Welcome to Reception!

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.”

(Psalm 127:3)

Welcome to the Reception class page. We are so excited to have you as part of our class, school and St Joseph’s family. The whole reception team are looking forward to ensuring all children have the best start to their time at school. 

This half term our topic is Celebrations. The children will be learning all about Bonfire night, Diwali, Rememberance Day, Birthdays and Christmas. 

Meet the staff

Class Teachers: 

Mrs Dixey (Monday - Thursday)

Mrs Jobbins (Thursday-Friday) 
Teaching Assistants: 

 Miss Carroll and Miss Laycock 

Life in Reception

During your child's time in reception, they will take part in a variety of activities and play-based experiences which aim to challenge, foster a love of learning and inspire their natural curiosity. We play outdoors in all weathers and we will regularly come home messy after a busy day in the mud kitchen, creation station and play dough area!

To find out about the Reception curriculum, please visit our Early Years page. 

Key Information:

• P.E. days are on a Friday. P.E. kits must be worn to school. 
• Reading books will be changed on a Friday.
• 'Fabulous Phonics' homework books will be sent home on a Friday and need to be returned on Fridays. 
• Your child receives free milk until their 5th birthday. 
  If your child wants milk, please register at this link: Cool Milk - the UK's leading school and nursery milk supplier
• School dinners are free for all children until they are in Year 3. Please speak to us about having a free school meal

What should I bring each day?

• Bookbag with reading book and record 
• Water bottle 
• Warm waterproof coat
• Warm hat/ gloves/ sunhat (weather dependent)

Please bring in a spare change of clothes, and wellies to be kept in school 

Please continue to check the class page for important dates. If you have any questions please speak to a member of the team or email the reception account  reception@stjosephscatholicprimary.org 

We look forward to working with you all! 

Mrs Dixey and Mrs Jobbins

Today the children were introduced to the dinosaur Pantosaurus. We read a story together all about Pantosaurus, watched a video together and had a big discussion about the pants rule.

P Privates are private
A Always remember your body belongs to you
N No means no
T Talk about secrets that upset you
S Speak up, someone can help

For more information please visit https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/support-for-parents/pants-underwear-rule/ 

Our first Nativity, what a fantastic performance! We are all so proud of all the children for being brave, remembering their lines, singing their hearts out but most importantly for re telling the story of the first Christmas!

Today we had a wonderful session with Catherine from Tiny tales and tunes. She read a story all about Father Christmas and on each page took the children on an adventure. The children turned in to reindeers, snowmen and snowflakes. Everybody had a lots of fun! 

The children had a magical time riding on the Santa train at Middleton Railway.

The children had their first trip out of school to the Royal Armouries. They all enjoyed travelling on the minibus and walking safely in a line with their partners. They were very proud to see their work displayed in the education room and enjoyed looking at the work completed by the rest of the school.

Today was the first snow of the school year. The children took their learning outside to explore the snow and although there wasn't too much snow they worked as a team to make a small snowman. 

The children enjoyed learning all about the festival of Diwali. They created lots of different rangoli patterns inside and outside the classroom. They read and sequenced the story of Rama and Sita. Children who celebrate Diwali at home shared photos of how they celebrate. 

The children enjoyed making poppies as part of their learning about Remembrance Day. 

On the 5th of November we had our very own bonfire. We talked first about how to be safe around a bonfire. Then we went outside and collected up lots of sticks. We worked as a team to build the bonfire. Next Miss Carroll pretended to light the bonfire. We all stood back to stay safe. After that we played with our pretend sparklers and turned ourselves in to fireworks. We all had lots of fun!

A huge pumpkin appeared in the classroom. At the start of the week the pumpkin was placed on the creative table for the children to complete observational drawings. Towards the end of the week the children carved the pumpkin together. The children enjoyed scooping out the insides with spoons and exploring the different textures. We even challenged them to pick up the pumpkin seeds with tweezers.

The children had a visit from the Guide Dog association. Thelma the volunteer brought Oasis in and talked to us about the important role of the guide dogs, how the dogs are trained and what to do when you see a working guide dog out in public. She also told us how the money we will raise this year will help. The children listened carefully and asked lots of questions. They were all very brave and carefully stroked Oasis.

This half term our topic was 'All about me' the children spent time talking, learning and completing activities all about their families, homes, bodies and pets. 

The children love to take their learning outside into our wonderful outdoor area.

We have officially welcomed our thirty new Reception children into our school family. The children have had a wonderful time getting to know each other, exploring our classroom and making new friends. 

2023-2024

Summer Term

Wednesday was our ‘Mission Day’ when we thought about how we can follow in Jesus’ footsteps. In reception class, we read the story of The Good Samaritan and looked at some objects from the story. We then took part in circle time and talked about a time when someone has helped us.

In provision, we then decorated love hearts to show love for each other and we decorated helping hands because we know we can’t always do things alone. We then began decorating a footprint in preparation for our worship.

Over the Easter holidays, our butterflies emerged from their chrysalis. We spent a few days looking after them before deciding to release them into the world. We looked around for a good place for them to be released (somewhere safe with plenty of food) before waiting for a dry day. We held the butterfly in our hands and then watched as they flew away.

Spring Term

We went on our first school trip to Middleton Park! We went on the mini-bus, played on the park and had a snack. We were really well behaved, had lovely manners and enjoyed our time at the park. Our teachers were really proud of us. 

We have been learning about Easter. Miss Laidler brought in some hot cross buns for us to smell, feel and taste. We thought they ‘smelled sweet, felt sticky and tasted yummy!’. We enjoyed them toasted with a little butter on top with our milk at snack time. 

We celebrated World Down Syndrome Day. We led our first class assembly, learned the song ‘Roar’ by Katy Perry and Singing Hands and we wore our odd socks! We celebrated the fact we are all special, unique and very much loved. Our teachers are very proud of us.

We have been reading Jack and the Beanstalk. As part of Drawing Club we have learned some new words with actions, we designed our own giant and the castle for him to live in. In our UTW sessions, we planted a bean and made our own castle in the clouds for it to grow to. We have been exploring what seeds need to be able to grow. 

We have been using balancing scales and water to help us learn about the weight of different objects. We have learned words such as ‘lighter’, ‘heavier’, ‘float’ and ‘sink’. We explored this together as a class as well as in provision. 

In Spring 1, we learned about different dinosaurs. We learned that dinosaurs existed millions of years ago and some of them were herbivores and some were carnivores. We designed our own dinosaur through visiting Drawing Club, we measured dinosaurs in maths and we built dinosaur zoos in the small world area. We were delighted when a mysterious egg appeared and we had to leave it to hatch.

We have been enjoying weekly music lessons. We have been learning how to follow a beat and copy more than 2 instructions at a time. We have been learning about pitch and have taken part in lots of games to help us practise the skill.

We have been learning about various 2D shapes and their properties. We visited the Shape Shop to explain the different shapes we wanted to 'buy' and their properties, including colour. We then learned how to sort shapes into groups and extended this further by creating names for our own groups. 

This half term, we have introduced Drawing Club into Reception class. We have explored a variety of stories including: If I had a Dinosaur... and We're Going on a Bear Hunt. We have been creating our "codes" which has helped us practise our mark-making skills! During Drawing Club we have learned lots of new vocabulary and we have been trying to use these in our play and learning during the day.

We celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany by making our own crowns and having an Epiphany Party. This helped us remember that the wise men visited Jesus many years after he was born and that they brought him some special gifts.

Autumn Term

Here are a few photos of the learning taking place during the autumn term in Reception Class 2023-24. Please log onto Tapestry for more photos and some observations!

Merry Christmas!
love from Reception and Year 6 x

As part of ‘Understanding the World’ and ‘Expressive Arts and Design’, we have been making our own autumnal wreath. We went outside and explored school. We collected leaves, twigs and other materials to create our wreath. 

We acted out the story of the Annunciation. We took it in turns to be the Angel Gabriel and Mary. We thought about how Mary felt and practised using our own faces to show this. We talked about why Mary was chosen by God and how this made her feel inside.

In mathematics, we have been learning about the numbers 1 2 and 3. We have been practising subitising, making, writing and representing 1 2 and 3. We celebrated Baby Bear’s third birthday and made sure the bears all had enough things for their party. 

We learned about the different ways we could look after God’s world. We talked about looking after the world by making positive choices, such as putting rubbish in the bin, turning the tap off etc. We then put this learning into action by exploring and planting cress seeds and watching them grow. 

We have been learning about Diwali. We read ‘The Best Diwali Ever’ and then the children shared their own Diwali stories and experiences. 
 

We looked at real Diya Lamps and then used clay to create our own. 

Reception class took part in their first Remembrance Day activities. They carefully decorated their own poppy using paint and glitter, to help us remember all of the soldiers that have died. We then gathered around the flag pole at 11am with the rest of school and took part in a 2 minute silence. We took part brilliantly and respectfully. 

We went outside to explore our school grounds. In R.E. we have been learning about God’s World and all of the wonderful things He made. We found lots of natural objects outside: leaves, sticks and flowers. We talked about what we liked about them.
We gathered them and practised our counting skills. In Maths, we have been practising subitising to 3…so we put our skills in action!

In R.E. we have been learning about God’s World. We looked at a globe and found the seas and the land. We looked at where we live now, but also where each of our families has come from too. We have many families from all over our wonderful world! 
 

We then looked at photos of animals from all over the world too. We discovered there are more animals than we knew! We learned about koalas, flamingoes, turtles and tortoise (and the differences between them), penguins…and many more. To finish our learning, some of us wrote prayers to thank God for the different animals in the world. We then shared them with each other as we prayed reverently together at the end of the lesson.

This half term, we have been learning about Elmer and how special he is. We then thought about how this makes us special too because we are all different. To celebrate this, we had our own Elmer Day in Reception class. We wore our own clothes from home, played with our friends, invited our parents in to play during the afternoon and even decorated some Elmer style biscuits (multi coloured!).

We have enjoyed using the different areas in Reception class to share stories with our friends. We have looked at stories together and pointed to and talked about the different pictures within stories.

As part of our play, we have been taking part in a range of sensory experiences. We used shaving foam to join foam pieces together - we pretended it was glue or cement! We also explored the ‘potions’ area outside. We mixed the coloured water together with sand and mud to create new textures.

We made our very own listening ears and went on a listening walk around our school. We practised being quiet so we could hear all of the sounds inside and outside. We heard laughter, pencils being used for writing, typing and even the telephone. During our walk, we got to know our school grounds and found out where everything belonged.

During our mathematics sessions, we have been learning how to create patterns, sort objects and group objects in different ways. We have explored colour, shape, texture and have been identifying “sets” of objects.

We enjoyed meeting our Year 6 buddies and playing with them in the Reception area.
Miss Laidler and Mrs Hegarty spoke to the children about the importance of being a role-model as well as a friend to the younger children. The Year 6 children were kind, caring and looked after the Reception children very well. We are really looking forward to working together this year! ⭐️

We have officially welcomed our thirty new wonderful Reception children into our school family. We have been spending the last few weeks getting to know each other, exploring our classroom and making new friends.