At Lady Boswell’s we believe that a positive Reception year is essential for our children’s progress and development If children are settled and happy during the Reception year then the teaching of the following key skills can begin:
It is during this year we put in place the foundations for life long learning.
Curiosity and Awe
Collaboration
Communication
Compassion
Confidence
Creativity
To enable these ‘foundations’ to build, at Lady Boswell’s we aim to provide a setting which… Allows
embraces
Encourages
provides
The EYFS Curriculum • This is different to the Curriculum for children in Years 1-6 • It is divided into 3 ‘Prime’ areas of learning and 4 ‘Specific’ areas of learning • The Curriculum was reviewed and updated for the academic year 2021/22, so is slightly different to what you may have experienced if you have an older child who recently went through reception.
Changes to the curriculum There is more of an emphasis on the importance of developing communication and language skills.
There is a focus on how reading stories is important to help children develop in all of Areas of Learning.
There is a focus on encouraging healthy choices overall and an understanding of oral health.
How are your children taught? There are several different teaching and learning approaches we use every day at Lady Boswell’s
Child initiated: The action of a child choosing to extend, repeat or explore an activity. This activity may or may not have been introduced or prompted by an adult. It is the child’s innovation within or of the activity which is important and relevant to child initiation. An adult may be present and may be supportive but not directive. For example an adult may be supporting the child to realise an idea by providing necessary resources, or by engaging in thought provoking conversation. Child initiated activity and exploration provides an important insight into the depth of a child’s learning. When learning is fully mastered the child is able and motivated to employ that learning unprompted.
Self initiated: An activity wholly decided on by the child and that is the result of an intrinsic motivation to explore a project or express an idea. In doing this the child may make use of a variety of resources and demonstrate a complex range of knowledge, skills and understanding.
Teacher directed: An activity defined, structured and delivered by an adult to a child or group of children. It focuses on the direct teaching of skills and knowledge with a specific objective in mind.
Teacher-led: An activity defined by an adult that focuses on a specific objective that the child may complete independently or with adult support.
Sustained shared thinking: a learning activity which occurs when two or more individuals 'work together' in an intellectual way to solve a problem, clarify a concept, evaluate an activity, extend a narrative etc.
Our Timetable
Teacher Directed learning These sessions are pre-planned activities led by a teacher . Objectives for these are taken from the development matters guidance. These sessions are designed to teach children key skills and expand their existing body of knowledge The children have to come and have a go at the activity… but they are all lots of fun Both Teachers and Teaching Assistants teach TD sessions.
A TD session begins as a whole class. Across the week the Teacher or Teaching Assistant works with all the children in smaller targeted groups.
TD sessions are planned to cover objectives from each of the Curriculum areas of learning.
Half of our adult lead sessions generally happen inside and half happen in our outside learning zones
P.E, Guided Reading, Forest School and Phonics Guided Reading is a P.E is a whole class Teacher Directed session. Sometimes it happens in the hall and sometimes it happens outside.
We have a Forest school session once a week on a Friday. Forest school is Teacher Led, we set up and guide children to different activities but encourage self exploration and investigation
Teacher Directed session. GR happens every morning (once the children are settled into their full time routine). Across the week the children read in a group with their teacher, the other class teacher and Tas as well as support from Parent helpers.
Phonics happens everyday for 30 minutes, there is a whole class input and some fun games and activities. We use an accredited phonics scheme; Little Wandle. This is a Teacher Directed time.
A little more about Phonics… Phonics is the method used to segment the sounds in words for spelling and blend sounds for reading. It is the link between letters (graphemes) and the sounds (phonemes) they make. Phonics is simply the system of relationships between
letters and sounds in a language.
The Phonics Scheme The scheme we follow is called Little Wandle and is divided into five phases taught in reception and year 1, with each phase building on the skills and knowledge of previous learning.
In phonics, reading sounds made by different letters is taught alongside writing them and children are taught to form letters correctly. The sessions are fun and interactive with lots of games to keep the children
motivated and engaged. Children are constantly encouraged to apply their phonics learning to their reading and writing in a variety of contexts throughout the day.
Phonics Vocabulary Phoneme – sound a letter makes Grapheme – written letter
Blending – running sounds together to make a word Segmenting – breaking a word up into sounds CVC – consonant-vowel-consonant Digraph – one sound made by 2 letters Trigraph – one sound made by 3 letters Phonetically plausible – written phonetically that it can still be read although spelt incorrectly
Phase 1 This paves the way for systematic learning of phonics and usually starts in
nursery or pre-school, but will be revisited when the children enter Reception. What sounds can the children hear around the school?
Can they identify the first letter of a word? Can they say what order musical instruments are played in and use language such as first, second and third?
Can they sing nursery rhymes and identify rhyming words in stories? We clap syllables out in words, particularly their names and use alliteration to give class animals funny names.
• • • • • • • • • •
Set 1: s, a, t, p Phase 2 Set 2: i, n, m, d Set 3: g, o, c, k Set 4: ck, e, u, r Set 5: h, b, f, Set 6: ff, l, ll, ss Set 7: v, w, x, y Set 8: z, zz, qu Set 9: sh, th, ng, nk Set 10: words with /s/ at the end and words ending with /s/ as /z/
Segmenting We show children how to segment words into sounds, e.g.
tap t-a-p The whole word is spoken out loud and segmented into sounds. This is all oral and children will not be expected to match written letters at this stage.
Children will be taught the sounds for a number of letters and that some sounds can be represented by more than one letter: “ll” as in “bell”
“ck” as in “duck” “ff” as in “puff”
“ss” as in “hiss”
Do not sound these out separately!
Example hill h-i-ll NOT h-i-l-l
Tricky Words Alongside learning the sounds made by letters
children will learn to read “tricky” words.
These are words which need to be learnt by sight.
Tricky words for Phase 2 are: the, to, I, no, go
Phase 3 and 4 Phase 3 Children continue to practise the sounds learnt in Phase 2. They learn sounds which are made by two and three letters, e.g. “oa” as in “boat”. The children are taught to recognise these as digraphs and trigraphs.
They learn to read more tricky words: he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, her, they, all, are.
Phase 4 This phase is to consolidate children’s knowledge of graphemes in reading and spelling words containing adjacent consonants and polysyllabic words. For example train, milk and lunchbox. They learn more tricky words: said, so, do, have, like, some, come, were, there, little, one, when, out, what.
Example float f - l – oa – t ffff – lllll – oa – t NOT fuh – luh – o-a - tuh
Example
queen qu ee n
Alien Words
Sandwith Wintmill Thack doax
Helping at home Enjoy a whole range of stories together. Let your child see you reading. Follow your child’s lead and find a quiet place. Enjoyable shared experience – find the right time. Play lots of games – spot the letter in stories, on signs, in shops. Encourage your child to decode independently – if this is tricky, carry on reading to keep flow of story going.
Talk about the story as you read it (comprehension).
Helping at home
Sound buttons- when sounding out unfamiliar words put sound buttons beneath the individual letter sounds and for digraphs and trigraphs use sound sausages.
Independent Learning This is our child initiated learning time Independent Learning is a time for hands on exploration, investigation, collaboration and learning through play
The children can learn wherever they want in the Reception unit, this means they can use any of the inside or outside areas in the EYFS area.
Our Teachers work alongside our children as partners in play, skilfully developing the children’s next steps for learning
We encourage children to collaborate with each other to evolve their own learning opportunities
We provide a wealth of resources and provocations for our children to use in Independent Learning, to inspire and motivate their development.
During Independent Learning we take time to work closely alongside our children to assess them, working out how to help them make progress and grow
CONTINUOUS PROVISION In Independent Learning, there are a number of resources available all the time for children to use whenever and for whatever they like. We are always adding to our resources. Remember children are creative genius’ and what looks like junk is treasure to them; a cardboard box can be a million things if you open your mind
ENHANCED PROVISION Sometimes our children struggle to find something to learn all on their own
Enhanced provisions provide topic based starting points and challenges for different subject areas from which the children can build their own learning experiences. The children have access to enhanced provision in both the inside and outside environments.
How will we assess the children’s progress? We use a document called ‘Development Matters’ to help us to understand whether your child is making good progress
throughout the year in each of the 7 areas of the curriculum
When your child learns, explores or experiences something new we will send you a photograph and a summary of this to
see at home via our online learning journal ‘Tapestry’.
What is a Learning Journal? • A learning journal is a record of each child's learning and shows snapshots of each child's achievements and progress in relation to the EYFS.
Getting Started- website Website address: https://tapestryjournal.com/
You should be receiving log in details over the next few days.
How will we assess the children’s progress?
Each term we will look at the all the evidence we have collected, including special moments shared from home and decide as an overall best fit judgement whether your child is • Meeting the expectations (doing everything as expected) • Needing a bit more support or guidance in this area, or • Doing more than is expected at this stage
How will we inform you? Interim Reports will be sent home once every big term to keep you up to date with the progress your child is making.
Parent Consultation Day Friday 9th December 2022
Phonics Please use the following link to hear the letter sounds pronounced correctly. https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/f or-parents/