It has been lovely to welcome the children back to school this week and to see all of their happy and excited faces! We can already see how much they have grown in confidence since the beginning of the school year and can’t wait to see how much they achieve this half term. Thank you for your time during the parents meetings, it was lovely to hear how much the children are enjoying school - their happiness is our priority - but also, it was particularly wonderful to hear how much they are sharing with you at home, especially with their sound cards!

We do have a busy half term coming up with our Stay and Play sessions and our Nativity (yes it’s that time already!), so do keep checking our school calendar for those important dates and times. Reception and Nursery will be performing together, you will see this written as ‘Foundation Nativity’ on the calendar.

What have we been learning this week…

Phonics: This week, as well as reviewing all of our previously learnt sounds, we have introduced the sounds f, e, l and h again forcusing on the sound that the letter makes, the correct formation and words with this initial sound. We have also been doing lots of Fred Talk so we can hear the sounds within words (e.g. h-a-t = hat). Thank you so much for supporting with the sounds at home, the children have come back after the half term eager to show us what sounds they can remember and my goodness they are speedy! Please make sure these sounds stay in the reading packets as we will continue to add our new sounds.

Maths Mastery: This week we have focused on comparing different objects by using language such as more than and fewer than to describe what they can see. (‘Fewer than’ is used rather than ‘less than’ because the focus is on countable things). To deepen this understanding we also looked at what was the same what was different about the objects, such as size, colour and shape as this encouraged the children to then focus on the quantity.
Sometimes it was easy to see who had more than or who had fewer than, other times we had to take a closer look and count the objects to check!

Personal Social Emotional Development and Understanding the world: During our class discussions we have been talking about families and friendships and the children are really enjoying role playing in our home corner. They have been sharing special events, memories and we thought it would be lovely to reflect this with family pictures in our home corner. If you would be happy for us to display a family photograph in our classroom please send one to s.hartley@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk. If you have already shared a family photo for the pick up list and would be happy for us to use that, please also let us know via email.

Upcoming Events…

On Friday 11th November, we will be visited in school by Stuart Robinson.
Stuart is a gold medal winning Paralympian, who represented GB in the recent Olympic games in wheel-chair rugby. Stuart’s visit is part of an event for Sports for Schools. This is an opportunity for the children to take part in a sporting event organised by Stuart, and to then hear about his story as part of an assembly. Reception have brought home their sponsor forms and are really excited to take part in the sport session. On this day, they will need to come to school in their PE uniforms.

On Thursday 17th November at 6pm, we will be welcoming both parents and children into school for Curriculum Evening. We’ve been unable to hold the event for the last couple of years due to Covid, so we are looking forward to coming together as a whole school community once again to share how we promote that love of learning in the children. More information will be given about the evening in the coming weeks.

Let’s Celebrate!

Focused Sadie Spider: Olivia C
Olivia, you have been such a cooper crab in our phonics this week. You have used ‘magnet eyes’ to show that you are ready to listen and learn our new sounds. It’s been wonderful to see how your confidence has grown and how speedy you are becoming with those sounds!
Well done Olivia, keep up this fantastic focus!

Enthusiastic Bobby Bee: Alfie
Alfie, you come to school with exciting knowledge to share and bundles of enthusiasm ready for a new day of learning, You have enjoyed reasoning and problem solving during our maths discussions this week and have found new sounds and words all around our classroom. You have also kept us on our toes with those tricky red words!
Well done Alfie, keep up this excellent enthusiasm!

Important Notices & Polite Reminders:

Reading Books - Polite reminder that reading packets and books must be brought to school each day so we can read with the children in school. Thank you for your support with reading at home, it is really important that they have regular opportunities to read and build on these skills.
School Bags - Now that we need extra layers and winter coats, our cloakroom area is beginning to get quite full! Please could you only send in one school bag, ideally this should be the blue school bags as these fit in the trays leaving space on the pegs for coats etc. If keyrings on bags could be limited to one, it is easier for them to fit in trays. Independence is a huge part of Reception and having fewer items makes things much easier for them to be independent; thank you for your understanding and support.
Outside Provision and Play - We use our outside classroom throughout the day and as the weather is getting colder, children will need warm coats, hats, and wellies. Please make sure these are clearly labelled to avoid getting lost.
Stay and play confirmation - Hopefully you have all received an email inviting you to one of our Stay and Play sessions. If you have not already confirmed, please could you send an email to s.hartley@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk so we know who is able to attend; thank you.

As always, if you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact via email - s.hartley@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk

Have a wonderful weekend,
God bless,

The Reception Team