ which will support children in ‘estimating’, and Pattern by thinking about ‘ABAB’ and the units of repeat. We will explore this before we move on to consolidating the counting principles which form the basis for all mathematical understanding of number. The reason for this is in order to first give children the crucial skills to be able to see the ‘pattern’ in number, and encourage them to visually recognise that some numbers are bigger than others.
NCTEM: We use the NCTEM to support the planning of our maths lessons and the Progression documents for Comparison (https://www.ncetm.org.uk/media/wvqgcfqm/typical-progression-comparison.pdf), Pattern (https://www.ncetm.org.uk/media/5csbtyon/typical-progression-pattern.pdf) and for Counting (https://www.ncetm.org.uk/media/zpujdwv4/typical-progression-cardinality-and-counting.pdf) can be found here.
Reception: This term we will begin to focus on number in more in depth, beginning with the numbers 1-10. We will think about the relationship between these numbers and what the ‘oneness of one’ means. We will support children to explore different ways number can be represented using concrete resources as a support, and pictorial images such as ‘part-part whole models’ and ‘5s/10s frames’. We will teach the children how to use these different methods independently in order to progress them from the exposure they may have already had to these in Nursery at Langtree.
Numberblocks (https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/numberblocks)
In class we use Numberblocks to support a deep understanding of number. Related activities and games that will support your child with their understanding of number concepts can be found here.
Enrichment
This year we will have a class ‘big’ P.E, on Thursday afternoons for Autumn term - P.E. kits will be changed into in Class for lessons during this period. As we progress throughout the term there may be points where we will alternate and have Outdoor Learning during this slot whereby appropriate clothing such as Puddle suits or Wellies may be required, but we will let you know in advance if this is the case.
We continue to have a trolley for drinks in the classroom and will encourage your children to drink water often. Drink bottles can be refilled from water resources that we have in school.
Learning Journal
We aim to capture some ‘WOW’ moments of the children’s learning through photographs which we will share with you (parents/carers) via Tapestry, as they not only provide a record of their learning, but they are a fantastic memory of how your child spends their time in school. Along with other evidence from school and home, this provides us with a picture of your ‘unique child’ and how we can best facilitate their learning styles and interests.
Please post observations to Tapestry for any ‘WOW’ moments in your child’s learning at home too, as we also love to share these together in Class F!
Home Learning
Research has shown that Homework teaches children vital skills such as the developing independence, resilience and self-discipline. It also encourages children to take initiative and responsibility for completing a task. In Class F, in addition to reading together, there will sometimes be activities to support your child’s learning development at home which will be sent out on a Tuesday. This will allow you as parents/carers to have an active role in you children’s education and help you to evaluate their progress in partnership with the school.
Cultural Capital
‘Cultural Capital’ in Class F starts from a position of celebrating your children as ‘unique’ individuals. We aim to help and support the members of Class F to build the confidence and communication skills that are needed so that they can speak up for themselves and grasp the opportunities that await them. In addition, we appreciate and celebrate the cultural environment of our school in a rural setting in the South West of England but also plan for other experiences by celebrating festivals from other religions to teach about tolerance and diversity, preparing your children to be future citizens of England. This Term we will be looking at Sukkot, local Harvest and Christmas for example.
The happiness of the children in Class F is of upmost importance to us and we want every child in our class to feel safe, happy and secure. If you ever have any worries, questions or concerns, please do no hesitate to make an appointment to see us or call the office to speak to us. We will always work with you to ensure the happiness and well-being of your child.
Many thanks,
Miss Sophie Batstone (Class Teacher), Miss Jenny Symons (Class Teacher),
Miss Clare Heard (Early Years Practitioner), Miss Weeks (Early Years Practitioner), Miss Steph Bagley (Early Years Practitioner).