Autumn Term 2024 

Ourselves and Celebrations

Welcome to Reception at Hampton Hargate Primary School! Every term you will receive a curriculum statement outlining what your child will be learning about at school.

Our first topics at school will be Ourselves and Celebrations. This has been written to highlight the activities we are carrying out in school this half term across the seven areas of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage.Our main focus in the first few weeks will be settling your child into school.

Personal Social and Emotional Development

Most of the focus in this area of learning will be to settle the children in to school and to understand the classroom routines. We will be encouraging the children to be as independent as possible – looking after their own belongings including clothes, book bags and coats. We will be sharing the rules of the classroom and the school and we will be encouraging good behaviour using mini merits, house points and stickers. We will be discussing what makes us special – our birthdays, our favourite toys, who are the members of our family and how are families different to/the same as others.  We will be learning about our own feeling and we will begin to understand how our actions and words can hurt other’s feelings.

Communication and Language

In this area of learning we will be encouraging the children to listen to the adults in the Reception unit and to also listen to their friends. We will be taking them on a ‘listening walk’ around the school to see what they can hear. We will be encouraging them to listen to and follow simple instructions such as getting their coats on and lining up ready for playtime. At the end of the day of the day we always finish with a story, the children will be listening to stories written by a familiar author’s and also stories from different cultures and around the world. We will encourage discussion with the children by asking them to relate what they have heard to their own experiences. We will be using Word Aware to learn new words and to develop our vocabulary.

 Literacy Development

When the children have settled in to school and are attending full time we will be introducing letter sounds or ‘Phonics’ to the children during daily sessions in the classroom. We will be following the Little Wandle phonics scheme. The letter sounds learnt each week will be sent home as homework each week.  This is so the children can practice them at home to reinforce their knowledge and understanding. We will be encouraging the children to apply these letter sounds when reading and writing. The children will be coming home with reading books to share with you. They will read to an adult in the classroom at least once a week. Through literacy lessons we will be writing about different things including birthdays, our favourite toys and our family. There is a writing area and book corner in each classroom and also a fantastic ‘Literacy Shed’ in the outdoor area to encourage the children to read and write independently. All of which we proudly display our writing on our ‘wow’ writing walls.                                                                                                    

Mathematical Development

In this area of learning we will be playing with number jigsaws, counting objects accurately and matching the total to a number. We will also be counting forwards and backward in 1’s and we will be learning to find 1 more and 1 less than a given number, practically then mentally. We will be looking closely at numbers 1 – 10 and talking about what we know about each number e.g. 7 is one more than 6 and one less than 8, 3+4=7 and 9-2=7. Wherever possible we will be linking mathematics to our topic for example, we will be ordering Autumn leaves according to their size and using the correct mathematical language to describe them.  Activities will be carried out making using 2D shapes for example making firework pictures.  

Understanding the world

In this area of learning we will be talking a lot about the new experience of starting school and making new friends. We will also be learning about old toys and our surrounding area. During the latter part of the first term we will be thinking about Autumn time and this will be introduced to the children by going on an Autumn walk. During our Celebrations topic we will be finding out about different festivals and celebrations, for example Bonfire night, Diwali and Christmas. We will be listening to stories from around that world that will help to develop our understanding of different cultures, religions and countries. We will be using simple computer programmes to support our learning in all the areas of the EYFS.                                                                    

Expressive Arts and Design

As part of this area of learning we provide daily provision for painting, drawing, collage and junk modelling. During teaching activities we will be working with the children to make self-portrait paintings and collages. When learning about Autumn we will be using clay to make a hedgehog.  We will also be exploring what happens when colours are mixed together. Using this knowledge, we will make our own colours to paint some Autumn leaves. We provide instruments for the children inside and outside and we will introduce them to rhymes related to our topics. We will develop some performing skills through our love of ‘poetry basket’ and ‘Helicopter Stories’. All aimed to give us confidence to share and listen to each other. And of course we will produce a wonderful Christmas production, from props and costumes to songs and dialogue.

Physical Development

We provide a wide range of activities – indoor and outdoor – to develop the children’s physical skills. To promote fine motor skills our provision includes cutting, tracing and threading activities. We will be encouraging the children to hold and use equipment correctly such as scissors and pencils. To promote gross motor skills our provision includes the use of bikes and scooters, bats, ball, hoops and large construction blocks in our outdoor area. We will also be encouraging the children to join in ring and parachute games. In the latter part of the Autumn term, we will be exploring key stills within PE lessons, like being able to negotiate spaces and direction. We will also use some fine motor skills within our Forest School sessions, to manipulate and collect natural objects.