EYFS

 Welcome to
Early Years Foundation Stage

Learning in Early Years

Learning in Reception is all about laying the foundations of all future learning through having fun and having lots of hands-on practical experiences. We do lots of that from the very moment we walk through the door.

Our Curriculum

Our curriculum is rich in stories and songs to support our language development and open up the door to a range of themes, topics and hooks to inspire our curiosity and wonder! Through careful planning, we cover all 7 areas of the EYFS curriculum and build our love of learning along the way! We lay the foundations ready for the KS1 curriculum to build on so it is really important that we learn all about the past and present, the people who live in our communities as well as how to use a range of music and art skills. We also have a wonderful journey into the world of reading and writing.

Phonics in Reception

At Kidgate we use Read Write Inc. Phonics to teach our children to read and write.

During the Reception year we are introduced to phonemes and their corresponding graphemes. We begin to look at single letter sounds and the representing spelling for this. This enables us to then begin to read and write three letter words; matching the grapheme to the sound we can hear.

As we become confident and fluent readers and writers of CVC words we are then introduced to digraphs; where two letters make one sound.

Throughout the whole of the reception year our phonic teaching relies on the firm foundations of orally blending and segmenting. We also learn to read and write ‘Red words’ such as I, the, to’. These are words with ‘tricky letters’ which can’t be read using Fred Talk.

Mastery Maths

Over the course of the year we use The Power Maths Scheme of Work to enable us to count, match, order and manipulate numbers to 10 and beyond. We will be introduced to different concrete resources such as counties, bead strings, Numicon and tens frames to allow us to develop a fast recall of groups of objects as well as use these tools for addition and subtraction. We will embed all our learning through play based meaningful activities that will allow teachers to stretch and challenge our thinking.

A day in Reception

In the morning we self-register ourselves in class by placing our name cards on the ‘Who is here today? Wall’. We then pop away our belongings and get moving with ‘Sticky Kids’ before gathering for ‘Nibble, News and Natter Time’.

After our morning routine, we go into ‘Dough Disco’, ‘Squiggle whilst we Wiggle’’.  We use movements to help us develop the fine muscle control we need for writing.

These sessions are great fun but most importantly help us to be confident mark makers. ‘Squiggle me into a Writer’ is the next developmental stage, where the movements learnt previously help us to form our letters correctly. This is used alongside our phonics scheme to reinforce Read Write Inc, letter formation rhymes.

It is then time for Read Write Inc. We begin with a Speed Sound lesson, where we learn Set 1 sounds in a specific order. Each lesson follows the same format:

• Say the sound
• Read the sound
• Review the sounds (previously taught sounds)
• Write the letter
• Speed write (previously taught sounds)
• Fred Talk (oral)

​​​​​​​Once we can read the first five sounds, ‘Word Time’ is introduced. We learn to blend sounds to read words and segment sounds in words in order to spell. When we can blend independently we progress on to reading green words.

As soon as we can read green words, we begin to read stories in our Read, Write, Inc sessions. Each storybook is matched to the sounds we can already read, which sets us up for success and helps to build our confidence with reading.

We then have a brain break, where we go outside. This gives us time to reset. This helps us to regain focus and energy, making it easier for us to concentrate on our learning.

Before lunch it is time for our Vocabulary Session. High quality texts and creative teaching approaches are used to engage and motivate us in our Literacy Learning. This helps to deepen our understanding of a text and provide a meaningful context for writing.

After lunch we have our Maths session where we develop our counting and recognition skills relating to number, shape and measures. We will learn to add and subtract, double and halve and recall our number bonds to 10.

A huge and crucial part of our day is play. We spend an extended period of time playing in each area of our wonderful classroom; guided and supported by an adult. Every area is carefully thought out to support learning across all 7 areas and enhanced by the children’s interests. Our wonderful outdoor area plays a key role in our learning and we can free flow between the two areas in the afternoon. Outside we can use large scale movements to run, balance, climb, paint, dance and most importantly to take risks! During the afternoon we have a topic session, where we explore ideas and concepts which help to build our skills, knowledge and understanding within that topic of learning. We have another ‘Nibble and Natter’ in the afternoon session; we end the day with a story or a song.

Each day in Reception, can be extremely busy!