Staff
Kirstyn Moss
Starfish Teacher
Jenna Baker
Teaching Assistant
Becky Shawyer
Teaching Assistant
SPRING TERM 2025 AT NELSON PRIMARY SCHOOL
Welcome to the spring term where we look forward to the continuing partnerships between home and school.
The Reception team are looking forward to a fun and exciting spring term. We hope to continue working in partnership with you to ensure your child’s first year at school continues to be a happy and successful one.
This letter is designed to give you some helpful information about the coming term, specific to Reception. Please refer to the class notice board for more information, reminders and requests and please do not hesitate to see your child’s class team if you have any specific queries.
CURRICULUM
- This first half term our overall topic is “Where can stories take us?”. We will be exploring traditional and well-known tales which the children may already be familiar with, such as Jack and the Beanstalk, The Gingerbread Man and The Three little Pigs. In the second half term our topic will be “What is living in our environment?” where, amongst other things, we will be finding out about “new life.”
- We encourage children to contribute to our topics in school and children may be invited to bring in topic-related items of interest.
- As well as this, in keeping with Reception good practice and ethos, we also continue to respond to children’s interests and ideas and incorporate them, where possible, into our curriculum and learning.
- This year, we are happy to say we will be welcoming to Reception the ever popular “ready –to- hatch” eggs. We will be taking delivery of an incubator, with 10 eggs, which will all hopefully hatch into duckling. During the two weeks, the children will be able to witness the wonder of new life at first hand!
- We will also be receiving a visit from Mill Farm cottage, and the children will have an opportunity to interact with a variety of animals.
You can find out more information about the spring term learning by looking at the overviews and programmes of study on the website.
Learning Journeys
Your child will keep their own Learning Journey in class. We invite you to contribute to this with “WOW” moments. More information about this will be sent home soon.
Snacks
In keeping with the wider healthy eating policy of the school, please only send a fruit or vegetable snack. We feel that this not only helps promote a positive attitude to healthy eating but also encourages good eating habits. Please remember that if you are providing this in a container, please clearly name label it. We are a NUT FREE school and have children allergic, so please DO NOT bring in anything containing nuts.
Lunches
If your child is having a hot school lunch, please remember to select the meal in advance.
Bookbags
We send letters and important information regarding your child’s learning home in their book bags. Please ensure they are bought to school daily and check them on a regular basis.
End of day pick up.
If your child is being collected at the end of the day by someone different, please inform the class teacher. You many also email or phone the school to inform us if there are any changes to pick up. We can only send children home with confirmed adults.
Toys from home.
We ask that children do not bring in toys from home, as we cannot guarantee they will not get lost or damaged.
Reception Cake Sales and assemblies
Assembly – Friday 21st March at 9:30am
Cake sale – Friday 9th May
We hope you have found this information helpful. We aim to keep parents as involved and informed as possible. Please do not hesitate to email the school if you have any questions.
Best wishes and thank you for your support
The Reception Team
The EYFS is guided by a framework called ‘Development Matters’ that sets out the learning, development and assessment requirements for all children until the end of their Reception year. Below are the Early Learning Goals which your child is working towards gaining by the end of the Reception Year.
Communication and Language
ELG: Listening, Attention and Understanding
• Listen attentively and respond to what they hear with relevant questions, comments and actions when being read to and during whole class discussions and small group interactions
• Make comments about what they have heard and ask questions to clarify their understanding;
• Hold conversation when engaged in back-and-forth exchanges with their teacher and peers.
ELG: Speaking
• Participate in small group, class and one-to-one discussions, offering their own ideas, using recently introduced vocabulary;
• Express their ideas and feelings about their experiences using full sentences, including use of past, present and future tenses and making use of conjunctions, with modelling and support from their teacher.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
ELG: Self-Regulation
• Show an understanding of their own feelings and those of others, and begin to regulate their behaviour accordingly;
• Set and work towards simple goals, being able to wait for what they want and control their immediate impulses when appropriate;
• Give focused attention to what the teacher says, responding appropriately even when engaged in activity, and show an ability to follow instructions involving several ideas or actions.
ELG: Managing Self
• Be confident to try new activities and show independence, resilience and perseverance in the face of challenge;
• Explain the reasons for rules, know right from wrong and try to behave accordingly;
• Manage their own basic hygiene and personal needs, including dressing, going to the toilet and understanding the importance of healthy food choices.
ELG: Building Relationships
• Work and play cooperatively and take turns with others;
• Form positive attachments to adults and friendships with peers;
• Show sensitivity to their own and to others’ needs.
Physical Development
ELG: Gross Motor Skills
• Negotiate space and obstacles safely, with consideration for themselves and others;
• Demonstrate strength, balance and coordination when playing;
• Move energetically, such as running, jumping, dancing, hopping, skipping and climbing.
ELG: Fine Motor Skills
• Use a range of small tools, including scissors, paint brushes and cutlery;
• Begin to show accuracy and care when drawing.
Literacy
ELG: Comprehension
• Demonstrate understanding of what has been read to them by retelling stories and narratives using their own words and recently introduced vocabulary;
• Anticipate (where appropriate) key events in stories;
• Use and understand recently introduced vocabulary during discussions about stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems and during role play.
• Say a sound for each letter in the alphabet and at least 10 digraphs;
• Read words consistent with their phonic knowledge by sound-blending;
• Read aloud simple sentences and books that are consistent with their phonic knowledge, including some common exception words.
ELG: Writing
• Write recognisable letters, most of which are correctly formed;
• Spell words by identifying sounds in them and representing the sounds with a letter or letters;
• Write simple phrases and sentences that can be read by others.
Mathematics
ELG: Number
• Have a deep understanding of number to 10, including the composition of each number;
• Subitise (recognise quantities without counting) up to 5;
• Automatically recall (without reference to rhymes, counting or other aids) number bonds up to 5 (including subtraction facts) and some number bonds to 10, including double facts.
ELG: Numerical Patterns
• Compare quantities up to 10 in different contexts, recognising when one quantity is greater than, less than or the same as the other quantity;
• Explore and represent patterns within numbers up to 10, including evens and odds, double facts and how quantities can be distributed equally.
Understanding the World
ELG: Past and Present
• Talk about the lives of the people around them and their roles in society;
• Know some similarities and differences between things in the past and now, drawing on their experiences and what has been read in class;
• Understand the past through settings, characters and events encountered in books read in class and storytelling
ELG: People, Culture and Communities
• Describe their immediate environment using knowledge from observation, discussion, stories, non-fiction texts and maps;
• Know some similarities and differences between different religious and cultural communities in this country, drawing on their experiences and what has been read in class;
• Explain some similarities and differences between life in this country and life in other countries, drawing on knowledge from stories, non-fiction texts and – when appropriate – maps.
ELG: The Natural World
• Explore the natural world around them, making observations and drawing pictures of animals and plants;
• Know some similarities and differences between the natural world around them and contrasting environments, drawing on their experiences and what has been read in class;
• Understand some important processes and changes in the natural world around them, including the seasons and changing states of matter.
Expressive Arts and Design
ELG: Creating with Materials
• Safely use and explore a variety of materials, tools and techniques, experimenting with colour, design, texture, form and function;
• Share their creations, explaining the process they have used;
• Make use of props and materials when role playing characters in narratives and stories.
ELG: Being Imaginative and Expressive
• Invent, adapt and recount narratives and stories with peers and their teacher;
• Sing a range of well-known nursery rhymes and songs;
• Perform songs, rhymes, poems and stories with others, and – when appropriate – try to move in time with music.