Southborough Church of England Primary School

River

Easter Holiday Art Challenge – 4th April to 25th April

Easter Holiday Art Challenge - Our Community Where we live.pdf

Reception Curriculum 2024-2025

reception-curriculum-2024-2025.pdf

Knowledge Organiser

Big Wide World Knowledge Organiser.pdf

February Maths Workshop

February Reception Maths Parent Workshop.pdf

January Phonics Workshop

October Phonics Workshop

This week in River Class

Week Commencing 29th April 2025

What glorious weather we have been enjoying this week!

We have certainly made the most of the warm weather this week to help us imagine we are in a different climate as this week the children have learned about different habitats and climates. Through our learning we have travelled to a snowy tundra, squelched through swamps, seen elephants on a grassy savannah, searched for water on a parched desert and explored the deepest parts of the ocean and vibrant coral reefs. It was so much fun and this was reflected in the children’s role play, the postcards they have written from different destinations and their artwork. Maybe you could use your child’s new knowledge to explain what the different habitats might be like on an imaginary or real visit.

In maths, we have begun to explore numbers beyond 20. We even counted the number of steps from the classroom to the lunch hall, and we got to 89. We agreed that the number can be different based on how long your own steps are! Can your child count the number of steps from the bathroom to bed or really challenge themselves and count how many steps they take to get to school?

We learned that people of different faiths have different books that are special to them. Through our learning, the children already know that The Bible is the holy book for people who are Christians, but they also learned that The Torah is special for people of the Jewish faith and The Quran is the holy book of Islam. We discussed books that are special to us for other reasons, such as happy memories associated with a story. Which books are special in your family?

As the weather continues to be warm, please make sure your child comes to school with sun cream already applied and a sun hat with a name. If they bring sun cream to school, please make sure it is a nut free formula (some brands contain almond oil) and that they know how to apply it. We are able to re-fill water bottles during the day, so don’t worry about sending in additional water.

This week's Talking Task

Next week, we will be going on our trip to The Ashdown Forest Centre and we will be following the adventures of Winnie the Pooh. The Winnie the Pooh books, by A. A. Milne contain maps of the areas which are special to the characters in the story. Can you create a map of somewhere that is special to you, for example your bedroom or local park? You could make a photographic map, draw or paint it, or even make a collage. We’d love to see the places that are special to you.

To enable children to develop their language skills, we have used AI to translate this into other languages spoken in our school community.

Numbots

To use Numbots, for games to support number knowledge, confidence and fluency go to https://play.numbots.com/#/intro If you need your child's log-in please ask your class teacher.

Reception Class Teachers

Reception Teaching Team

A typical day in the life of a Reception child:

	A typical day (but not always!)
8.20/8.30	Adventure Time	Infant gate opens from 8.20am until 8.30am. Parents bring children to classroom back doors. Teachers greet children, children encouraged to put their belongings away, self-register and then join in the self-selected activities. Teaching Assistant supporting children to become more independent as our aim is for children to be able to “think and do for themselves”.
8.35am	Welcome Collective worship	Children gather on the carpet, the teacher will explain the visual timetable (and will continue to do this across the day) to prepare the children for what is next or any changes. Daily Collective worship to reflect being a Church of England School.
8.50am	Plan & Adventure Time	Continuous and enhanced provision in all Areas of Learning accessed both in the indoor and outdoor classrooms. Staff encourage children to develop the characteristics of effective learning as they engage with an extensive range of activities and opportunities. Staff are trained to carry out high quality interactions with the children to develop their skills further.
9.30am	Review and snack	Fruit supplied by the school.
9.45am	Phonics	Short (Read Write Inc) Phonics adult led session to learn to recognise and write sounds, then sound out and blend them to read words and decode words to spell. In addition to discrete phonics teaching, children are encouraged to use recognise and use their phonics skills across the curriculum.
10am	Adventure Time	As above
11.00am	Review and Maths: Teacher Directed	Children discuss their activities in Adventure Time. Maths- short teacher led session
11.30am	Lunch	TAs support children with their lunch in the hall.
12.00pm	Outdoor Play	TAs support outdoor play.
12.20	TA story	TAs bring children in from play and read a story to the class.
12.30pm	Teacher directed	Additional short teacher-led sessions take place which include maths, circle time, literacy, music, R.E., P.E. and Corner Stones based topic lessons. These short inputs feed into the child-initiated learning enabling children to use the resources to further
12.45pm	Adventure Time	Children who have been assessed as needing additional support with Language, speech, and other identified areas, will be supported in short, frequent, small group boosters.
2.15pm	Phonics Review / Review of the day Milk	Recap of Phonics learning / and other learning during the day. Some children have milk (free until 5th birthday)
2:30pm	Magic Maths	Short teacher led session
2.45pm	Story Time Home preparation	Final story of the day. Children gather their belongings and await the arrival of their parent. The outdoor area is closed to all at this time.
3pm	Parents Arrive	The infant gate is opened at 3pm. Strict protocols followed with collection lists. Any queries should be radioed to the office for clarification, or a member of SLT called. Parents encouraged to only have brief handover conversation, and to call the office for telephone call appt for longer conversations.