Overview of Summer Term 

Welcome back and we hope that you had a restful and peaceful Easter break. We are gearing up for a busy and exciting term. Last term we were unable to complete our Space topic, so we shall be re-launching this topic during Summer term. As part of their learning, the children will be designing and creating a Supersonic Space Station and they will be exploring the Solar System. Please keep an eye out for  information about how you can further support your child’s learning at home as the term progresses. In the meantime, we will be grateful for junk modeling donations, particularly large plastic bottles and kitchen roll tubes. 

The children will continue to take home their reading and sound books and we thank you in advance for your continued support with reading at home with your child each night. In addition, they will also bring home monthly Maths challenges which can be completed over the given month. 

Overview of Spring Term

Welcome to 2021! As always, we look forward to our continued working in partnership with you as the children will bring home their reading and sounds books each day. The time that you spend reading with your child is invaluable and so important so thank you in advance for your continued support in this. 

We are hoping to launch our new topic: Space. These are a few of the activities that the children will be undertaking. They will be able to spend time in the Space Station role play area, develop their imaginative and social skills as they befriend an alien and begin to develop their understanding of the Solar System.   Please keep an eye out for  information about how you can further support your child’s learning at home as the term progresses. In the meantime, we will be grateful for junk modeling donations, particularly large plastic bottles and kitchen roll tubes. 

Nativity Song Practice!

This year, we are taking part in a virtual whole-school Nativity play that your families can watch with you at home at the end-of-term.

Nursery & Reception are performing 2 songs: 'Nativity Party' & 'Away in a Manger'.

Can you sing along and copy Miss Barker's actions at home?

Reception Reading Presentation: Monday 12th October

The children are so excited today because they are taking their reading records, sound books & home-school readers home for the very first time!

Due to COVID precautions, we unfortunately cannot invite parents into school to our usual Reading Parent Presentation.

Instead, please watch a recorded presentation by our EYFS Leader, Miss Barker. This presentation introduces you to Reception Home-School reading and how you can help your child at home.

There is also a PDF version of the presentation where you can click on the website links to watch YouTube videos of how to pronounce each Phonics sound taught & to watch the Jolly Phonics songs we use during Phonics carpet time!

Hello and welcome to St. Jude's class.  The class teacher is Miss Bailey and the Learning Support Assistants in our class are Miss Jeffrey and Miss Edwards. Although there are two separate Reception classes, we work as a whole team and share the indoor classrooms and Reception outdoor area during free flow learning time. Therefore,  children in Reception St. Jude will also learn alongside Miss Barker, Mrs. Higgins & Miss Walsh from Reception St. Peter's class. 

We are very lucky to have such wonderful learning environments. Within each classroom, and the outside area, there are carefully selected resources and activities available , which cover the  EYFS curriculum during child-initiated learning. There are writing and maths resources freely available, as well as  Book areas, a Puppet Theatre, a Home Corner,  Block Areas, a Role Play area, a Tinkering Table, a Creative area and Small World resources. These are adapted and enhanced continuously to reflect the children's needs and interests.  At lunchtime, we get to play in the big front playground. 

During the beginning of the Autumn term, we will be settling into Reception and getting to know our new friends and adults in our class. In Autumn 1 we cover the ‘Ourselves’ topic where we learn about each other and our families. After half term, we cover a topic chosen by the children before our Noel topic to prepare for Christmas. 

In RE, we start with ‘In the Beginning’ where we learn about the Creation story. After half term, we will learn about Our Mission Statement before covering our Advent to Christmas topic.

We will begin teaching Phase 2 Phonics sounds during Phonics time at the end of September when the children are fully settled. Reading homework will begin at the beginning of October: the children will bring home a Sound Book to practice the sound taught that day and will have pages to read in their reading book every night. Monthly Maths activities will be given at the start of every month for you to engage with practical Maths at home with your child. Please look out for a parent information session on how you can help your child at home early on in the Autumn term.   

Please keep checking this page for photos and information on what we have been getting up to in class this term. 

We have been reading Funnybones by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. St Jude are in complete agreement that this is an excellent story because it is very funny. Mia commented, "It is a little bit scary, but I liked it when Funnybones put the dog together and he got it it all wrong!" We did lots of different activities to help us with our learning. 

We cut out masks of our favourite characters and acted out different parts of the story. A popular choice was when the skeletons scared each other! After, we thought about all the bones in our body and realised how important they are. We took it in turns to draw around each other and wrote labels to remind us of all the different bones that we have. 

In St Jude, we like writing on big sheets of paper. Aahil, Elijah and Ellis  were very busy drawing illustrations and retelling the story. There are lots of excellent story tellers in our class. Brenna- Rose and Ella were busy creating dances to the song, 'Dem Bones', which is one of the songs  that we learnt to help us think about our skeleton. Lots of the children decided to use the large blocks and loose parts to make the dark, dark house in the dark, dark street. They worked well in collaboration with each other and listened to the multitude of ideas and suggestions that they had. They further went on to build the whole dark, dark town.