We are so excited to welcome all the new children to reception and Daresbury Primary School and are looking forward to the exciting year ahead where we will learn many new things.
Mrs Lockhart and Mrs Dean are here to support you and your child. Although the beginning of this year may look slightly different and we may have to communicate in different ways, please feel reassured that we are help to help and we appreciate that starting a new school year can be worrying. If you do have any concerns, please let us know via tapestry or by telephone at this time.
School Day Checklist:
- All uniform and PE kits clearly labelled
- Wellingtons and if possible puddle suit (To be kept in school for outdoor play)
- Labelled water bottle, school bottles are ideal as they do not leak.
- Book bags, ideally with a small key ring so children can recognise them.
- Additional pair of pants, socks placed in small zipped pocket in reading folders.
- Lunch, unless your child is ordering a hot lunch
- Snack, unless your child is ordering toast. We would suggest that snacks are placed inside book bags rather than lunch boxes as this can confuse the children.
- Reading records and books on a Friday.
Behaviour and Rewards
The whole school follows three rules: kind, ready and safe. When the children follow these rules they are given stickers for their sticker chart. The children love earning stickers and trying to fill their charts as quickly as possible. These are displayed in the classroom so that all children can see how quickly they are filling up. Alongside our sticker charts there is a sun, cloud and thunder storm. All children will begin and hopefully end the day on the sun; however, if a member of staff feels that your child has not chosen to be kind, ready or safe, they will be given time to think about their actions (cloud) and if they persistently choose not to be kind, ready or safe, they will be spoken to privately by the teacher, moved onto thunder and it will be communicated to you via tapestry. Each child will always start the day on the sun, regardless of the previous day's actions. We will be rewarding children who remain on the sun throughout the week.
Reading and Reading logs
At the beginning of the year all children will be given a reading record. In order to reduce items coming into school daily, we will be asking that reading records only come in weekly on a Friday. We would ask parents to read with their children at least 3 times per week however the more the better and every time they read for parents to write a short comment in the records. We will monitor this weekly and place stickers on children's charts who read 3 times or place stickers in their diary asking you to remember to read more often. Your child will also receive a raffle ticket weekly if they have read three times a week, which is put into a raffle and pulled out termly to win a book token worth £5.
Monday – a new reading book will sent home along with their reading record.
Friday – reading book and reading record both need to return and be kept in school over the weekend. (This ensures we meet our duty to keep books safe for other children to use. )
** It is essential that you remember to bring your child's book back weekly as we have limited options to share **
Alongside a reading book, children can also access a library book on a weekly basis. This book can be shared with parents and does not need to be read by the child. Library books will come home in a clear book bag. Once read, keep at home until the following Friday . Please try not to put school reading books or reading records in the same bag as the library book as this is too difficult for the children to get out of their bags.
Bug club
Bug Club is a literacy program designed to support the effective and engaging reading. The books are set to the child's direct book band. The children all have their own individual logins; therefore, we will be monitoring the use of Bug Club every Friday. It is a great app/website that children can enjoy reading books onscreen and completing fun quiz questions found in the eBooks. The quiz questions will help the children practise their reading skills. Many of the KS1 eBooks are also audiobooks, so children can enjoy hearing an expressive reading of the story.
Reading an eBook
Click on the book cover and see how many quiz questions there are. Read the book and click on the bug icons to open the quiz questions. Your child does not need to finish all quiz questions in one sitting. They can come back to a book later. However, the book is not marked as read until all questions are answered. Bug Club books are an additional reading resource for your child.
Homework
As mentioned above the children are expected to read every night or at least 3 times per week. Alongside this reception home work includes:
- Weekly practise of new letter sounds (these will be put onto tapestry on a Monday)
- Weekly practise of forming the letters in small handwriting book. (This does not have to be brought into school)
- After half term we also will be giving out weekly spellings.
** There may be times that we send home additional challenges or give children individual targets to work on but we believe the above homework is crucial to having the best start in school life.
PE
Class 1 children will have two sessions of PE a week. This term PE will take place on a Monday morning with Mrs Stewart and a Tuesday afternoon with Mrs Lockhart. Alongside this, we have continued access to our outdoor play area. Children are required to come into school wearing their PE kits on their PE days. We request the children to wear a school PE kit with a logo or a plain white t-shirt with plain black shorts/bottoms. We also have a school hoodie which can be worn as a jumper on PE days as part of the PE Kit. If your child does not have, a kit in school a note will be put in their reading diary, if they continue to forget their kit a text message will be sent home. After this it is a phone call home and then if this continues a letter will be sent home.
Children in reception, can sometimes leave school rather dirty, especially after a fun day playing in the mud kitchen, riding the bikes and painting however we always see it as a sign of a really fun day! We would suggest that parents have some spare uniform at home so they aren't frantically washing the night before.
PPA
Every Monday morning, Mrs Lockhart will be out of class to have time for planning, preparation and assessment. During this time Class 1 will be taught Spanish, PHSE and PE by Mrs Stewart. Mrs Lockhart will help to bring the children in on a Monday and to ensure they are all settled before leaving.
Curriculum Map
Please Click here to see Class 1's curriculum map for the year. Our first topic is All About Me so please talk to your child about their body parts, family, age, pets, what they were like as babies etc.
Tapestry
We use tapestry for our online learning journeys, this is a brilliant way for you to keep up to date about your child's learning and see their progress and next steps. This year we will be relying on tapestry even more for our vital communication so would encourage all parents to access their accounts ASAP. A text message will be sent out in the first week so you can see when your child's account has become active. Previously, we have used our reading diaries to communicate short messages as have parents, e,g, missing jumpers, child being a little upset or not eaten much lunch etc but will now be placing these message onto tapestry. We will add them onto tapestry with the subtitle short message and would ask parents to do the same. We do access our tapestry account a lot during the day but will ensure we check this every morning between 9-9:10 for any short messages you want us to know that day.
We would also encourage parents to use tapestry to share any wow moments that your child has at home- this can be anything from learning to ride a bike, attending a family party, learning something new, receiving a certificate, being brave when they went to the dentist, showing they were kind to a baby cousin etc etc. Children love to share these moments with the class and we make sure that we share these as often as possible. We do not have a limit on how many posts you want to share but would ask everyone to share a wow moment at least once per month. Please put the title as WOW moment!
Apps
We are often asked in school if we can recommend any apps. Below is a list of apps which we use in school to support learning:
- Pocket Phonics
- Doodle Buddy
- Jolly Phonics
- Twinkl phonics
- Toca Boca apps
- Beebot
- Pocket phonics
- Sparkle Paint
- Hickory dickory dock
- Bugs and numbers
- Phonics with letter lilies
- Hairy letters
- Teach your monster to read
Useful documents
