Reception 2025 - 2026

Welcome to Reception!

  Autumn Term

This class page is where you will find information about what your child will be learning in the term ahead. Please see below for some of our planned curriculum and learning opportunities for this term across the 7 areas of the EYFS Framework, as well as our RE and You, Me, Everyone programmes.

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) at Ursuline offers your child numerous opportunities to develop in the following prime areas of learning:

• Communication and Language
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
• Physical Development

as well as another four areas of learning:

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Expressive Arts and Design
• Understanding the World                                                                                       

• RE – To Know You More Clearly

We will start the term with our Creation and Covenant branch of learning and hear that God made our beautiful world and everything in it, including us. (Laudato Si 84-88). We believe that God is love and He loves each one of us as a unique person. We celebrate through the words and actions of the sign of the cross. We live by caring and loving for self, family, others, and God’s world.

Towards the end of autumn term, with our Prophecy and Promise branch of learning, we hear that Mary will have a baby named Jesus (Lk 1:26:31, 38) and believe that Mary was chosen by God to have a very special baby, Jesus. We celebrate through learning about and performing our Christmas Nativity. We live by helping others throughout Advent.

. 

• Communication and Language

We will have lots of opportunity to talk and to understand how to listen carefully to each other through our continuous provision activities, where staff will be engaging in purposeful conversations with children in their play, from looking after the babies in the Role Play area to preparing parties in the Mud Kitchen. We will be modelling back and forth exchanges using full sentences and encouraging the use of new vocabulary taught through our quality texts. Our chatter bags are an excellent way to find out about new friends' interests as the children talk to us all about what's inside!

• Personal Social and Emotional Development

We will encourage respectful relationships with peers and adults where children will learn to begin to self and co regulate using our emotions check in and sensory box. We will encourage the children to identify and link book characters’ emotions with their own to help with this. We will help the children to develop independent use of buttons, zips, shoes, coats etc and teach them strategies to look after their belongings. We will talk about the different factors that support their overall health and well-being, such as being active, spending time outdoors, eating healthily and having a good sleep routine as well as keeping ourselves safe.

•         You, Me, Everyone

This term, we will talk about how we can keep ourselves safe , from understanding that our bodies are private to online and firework safety. Our bespoke You, Me, Everyone programme offers many opportunities to discuss ways in which the children can develop personally, socially and emotionally.

•   Physical Development   

PE lessons will focus on practising fundamental PE skills from self-regulation skills to finding a space to movement skills. These will include climbing, throwing, running and jumping. We will also begin to use a range of equipment, both large and small and indoors and outdoors; all activities can be done in their normal uniform prior to October half term.

We will place children into a house team, in which they will stay during their time at Ursuline. Each house team has a different colour (red, green, blue, yellow). We will ask you to send your child in their PE kit on a designated PE day after the October half term break. We will inform you of your child’s house team towards the end of the first half term.

We are developing our gross and fine motor skills in lots of ways in Reception, using play dough, threading, colouring and writing on a large and small scale as well as rolling tyres, carrying buckets of mud, water, sand and crates in our continuous provision. The range of continuous provision activities is so important in building their hand and eye coordination, core strength, stability and balance, needed for future learning.

• Literacy

Our quality texts form the basis of our well-planned curriculum. 

Our book choices this term relate to our themes:

Me, Friends, Family/Autumn

Amazing

The Friendship Bench

Time for Change / Christmas and Winter

The Leaf Thief /  Bear Snores On

Our quality texts form the basis of our well-planned curriculum. We start with 'Amazing' which not only reinforces the idea that we are all different and unique but also the things we can do are 'amazing'. We finish autumn term with a beautiful text, 'Bear Snores On' which leads us nicely into winter and keeping snug! We will develop the children's understanding about reading and writing from left to right and begin to say, read and write set 1 sounds in our Read Write Inc phonics programme. This in turn will help us to begin to read and write simple sentences.

Our focus for writing in the early part of autumn term is to write our name correctly using the correct letter formation and using a tripod grip. We will be asking the children to sign their wonderful creations, leading on to writing labels for whatever they make in Reception.

Staff will read many books from our class book areas and will be encouraging the children to begin to sequence and retell them themselves. Story time is such a wonderful part of the day in Reception!       

• Phonics

The children are having daily phonics sessions, through our Read Write Inc phonics programme. Fred the frog helps us learn new sounds and blend them into words (Fred Talk).

The children are bringing home a class library book at the moment. Once they have learnt sufficient sounds to be able to read vc (eg at, in, on) and cvc words (eg cat, sun, bag), they will begin to bring home a phonics text. Our Early Reading meeting for parents will tell you more about this. Books will be sent home in book bags on a Thursday to be returned to school on a Monday. Thank you for your support in helping your child with their reading at home.   

Some useful videos for parents, to help your child at home with phonics.

What is Read Write Inc phonics?

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/xmK1jiry/tVXVTyxX

How to say the sounds

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/zgIv6xo2/JBHq0Vcf

Why read to your child?

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/pj9HlgKT/drDIIzGJ

10 things to think about when you read to your child

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/HWC6fIcl/jN8MmlZF

• Maths

Our daily maths input this term develops the children's understanding of number to 5 by focusing on a number in depth.

We will use 5 frames, manipulatives from our environment (pebbles, pencils, sticks, cubes, buttons and anything else that can be moved!) to have a solid understanding of number to 5. This includes being able to spot a number without needing to count each item individually (subitising) within 5 and looking for patterns within larger numbers to help with accurate and speedy counting.

The children play a range of simple games to support their understanding, first with an adult and then with a friend during continuous provision.

There are lots of opportunities within continuous provision for children to explore shape, space and measure.

• Understanding the world

Children's understanding of the world is explored in autumn term, first and foremost with what they are already familiar with; themselves and their families. We look at similarities and differences, and explore our environment with our senses. The Role Play areas, including the Mud Kitchen is a great way to deepen this.  We then examine seasonal change in the natural world from the last signs of summer to autumn, looking at differences and similarities in our local environment. We are always respectful of our natural world and teach the children to take care of it and the wildlife that live in it.

Our key texts, The Leaf Thief and Bear Snores On prompt us to think about the change from autumn to winter and the animals and habitats in which they live.

Through Language Angels, we will be practising simple greetings in Spanish, including our 'hola' and 'adios' songs and numbers 1-5. We will learn a familiar nursery rhyme in Spanish and listen out for new words we have learnt in songs. We also compare how we greet each other in Spain to the UK, expanding our understanding of different communities.

• Expressive Arts and Design

From dragons to poppies, self-portraits to all things Christmas ..., we will use and explore a variety of materials, tools and techniques to create pictures, props and models and begin to explain the process we have used. Our imaginations will also be stimulated as we develop our Role Play in many ways, from re-enacting familiar situations to retelling stories, using what we know to express our ideas. 

Music

As well as the opportunities to explore and make music daily with the instruments out on our performance area we will be following the Kapow scheme of work.

We will also prepare the songs for our Christmas Nativity celebration on 10th December.

A few reminders:

• Please send in a water bottle for your child, filled with water each day.
• We also ask that every item of clothing and footwear is labelled with your child's name.

Dates for your diary:

• Reception Parents / Carers Early Reading Meeting - Thursday 2nd October 9-9.30am
• School Photograph Day – Tuesday 7^th October
• Family Book Buzz - Friday 17th October 9am - 9.30am
• Parents'/ Carers' evenings – 21st and 22nd October - (you will be invited by e-mail to book a meeting slot with your child's teacher via 'school cloud' nearer the time)
• Finish at usual time for half term on Thursday 23^rd October
• Return to school - Monday 3^rd  November
• Phonics meeting for parents and carers - Thursday 6th November - 5pm -5.30pm
• Book Look for families (A chance for you to look at your child's books with them in class) – Wednesday 3^rd December 3.30 pm – 5pm
• Christmas Nativity - Wednesday 10th December - 2pm
• Finish for Christmas holidays - Friday 19th December  - 2pm

If you need to speak to your child's teacher, please approach us on the playground and we can arrange a time. We would ask that you kindly wait until we have seen all of the children safely to their parent or carer before speaking to your teacher and we will be happy to chat. Alternatively, you may wish to ring the school office.

We are looking forward to a super first term of learning ahead of us.

Reception team

Mrs Long, Mrs Bray, Miss Parsons (Class RL) 

Miss Turner, Mrs Walmsley (Mon – Weds)/Mrs O’Brien (Weds – Friday), Miss Gorst (Class RBT)