Merton Bank Primary School

Welcome to Reception Class

Our Reception Team

Teachers - Mrs Clay and Mrs Seymour

Teaching Assistants - Miss Arnold and Miss Johnston 

Our Early Years Reception classroom is a warm and welcoming learning space which promotes curiosity and an excitement to explore and discover, often through new experiences.  We quickly get to know each child’s unique personality and interests and design learning challenges matched to their developing skills.  

We encourage and support children to be independent, take risks and develop confidence and resilience.  We give our children lots of responsibilities and they challenge themselves to achieve their full potential! With support from teachers and family at home, the children work hard on their goals. 

Stories, books and reading are at the heart of what we do every day and children are supported to grow a love of reading, becoming confident and independent early readers by the end of Reception.  Mental health and well-being are high priority in Reception and we teach children how to identify and talk about their feelings, consider the feelings of others and resolve problems together.   We work hard to support the children to be happy and free from worry and anxieties.  We promote positive self-talk and resilience and guide children through any difficulties they face. In summer term we support children in preparing for their transition to Key Stage 1.

Children leave our early years with knowledge, skills and memories to draw upon in their next stage of their learning.  Our children have the curiosity, resilience, self-control, independence and creativity necessary to succeed.  They have developed respect for themselves and others, built strong positive relationships and know they are a valued member of our school community.

What do we learn?

Over the Reception year, children spend a lot of learning time outside, experiencing the changing seasons and learning how to respect and take care of our precious natural world.  They learn about similarities and differences between people in our community and the wider world and begin to understand about things that happen in the past, present and future.  They develop a solid understanding of the numbers 1-10, learn

how to read simple sentences and learn how to form letters correctly to write simple words in a sentence.  They learn how to ride balance bikes, climb, run and jump confidently and safely and all about healthy eating, good sleep routines and how to look after their teeth.  They make lots of new friendships and learn how to share, take turns and show respect and kindness to others. 

We recap on learning by using ‘retrieval and rewind techniques to support children in ‘knowing more and remembering more.’  We ensure learning builds on what has gone on before and have opportunities to apply new learn.  This supports learning going into the long-term memory, so that new facts are retained.

 Routine

Doors open 8:45am, registration closes at 8.55am.  Your child must be in school by 8.55am. The school day ends at 3:15pm.

Your Reception child will enter and leave school via the gate to the left of the main office.  Safeguarding is high priority at Merton Bank so please understand we may need to check if someone else is picking your child up.  Please always inform the office if someone new is collecting.  Thank you for your understanding with this.

PE

We have PE every Thursday.  Children in Reception Class do not need to wear PE kit in the first part of the Autumn Term however once children are settled, our PE kit is:

Black shorts / leggings / tracksuit bottoms,

White teeshirt,

School jumper or cardigan

Black pumps.   

Look at some of the wonderful learning experiences we have had in Autumn Term in Reception 2023. 

Birthday Baking

Pumpkin Inspired Art Projects 

History Enquiry: Same but Different 

Geography Enquiry: A Place Called Home

Seasonal Celebrations and Special Events 

Maths Adventures with Numbers to 5, Patterns and Shapes

Adventures into Space

Take a look at some of the exciting learning in Reception during Spring Term 2024.

The Big Garden Bird Watch

We have been learning to recognise, name and describe some common garden birds for the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch in January.  Our favourite garden birds are: Robin, Blue Tit, Blackbird, Woodpigeon and House Sparrow.  We made our own Book of Garden Birds to take home so we can teach other people how to recognise the birds in our gardens this Spring. 

Geography Enquiry: Polar Adventures 

Our Drawing Club stories 'Lost and Found', 'The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish' and 'Way Home for Wolf' have inspired lots of polar themed learning adventures and conversations.  We have used our own real-life experiences of ice, snow, melting and freezing to help us learn and understand more about life in the Arctic and Antarctic. 

Seasonal Celebrations: Lunar New Year

Birthday Baking: Polar Iceberg Cupcakes

Parents as Partners: National Storytelling Week - Storytelling Workshop 

As part of National Storytelling week, our children and parents enjoyed an afternoon in school together making storytelling props and small world scenes and retelling their favourite stories.  

History Enquiry: The Great Fire of London

The Little Red Hen story and setting up our own bakery led us to find out about the Great Fire of London and how it started in a bakery on Pudding Lane.  We used pictures and paintings and the diary of Samuel Pepys to learn about what happened during the Great Fire and compared this to firefighters today.  We learned about the landmarks in our captial city, London and used photos, paintings and drawings to compare how London looks now to how it looked in the past.

Geography Enquiry: Out and About 

We have been learning about places in our school grounds and local area and also about places in other parts of the United Kingdom.  We have made our own maps and also developed our geography skills using maps, atlases, globes and Google Earth to learn about the wider world. 

Science Enquiry: Seasonal changes - Spring and Lifecycles

We have been learning about lifecycles; how animals, birds and plants grow and change and what living things needs to be healthy and grow well.  We loved taking care of our fluffy, feathery friends and watching how they hatched from their eggs and changed over time.   

Constructing and Creating Castles

Our Drawing Club story 'Jack and the Beanstalk' led to the construction of lots of amazing castles!  We learned about real castles from around the world and had lots of fun designing our own!

Rainbow Challenge: Can you make a rainbow?

The children have shown lots of independence, courage, initiative, creativity and collaborative learning in tackling our weekly Rainbow Challenges this term.  Each week there are coloured challenges to complete during Adventure Time in all areas of our Learning Lab and if the children complete them all they have made their rainbow! 

Maths Adventures with Numbers to 10, Number Patterns, Length, Height, Weight, Shapes and Repeated Patterns

Take a look at some of the exciting learning in Reception during Summer Term 2024

Photographs to follow