Welcome to our Reception Class Page.  

Reception Curriculum Information for Parents and Carers – Spring Term 2025

The Spring Term is here and we would like to share with you a summary of what your child is learning in class.  We would also like to share some ways that you can support your child at home.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

We will continue to use the Zones of Regulation to name and explore different emotions. In particular, we will be reading stories about feeling worried such as ‘The Big Bag of Worries’ and ‘Ruby’s worry’, which will help us think about what we can do and to whom we can speak if we are worried. We will also be thinking about recognising how others feel and how we can help.

Our class PSED targets for the Spring term are:

• I can wash my hands with soap.
• I can zip up my coat.
• I can use please and thank you.

Physical Development

We will be using our outside area to climb, play, balance and play games which develop our core strength. We will continue to develop our fine motor skills by using lots of resources that help us pull, twist, grip, squeeze and pinch, which all help our hands get ready for writing. For example, activities such as playdough, threading and construction toys such as k’nex.

We will continue using pens, paintbrushes and pencils to work on our pencil grip, trying to start using the tripod grip where possible.

In our PE lessons, Mr Sagar will be helping us develop our movement skills through the topic of 'all about me'. Skills will include balancing, running, changing direction, jumping, hopping and travelling. We will develop gross motor skills through a range of activities. We will learn how to stay safe using space, working independently and with a partner.

Communication and Language

We will have lots of opportunities to learn new words and speak to others about what we are learning. We practise using new words related to our topic and we have lots of time with our friends and adults to discuss stories, share games and explain what we have made. In the classroom, we will try to answer in full sentences, which will help us prepare for writing. The adults will be helping us think about how we can start sentences and we will be practising this as a class.

Each week, our ‘Talking Activity’ will be set on Google classroom so you can talk about something linked to our learning in school.

Literacy – Reading

In Phonics, we will be revising our Phase 2  sounds. These can be found in the sound books that we sent home in the Autumn. We will be learning our Phase 3 sounds, which include a lot of new digraphs (two letters, one sound). We will be reading words containing Phase 2 and 3 sounds as well as words with double letters: dd mm tt bb rr gg pp ff. Our decodable reading books will give us chances to practise our decoding and comprehension skills. These will be shared in school in groups and sent home each week. Please ensure yellow reading records and books are kept in bags every day.

We love reading in Reception and we have lots of opportunities each day to share stories related to our topics, non-fiction texts and revisit old favourites. The children love to answer (and ask) questions about what we are reading. We will continue to visit the library each Friday to choose our own book to share at home. We encourage all parents to join your local library and enjoy the experience of choosing and borrowing books.

Literacy - Writing

We have lots to write about in Reception! As we share stories such as ‘Whatever Next’ by Jill Murphy and ‘Astro Girl’ by Ken Wilson-Max, we will be writing lists and captions. Our Space topic also inspires us to create our own fact cards about the planets. We have opportunities for independent writing throughout the day and we also practise our letter formation during our Phonics sessions.

Mathematics

This term, we will continue to practise our counting skills with lots of opportunities to count forwards and backwards to and from 10. We will work on number recognition and explore our understanding of zero. We will begin to look at combining two groups and finding the total as well as doubling and beginning to explore odd and even.

We will begin our learning on Capacity and learn the vocabulary needed. We will be using practical resources and activities to explore this topic.

We will use carpet time to listen to and learn songs and rhymes which help us with our number fluency.

A Maths activity related to the weekly learning will be set on Google classroom.

Understanding the World

This term, our topics will be ‘Space’ and ‘People who help us’. We will have plenty of opportunities to talk about the lives of the people around us and their roles in society and will enjoy inviting people from our school community to talk about their jobs and how they help us.

Expressive Arts and Design

Our classroom provides endless opportunities for the children to express themselves. We will use our Spaceship role play area and small world to enable the children to play characters and create and narrate their own stories. The children are encouraged to invent, adapt and narrate stories with their peers including some of our key texts such as ‘Whatever Next’.

The children are encouraged to create using a variety of tools and experiment using a variety of techniques and materials. This term, our ‘Space’ topic inspires us to make 3D planets, explore texture in paint and make rockets from junk modelling. The children love to share their creations and we encourage them to take photographs of their work as well as using our classroom to display and celebrate our work.

Music

Spring Half Term 1: The children will be using a variety of tuned percussion to explore the concept of ‘pitch’. Through singing songs as a class and listening to a variety of music, they will have fun with the concepts of high and low, and begin to learn about pitch notation ‘is it a line note or a space note?’

Spring Half Term 2: Building on songs and instrumental skills acquired throughout the year, the children will be exploring ‘dynamics’ (how loud or quiet sound is). They will be introduced to the words forte and piano, and through singing, ensemble playing and listening, musically explore those two concepts.

RHE (Relationship and Health Education)

In RHSE, we will learn about family relationships, as well as discussing ‘special people’ we can trust. We will discuss friendships and learn to look to Jesus as a role model for being a good friend. We will use Jesus’ example to resolve conflict in friendships through saying sorry and asking for/receiving forgiveness.

Educational Visits and Important Dates 

How you can help your child at home

Reading

• Phonics - review and recap taught sounds.
• Tricky words - use as flash cards to encourage instant recall.
• Read to your children (anything they enjoy). This not only promotes reading for pleasure but is invaluable in developing vocabulary and comprehension skills.

Handwriting

Use the letter formation booklets we will be sending home next week to reinforce how to write each letter. You can support this by encouraging lots of fine and gross motor activities, this will strengthen pencil grip and improve letter formation. 

Maths

Ideas to reinforce learning from the previous term:

• Making 5 - can the children say which numbers make 5? For example, 1 and 4, 2 and 3 (using practical resources).
• Subitising - lots of games using dice! Can the children say what the number is without counting (numbers to 5)?
• Accurate counting - through play, find opportunities to count out using 1–1 correspondence and know that the final number is the total.

Speaking

Find any opportunity to talk to your child! Ask them questions and give them time to talk. Encourage them to answer in full sentences, where appropriate. Narrate what you are doing (cooking, going for a walk, etc.) to provide your children with lots of exposure to high quality talk! This makes a huge difference to their own speaking skills as well as their understanding of sentence structure and syntax, which will aid their writing.