Welcome to our Reception Homepage
Thank you for stopping by! Here we will post all the important information you need during the year ahead.
Reception Class Newsletters 2023-24
What we are learning
In Reception we have designed our curriculum alongside our curriculum subject leaders. Although we have key knowledge that we want children to know in reception, we teach through our reception learning story. Here are our learning stories for the year ahead:
(p.s. If you would like to see our key knowledge and endpoints, please see Mrs Quayle our Early Years Leader)
Autumn Term 1: Marvelous Me
This unit of work emphasises the development of early inquiry skills and builds children’s understanding of themselves as unique individuals. Children start by learning about what makes them unique and special individuals. Children look at physical features and how they have changed and grown over time. The unit then explores the historical concepts of cause and effect, perspectives, and significance. Children develop the knowledge of past, present and future in the context of their own personal history and that of their families. Next children will learn the concept and language of time, we then move to using sources and artefacts to show their own personal history. Children will share personal artefacts and those shared from their families to explore concepts of time, history and change. Within RE children explore the concept of special people, including; friends, family, role models, Jesus as a role model to Christians and ways in which he is special such as performing miracles, and Moses being a special person to Jews.
Autumn 2: Festivals, Weather and the Seasons
This unit of work emphasises the development of children’s understanding of significance. It aims to identify the events past, present and future that are significant to them and others around them. Children begin by plotting significant events in their own lives on a whole class calendar and discuss why these are important to them. They then find out about different events that different communities celebrate. The topic then explores two significant events – one from the distant past and one from within the families living memory – Bonfire Night and Remembrance. They learn about Bonfire Night by looking at the story of Guy Fawkes. They read about the key figure and recall some of the important facts of the story. They explore the significance of remembrance in their own families, hearing family stories and local people to share and tell stories. They explore a range of ways in which these stories can be communicated e.g. through photographs, artefacts, books, oral histories and digital media. (This topic is then again reinforced by looking at additional festivals throughout the year – Christmas, Diwali, Easter, and other additional work undertaken in RE)
Spring Term: Our Community
This unit of work explores the place children live in and belong to. They start by thinking about their homes and describe the features that they see in their local environment and on their way to school. Children learn that they live in a part of the town of Whitehaven. They learn about the important features of the town. Children learn what a map is and why maps are important. Children create story maps or models to represent the location of the places and features they pass on their way to school and the wider town. Children look at a range of maps including aerial photographs. The unit moves on to think about people who help them and important people within the community. Children think about the roles of the wider community members such as the fire brigade, doctors, nurses, medical professionals, teachers, coastguard, mountain rescue and religious leaders such as Vicar, Imman etc.
Children will move on to look at stories and characters that have different sorts of people who help – e.g. superheroes. Children think about the characteristic of role models and superheroes and think about if real life people shared these characteristics. We will use this learning to explore different materials, such as metal, plastic and their properties. In RE, children will think about different religions present in our community and celebrations that are important to them, including Chinese New Year, the Hindu festival of Holi and Easter.
Summer Term: Journeys
This unit of work focuses on the journeys that the children may experience. They build on their work of the short journey they make on their way to school to think about their life journey so far. Children learn about the changes to themselves and think about the abilities that they have now compared to when they were a baby. Children will think about different generations in their family and the changes they see or have experienced within their own family. Children will compare their life cycle to that of specific animals within nature (butterflies, frogs, ducklings). Children will learn about the different stages and the adaptations that happens at each stage. Children will use this to compare to their own development and think about how much development they still have ahead of them. The unit will move on to think about the world around us with regards to nature. Children will use their basis of knowledge of Christianity, Islam and Judaism to explore how these different religions believe the world was created. Children will learn why these religions think it is important to look after the environment. They will consider the respect these religions encourage for nature. Children will learn specifically the story of Genesis in the bible and the Torah, and the stories of the prophet Muhamad and the crying camel and Muhamad and the kittens from the Quran. Children will consider the importance of these to their respective religions. The children will use this learning to help them to think about how important it is to look after our local environment; learning about how litter and rubbish can affect the wildlife in our local environment and move on to look further afield from our local area. Children move on to look at journeys they may cover within their life. Look at the meaning of the term journey; it can be physical, can be developmental and can be emotional. Children think about journeys they may have made further afield using a variety of transport, and consider the history of transport and how this has changed.