Welcome to Robin Class!

2023-2024 Class Information

Our teacher is Mrs Carroll.

Mrs Hanson, Mrs Lightfoot and Miss Culver also support the children with their learning.

PE

PE is on a Monday morning. The children need to bring their PE kits to school every Monday, starting on Monday 26th September and these will be returned home on a Friday.

Reading Expectations

Frequently sharing books with your child and talking about the main characters and sequence of events will support your child to develop their comprehension skills. Visiting the local library is a great way to find a wide variety of books that link to your child’s interests. Please ensure that you read with your child for at least ten minutes five times a week when they begin to bring books home following the school's reading scheme. After reading their phonic book, please record this in their reading diary including the date, the name of the book and a signature from the adult who has read with them. You may also want to comment on whether your child enjoyed the book, if they found it easy or difficult, or use it as an opportunity to ask your child’s class teacher a question. The number of reads will be counted up at the end of every week, so it is important the children have their reading diary and their books with them. Each week, the children in Robins and Wrens will be issued with a raffle ticket if they have read at home five times that week and one child will be selected from these raffle tickets from each class to become the Reader of the Week and receive a certificate for this. Whilst reading, please encourage your child to point carefully to each of the words as they read. Are they able to read the words from left to right using their phonic knowledge and are they able to recognise any words they know?

Letterjoin

Letterjoin is a great website to help the children practice their pre-cursive letter formation, and we encourage the children to access it. It can be accessed via any touchscreen device, and login details will be sent home shortly.

Numbots

Please support your child to interact and engage with Numbots on a weekly basis. Numbots will support the development of your child’s mathematical understanding and in particular their subitising skills. You will receive a login bookmark at parents evening, which will outline how you will be able to log onto Numbots.

All of the adults in Reception are very friendly and helpful in order to make sure that the children have the best start at The Round House Primary Academy. 

Welcome!

At The Round House Primary Academy, we have an 'open door policy'. We welcome you to discuss your child, their progress or any concerns you may have. We might not be able to talk to you straight away but we will endeavour to speak to you as soon as possible. You can also leave a message with the school office or send an e-mail to the school office who will pass it onto us - office@roundhouse.cambs.sch.uk

Our parents, carers and families are all part of the learning journey. The adults at school would like it very much if you could note down any moments which make you think WOW, either on a star moments observational star or by uploading an observation onto Tapestry. It is wonderful to find out what the children have been up to with you at home. Additional stars are available; just ask a member of the Reception team if you need any more copies of these. Please also look on the classroom door for the latest events and news. 

Every Friday the children will get a special treat, for example a disco or another fun activity, as long as they have made the right choices throughout the week. At the end of each term the children will also get to take part in a whole day of treats called Reward Day!

Reception Curriculum Overviews:

Promoting British Values in Reception:

Democracy:

Speaking and listening activities promote discussions.

Making decisions together.

Listening to each other’s opinions.

Turn taking, sharing and collaboration.

Individual Liberty:

Freedom for all.

Developing a positive sense of themselves.

We listen to every child through pupil voice.

Through our PSHE curriculum the children’s rights are promoted.

The children are encouraged to make the right choices about how they learn and how they behave.

Mutual Respect and Tolerance:

The classroom rules help children to understand how to share and look after each other.

The children learn about different cultures, faiths and religions. They are encouraged to show respect and tolerance for different people, faiths, cultures and languages.

The children study art and listen to music which reflects multicultural Britain.

The children celebrate special days and festivals throughout the year.

Rule of Law:

The children learn about their rights and responsibilities. They also learn about consequences of behavior and also learn to distinguish between right and wrong.

The children agree to abide by the rules and understand that these rules apply to everyone.

The Characteristics of Effective Learning:

The characteristics of effective learning are important learning behaviours that we support the children to develop throughout the reception year. They are split into three categories:

Playing and Exploring - Engagement:

Can I do this?

Active Learning - Motivation:

Do I want to do this?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/help-your-child-try-new-things

This is a useful website to explore the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, to find out more information about how to help your child to try new things at home and to develop a growth mindset. 

Creating and Thinking Critically - Thinking:

How do I do this? 

We can help children to become effective learners by playing with them, listening and responding to them, acting as a sound board, supporting them to pursue their own interests, inspiring them, modelling discovery learning and both guiding and supporting them (without taking over). 

Home Learning Tips and Advice:

Reading

When listening to your child read, encourage them to point to each word as they say them, to help them develop one to one correspondence. Encourage your child to use the pictures to help them if they are stuck on a word and help them to sound the word out using the phonemes they have been learning in phonics. Remember to use 'pure' sounds for each phoneme, avoiding adding on 'uh' after each sound. For example, 's' is pronounced 'ssss' rather than 'suh' and 'm' is pronounced 'mmm' rather than 'muh'. If your child takes a while to read a sentence, reread it back to them before moving on to the next page (whilst pointing to each word), so that the meaning of what they have read is not lost or forgotten. After reading, ask your child to retell the events of the story and answer some comprehension questions. If your child is not enjoying the book or is struggling, leave the activity and come back to it later. We want to develop a love of reading in our children, not for it to become a forced practice. Encourage your child to spot words on signs, around your house and in magazines, recipe books and newspapers. When you are reading a bedtime story, have your child spot and count all of the tricky words they can find, or have them search for a particular word on a page. 

Writing

When your child is completing a written task, e.g. writing a sentence, encourage them to first decide what they are going to write in full. Have them say this sentence out loud in their normal voice, a silly voice, a quiet voice and a loud voice. This repetition will help the order of the words stick in their mind when they come to writing it down. Remind your child that a sentence must begin with a capital letter and that they should use finger spaces, a full stop at the end of the sentence and to try and keep their writing as close to the line as possible. Finally, after writing the sentence, have your child read the sentence back to themselves, and to you, to check it makes sense. When your child is writing, allow them independence in sounding out words before writing them, and encourage them to use the phonemes and graphemes they have been learning in phonics. Even if their spelling of a word is not technically correct, if it is phonetically plausible, allow this. For example, 'yoonikorn' would be an excellent attempt at 'unicorn' and one that we would celebrate in Reception for the use of the phonemes. Finally, encourage your child to use the pre-cursive font (found on Letter Join) at all times, but without joining the letters. Using this font will help your child in the long run as the foundations of the cursive font expected of them in later years will be in place already.

Maths

In maths, the emphasis is on developing a solid understanding of number and pattern and less on writing down numerals and number sentences. The principle of 'concrete, pictorial, abstract' representations of number is key to developing this understanding, with children first creating a concrete representation of a number through building a tower or model using the specific number of bricks/counters. Next, the children would then be encouraged to draw the number, creating a pictorial representation of four rabbits/four flowers/four cars etc. Finally, and only once the first two steps were completed, would the children be asked to write the abstract representation, in this case the numeral. Maths Mastery methods are an excellent way of helping your child to develop a strong understanding of number and pattern, focusing on talking about number and pattern, explaining how something is known and how the child came to the answer they did. In all maths based activities, ask your child 'how do you know?' after they tell you an answer.

Weeks commencing 7th & 14th November

Wrens and Robins have had a busy couple of weeks learning about space. Last week we looked at the story ‘Whatever Next’ and the children thought of and wrote about the things they would take if they went to the moon like baby bear. This week we have looked at a non-fiction book about space and learnt the features, including the contents page, glossary, index and diagrams. The children wrote their own facts about space as well as made and painted a big set of planets, went on a ‘moon walk’ and landed on different shaped moon rocks and identified the shape after focussing on this in maths. It was too wet to go outside for forest school this week so the children painted with conkers and made their own conkers on a string instead.

Week commencing 17th October 2022

Phew! We made it to half term! We are extremely proud of all of the children for how amazingly they have settled in to school life. We have been particularly impressed this week by how polite the children have been, remembering to say their pleases and thank yous throughout the day, and particularly at lunchtime.  

This week we have continued to explore our topic of bears, which culminated in our teddy bears' picnic yersterday. We all really enjoyed this - particularly the making (and eating!) of our jam sandwiches! Photos to follow.  In literacy, we have been exploring rhyming words, through the exploration of some bear-themed poetry. In maths, we have been looking at positional language, and time sequencing. We have also been conducting phonics assessments, which has been really useful in identifying next steps for the children in their early reading and writing journeys. Please continue to support them over half term with their grapheme recognition and formation (a sheet is in their book bags to help with this). 

All that remains to say is that we hope you all have a lovely, restful and well-earned week off, and we look forward to seeing you all again on Tuesday 1st November!

Mrs Carroll & Mrs Lightfoot

Week commencing 19th September 2022

All of the Robins have settled so well into school life, and have been learning the rules of our school and classroom this week. We have been learning about feelings, through our exploration of the book ‘The Colour Monster.’ We have had lots of discussions around the importance of kindness, ways in which we can be kind to others, and the positive impact of this on ourselves and others. We have also been reading the book ‘Have you Filled a Bucket Today’ by Carol McCloud, which explores the idea that everyone has a happiness bucket, and that we can fill up other people’s buckets through our acts of kindness - when we do this, our own bucket fills up with good feelings too!

The children have also started their phonics sessions this week, and have learnt the grapheme (letter) - phoneme (sound) correspondences s, a, t, and p. They have enjoyed identifying different word beginning with these sounds, as well as beginning to orally blend sounds together to make words. We follow the Little Wandle phonics scheme, and there are some great parent resources available on the website.

In maths, the children have been practising their subitising. Subitising is the ability to look at a small number of objects and perceive how many there are without counting them individually. The children have really impressed me with their fantastic subitising skills!

The children have enjoyed staying for lunch this week. It would be really helpful if you could discuss with your child beforehand which option they will be having each day - this allows the children to develop their independence and confidence, as well as helping the morning register to go much more smoothly!

Well done to all of those who read with their child at least 5 times last week. We count up each child’s reads on a Friday, and those who have read at least 5 times will earn a raffle ticket to be entered into our weekly draw. We also give out a reader of the week certificate, as well as moving the children up our reading display based on how many times they have read!

Just a few reminders:

Please can you ensure that your child has the following in school with them each day:

- their book bag

- a named water bottle

- a waterproof coat or jacket (we are outside in all weathers!)

- a named pair of wellies (these can be left at school)

The children are provided with a fresh fruit or vegetable snack and milk each day, so it is not necessary to send your child in with a snack. Due to several serious food allergies within reception, we would be very grateful if you could avoid sending in any snacks from home, so we can ensure that the environment stays safe for these children.

Also just a quick reminder that the children will be starting PE tomorrow, so please ensure that they bring their kit into school with them.

Finally, I hope you have all had a lovely, restful weekend, and I look forward to more learning adventures with your wonderful Robins next week!

Week commencing 12th September 2022

What a brilliant first week the children have had! I am so proud of all my Robins for how fantastically well theyhave settled into their classroom! They have learned to come in and put their belongings away, find their spots on the carpet, and answer their name in the register. We have also talked about the rules of our classroom (‘be safe; be kind; be a good listener’) and why it is important that we all follow these rules. The children have done so well practising writing their names, and developing their counting skills in the maths area. They have also had lots of fun playing in the home corner (where they have made me lots of delicious cake and cups of tea and coffee!), discovering the lovely books in the book corner, exploring our outdoor area and creating self-portraits for our ‘Welcome to Reception’ display. The children also worked hard on creating their birthday cupcakes for our class birthday display - glitter was a popular addition to these! Well done Robin class - you are total superstars, and I can’t wait for more learning adventures with you next week!