Welcome to Reception.
Our Teachers are Mrs Dumont and Miss Young and our Teaching Assistants are Mrs Wonnacott and Mrs Panta.
Jul 032026
Growing!
We have started our final topic ‘Growing’ and the children have been really excited to be planting their own seeds. Our book this week has been ‘The Tiny Seed’ by Eric Carle. We discussed why water and sun are good for plants and what would happen if the plants didn’t have those elements.
In Phonics, we have been reviewing the phase 5 sounds we have learnt so far and applying them to write sentences independently. We have introduced new harder to read and spell words ‘house, ‘mouse’ and ‘water’.
In Maths, we have been practicing using a rekenrek to represent numbers, as well as keeping up our subitising skills of not always needing to count to know how many there are.
Key Information
- Thursday 9th July – the children will be moving up to their new class in Year One for the day, including some ‘get to know me’ type activities. In the evening between 5-7pm, we have our Open Evening where you are welcome to bring your child to their current class to see some activities they have completed as well as going up to their new class to meet their teachers.
- Thursday 9th July – the children will be moving up to their new class in Year One for the day, including some ‘get to know me’ type activities. In the evening between 5-7pm, we have our Open Evening where you are welcome to bring your child to their current class to see some activities they have completed as well as going up to their new class to meet their teachers.
Jun 262026
Vertebrate vs Invertebrate
Wow what a hot week! The children should be incredibly proud of themselves for coping so well in this heat. We did lots of water activities to try and keep us all cool, including today where we made a mini paddling pool for children to splash their feet in.
In Phonics, we learnt 4 new sounds, including au, ey, a-e, and e-e. We practiced segmenting and blending as well as applying it to write a sentence.
In Maths, we have recapped our doubles knowledge. The children have become experts in double 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, and some of them even challenged themselves with doubles up to 10.
In Topic this week, we began by discussing the difference between vertebrate and invertebrates. The children discovered that all minibeasts are invertebrates as they don’t have a back bone, have soft squishy bodies and/or a hard shell. You will have noticed that the children are extremely excited as we had a delivery of caterpillars! We then looked at life cycles of different minibeasts such as butterflies and ladybirds.
We hope that you have a lovely weekend in the sunshine and we look forward to the cooler weather next week!
Reception Team 🙂
Jun 262026
Food Chains!
In Phonics, we have continued learning new Phase 5 sounds: wh, ph, ew and oe. Our new tricky words this week are: your, ask and should. We have practiced applying these sounds and words when writing our Minibeast books!
In Maths this week we have recapped ‘equal’ and ‘not equal’ when sharing objects between different groups. We practised this by sharing toys between our teddies! We then moved onto doubles and thought about the different ways we could represent doubles e.g. on dice, fingers, draw them, using rekenreks. Each time we made a double the children used the step sentence: _____ is made from _____ and _____ ; _____and _____ make ____.
In Topic, we have learned more about Minibeasts! We introduced the story ‘The Bug Collector’ by Alex g Griffiths. We practised skills such as predicting what is going to happen next and inferring why grandad is rushing to the museum. We spoke about food chains and how animals depend on other plants and animals for their food and survival.
Key information
Thursday 9th July
Children will spend some time with their new class teachers doing transition activities. There is also Open Evening for current and prospective parents to see what we have been working on. Please see the Newsletter for more information.
Jun 262026
All About Minibeasts
The last couple of weeks, the children have been very excited to start our new topic all about minibeasts. We have focused on the storybook ‘Yucky worms’ and we have learnt so many new facts about worms! The children were extremely inquisitive about this topic and asked lots of wonderful questions. The children then started to write their own non-fiction fact books about minibeasts using the information they had learnt about worms. The children also chose their favourite minibeast and then designed and made it from a range of creative resources.
Since half term, in Phonics we have introduced the children to some new Phase 5 phonemes, ay, ou, ie, ea, ir, ue, aw and oy. We segmented and blended words including these sounds when reading and writing. We are still continuing to focus on the children being able to write a simple sentence independently using their segmenting and blending skills. The newest harder to read words are ‘oh’, ‘their’, ‘people’, ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’.
In Maths this week we have introduced children to rekenreks, a resource that is used to help children develop number sense and mathematical skills. This week the children practised their subitising skills and pushed the correct number of beads across the rekenreks. We then looked at how rekenreks can help us to identify which two numbers create a whole e.g. 5 red beads and 2 white beads make 7 altogether.
May 152026
A Day at the Seaside
In our topic lessons this week we have been reading the storybook ‘A day at the seaside’. We spent time focusing on the perseverance of the characters and how important perseverance is. The children then shared their own experiences of times they have persevered. After reading the story we also compared a seaside town and how it is different/similar to St Albans.
In phonics we have been practising to read and write CCCVC words (consonant, consonant, consonant, vowel, consonant) and we have been recapping our phase 2 and 3 phonics sounds and harder to read words.
In Maths, we have focused on ordinality: considering where numbers to 10 are in relation to each other. Through practical activities and games, we reasoned about numbers and thought carefully about which is more or less.
On Friday we walked to Normandy playing field to practise for our sports day activities. The children really enjoyed trying out different skills and activities. We were very impressed with how well all the children worked together and supported each other as a team!
Key information
- Friday 22nd May is Sports Day. The children will have their PE kit sent home the day before and arrive at school on Friday in their PE Kit. They will then stay in that PE Kit all day.
- A reminder that as the weather gets warmer, please apply sun cream at home before school starts.
- Please remember to label all clothing with your child’s name – this is so it can be returned if it is lost.
Apr 172026
Welcome Back!
We hope you all had a lovely Easter break. Reception have had a great few days back at school.
We have started our new topic ‘under the sea’ and the children have loved getting creative and making lots of different sea creatures and props for our new role play areas.
Our story focus this week has been ‘The Rainbow Fish’. We have spent lots of time thinking about friendships, feelings and emotions. We have also been sequencing the story and thinking about how the story changes from the beginning, middle and the end.
In Phonics this week we have recapped the phase 2 and 3 sounds and harder to read words. We have also started to read some longer words known as ‘ccvc’ (consonant, consonant, vowel, consonant) and ‘cvcc’ words (consonant, vowel, consonant, consonant). Each day we have been practising writing simple sentences in our new writing books. We have spent time looking at the key features of a sentence including full stops, fingers spaces and capital letters.
In Maths we have recapped counting and the different strategies we can use e.g. putting objects in a line, touching objects 1-1, moving objects into separate piles. We then introduced counting on from a given number and when we might use this skill.
In Drawing Club, we have focused on the story ‘Pirate Pete’. The children then drew Pirate Pete, his boat and answered ‘Pirate Pete has found treasure but has forgotten his spade. How can he get it?’ and ‘What would you like to find in the treasure chest?’. It has been so wonderful to see their imagination come alive and share their fantastic ideas with their friends.
Key dates coming up:
- Lime Class Assembly is Friday 8th May at 9am in the theatre.
- Apple Class Assembly is Friday 15th May at 9am in the theatre.
- Sports Day is at the Roman Field. Reception and Year 1 are at 9:30 – 10:30.
Key information
- We are unfortunately still not getting everyone’s reading books and reading records every day. Please can you make sure that these are kept in their book bags so we can change them regularly and hear them read in school.
- Please make sure all uniform, including PE kits are clearly named and labelled.
We hope you have a great weekend 🙂
Reception Team
Mar 272026
Happy Easter!
We have had such a fun and busy week!
It started off learning all about Easter. We were very lucky to have Mrs Woods from Year 2 Crimson Class, tell us all about how Christians celebrate Easter and she answered all the questions we had about the Church too. Following this, we made chocolate nests. The children told us it was very yummy!
In Phonics, we have continued to review Phase 2 and 3 sounds, including writing words and short sentences.
On Thursday, we went on a trip to Hertfordshire Zoo. We had a Lion Mini Meet, where a zoo keeper told us all about Big Cats as well as a workshop called Jurassic Safari where we learnt all about the features of animals and how they link to Dinosaurs. We saw so many different animals and went around the dinosaur trail. We had the best time! All the children should be very proud of how well they listened all day!
On Friday, we had a special visitor. William’s Grandpa told us all about how people make rockets. We watched some really interesting videos which included a rocket launch!
Things to remember:
- The children return on Tuesday 14th April.
- Please make sure that when PE Kits come back to school, that they are clearly named. This is the same for any uniform your child is wearing. Thank you for your support with this.
- Bring in reading books and reading records every day. We read with the children most weeks and like to keep you updated with their progress.
We hope you have a wonderful Easter break and we look forward to the last term of fun!
Reception Team 🙂
Mar 202026
What’s in the Witch’s Kitchen?
In Phonics, we are continuing to review the Phase 2 and 3 sounds. We have been practising segmenting and blending to write words and short phrases.
You may have noticed in our classrooms that we have started a new Literacy scheme called Drawing Club. The scheme focuses on the skills children need to be successful in their writing. Within the lessons, there are 4 mini moments that we cover: vocabulary, reading the story, drawing and writing words / phrases. Each day has a different theme that we talk, draw and write about. These include: Character, Setting and Adventure Time (this is where we answer a question about the story). This week our story was ‘What’s in the Witch’s Kitchen?’. We wrote and drew the witch, what they would eat from the kitchen, and answered these two questions; ‘How will you escape the witch’s kitchen?’ and ‘Where would you look to find the goblins for their wee?’. We have had so much fun and the children have loved using their imagination to come up with all sorts of wonderful ideas!
In our topic lessons we have focused on non-fiction texts to find out more information about space. The children came up with their own questions and we then found different ways that we could find the answers. They have really enjoyed information videos about space, particularly when the astronauts are floating around in their rockets.
Our school trip to Hertfordshire Zoo is next Thursday.
- Please can children wear school t-shirt and jumper, long comfortable trousers and closed in footwear such as trainers.
- In case of wet weather please bring raincoats
- Children will need a named packed lunch and water bottle – Please make sure there are NO NUTS (including pesto) in lunch boxes.
- Please try your best to arrive by 8:45 so we can get the children ready before the coach arrives.
Mar 062026
Welcome to Alien School
This week in our Literacy lessons we have focused on the story ‘Welcome to Alien School’. We spent time thinking about questions and what we might like to ask the aliens about their school. We then thought about and made comparisons between the alien school and Alban City School. Towards the end of the week the children each designed their own aliens and wrote a sentence to describe them.
In Maths this week we have been focusing on ordering numbers and then comparing them in relation to each other e.g. ‘more than’ and ‘less than’ and ‘equal to’. This week, ‘less than’ is used instead of ‘fewer than’ when the focus is on each number’s position in the counting sequence.
In Phonics this week we have continued our phase 2 and 3 phonics sound recap. We have been segmenting and blending for word reading and writing. We have also looked at the features of sentences. Our new ‘harder to read and spell words’ have been ‘out’, ‘were’ and ‘like’. The children have come up with some amazing sentences using these words.
World Book Day was a very busy and exciting day! The children loved sharing their costumes and outfits. We visited the Year 3 children and had a lovely time reading and sharing our favourite books. During discovery time the children designed and made their spoon book characters. As a class we worked together to do a world book day quiz.
Have a lovely weekend!
Reception Team 🙂
Feb 272026
Whatever Next
Welcome back! The children have had a lovely few days settling back into school. They have been super excited to learn all about space! We have read ‘Whatever Next’ and then sequenced each part of the story. We wrote a list of everything Baby Bear took to the moon in our books and drew beautiful pictures to match.
In Maths we have been practising verbally counting beyond 20 using the repeating pattern of the ‘1s. We have also been consolidating our understanding of the ‘stable order principle’ – rehearsing the order of the first 10 numbers and understanding that the position that each number holds in our number sequence does not change. While working with numbers to 10, we developed our understanding of the ordinal aspect by consolidating their understanding that each number has a value of ‘1 more’ than the previous number. We used our fingers to represent ‘5 and a bit’ quantities and Numberblocks.
Our Phonics focus this half term is to recap all of the phase 2 and 3 phonics sounds. We have spent time reminding the children of the segmenting and blending strategies such as robot arms or using our fingers. We have also practised writing labels and simple captions. We have had a big focus on sentence structure and reminding the children to read back their writing to check for any mistakes.
Key Points
- Please make sure your child has a full PE kit and extra school uniform/underwear in school in case they need to get changed.
- Thursday 5th March is World Book Day if your child would like to dress up as their favourite book character or in clothes they feel comfortable relaxing in. We will also be making book characters using wooden spoons, please help your child to choose a character and provide them with a wooden spoon. Any additional crafts you might have spare would be greatly appreciated!
