Robins Class

Nursery and Reception Class

Summer Term 2024 - - -

Summer Term 2024 - - -

Our New themes are ‘Where we Live and Once Upon a Time’

So we will be learning about the geography of our local area and contrasting it with a locality in Africa. We will be learning the skills and vocabulary of being a geographer. We are so lucky to live in such an amazing part of the country so there is lots to explore and potential places we could visit!!

Our love of fairytales will be the basis of our learning with our Nursery age children. We will focus on three stories; The Three Little pigs, Little Red Riding hood and The Gingerbread Man. We will role play, use them as a stimulus for our art and DT and also write alternative endings…… watch out! It’s behind you!!!

Fresh Air Friday..

We looked at the art work of Andy Goldsworthy making sculptures out of natural items and we had a go. We collected lots of sticks, leaves, grass cuttings and other things we found on the field and we worked as a team.

We enjoyed a visit from the author of ‘Billy the Blackbird’ on world book day and we then set about making bird feeders and bird houses in different ways.

Castles, Knights and Dragons…… Spring 1 2024 Book Coverage and genres

Autumn Term 2023

So the second half of the Autumn Term is here already and we are raring to go with lots to look forward to.

Our Topic this half term is

Light, Colour and Dark,

We will be looking at celebrations and how they are similar and different around the world.

Christmas around the world and Diwali will be explored.

We will be reading books about different aspects of light and dark…..

Curriculum Map for Robins Class - Autumn 2 curriculum highlighted in orange.

We celebrated Black History Month in October. We focused on the theme of ‘Celebrating Our Sisters’ and found out that Florence Joyner aka Flo Jo was and still is the fastest woman ever with a still to be beaten record. We watched her races and saw her receiving her gold medals. We cheered her on and tried being determined in our own races.

We looked at how different and unique we all are and together decided that if we all looked the same and we all liked the same things it would be very difficult to recognise each other and it would be a rather boring world. We are proud of what makes us different, special and unique.

We painted ourselves and talked about what makes us different to our friends and what features we have that are the same.

Autumn Term 2023 - Welcome back everyone.

And just like that it is September again and the start of a new and exciting year for all our wonderful pupils. We are so excited to start this new chapter of learning with out wonderful nursery and reception age children in a more combined and fluid way. A love of learning in all areas of the curriculum will be fostered through a creative and structured approach that will meet all our learners needs.

Our Reception children will be able to act as role models and as a stimulus to our younger friends allowing their natural and most caring side to flourish, whilst our youngest members will benefit from that desire to emulate and share their ideas with their older friends. All ably supported by a very experienced and enthusiastic team of EYFS professionals.

We have been working hard to make our new setting just right. More photos to follow……

IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS

Long Term Plan for Robin Class 2023/2024

Autumn Term Plan - Ourselves, getting to know you, getting to know me.

So our Nursery Graduates will now be starting their Reception Year at school……we are SUPER PROUD of them all!

EYFS CURRICULUM INTENT at Dean Gibson School

Our curriculum has been designed with an aspiration for Dean Gibson children to be:

The best that they can be

We want our children to be curious

We want our children to be intellectually curious, with a natural desire to learn new things, understand inner workings and detail and a desire to investigate and study. Our aim is to help children to seek and acquire new knowledge, skills and ways of understanding the world. We want our children to be motivated to learn and to keep that thirst for knowledge throughout their lives. We believe curiosity is a habit that should be encouraged and nurtured.

We want our children to embrace diversity

 Having empathy and understanding for others and a real desire to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, is an aspiration at the core of our school community.  Making connections with others, celebrating and promoting difference are key skills we want our children to leave us with. We want their eyes to be open to a life beyond our small town and all that it can offer, the challenges and the enrichments.

 We want our children to experience the outdoors

Through learning about the world, we want our children to understand they have a role to play in society.  Care for our planet and understanding our responsibility to protect it for future generations is all about developing a respect for the world God has given us. 

 

The Dean Gibson EYFS Curriculum intends to:

·         provide a Catholic setting in which all children can grow in understanding, acquiring valuable skills, knowledge, attitudes and values;

·         to enable all children to be the best that they can be

·         educate the whole child; assisting in the formation of happy, confident, caring, responsible citizens who know themselves and the world in which they live;

·         shape today's children to meet tomorrow's challenges in an ever-changing world with resilience;

·         address the requirements of the EYFS by resourcing curriculum areas sufficiently to create a wide range of exciting and curiosity encouraging learning opportunities;

·         strive for the highest possible standards of behaviour and all-round achievement;

·         help children respond curiously and creatively to a range of cultural experiences.

 

EYFS CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION

Dean Gibson’s EYFS curriculum is implemented through:

·         careful mapping of the requirements of the EYFS through meaningful and exciting units of learning;

·         structured sequences of teaching which build upon children’s prior experiences, knowledge and skills whilst introducing new ideas, vocabulary and concepts in a timely way;

·         a flexible approach allowing for children’s needs and motivations to be recognised and valued;

·         a balance of adult-led and child-led learning;

·         the opportunity for skills and knowledge to be embedded and revisited;

·         careful ongoing assessment ensuring we respond to the needs of our children;

·         an active, play based approach to learning – exploration of ideas and problem solving;

·         an environment that supports learning and independence both indoors and outdoors;

·         knowledgeable staff who plan next steps for children and develop positive characteristics of learning;

·         opportunities for learning beyond the classroom – strong links with home, other educational partners and the local community.

 

EYFS CURRICULUM IMPACT

 We want children leaving EYFS and entering Y1 to:

·         understand the teachings of Jesus by engaging in prayer and retelling some Bible stories, with an understanding of the messages for us;

·         have made good progress from their starting points;

·         be engaged, confident and happy learners who approach challenges with determination and resilience, asking for help when necessary;

·         be polite, friendly and caring members of the school community;

·         have developed and secured a range of skills and knowledge across the curriculum;

·         have developed greater independence and self-awareness;

·         be ready for entering Year 1, the next stage in their learning journey;

·         have mastered the basics of early reading and maths; most having secured these EYFS ELGs.

Phonics in Reception (For Reception Age Children)

As a school we have recently began our journey with a new phonics scheme called ‘Little Wandle.’

Each day the children share a whole class phonics session from 9-9.25 where we are introduced to a new phoneme (sound) starting with single graphemes (letter shapes) moving on to digraphs (2 letter sounds- ch, sh, ee) and trigraphs (3 letter sounds - igh, ear)

Each day we practice blending the sounds for reading and segmenting the sounds in a word for spelling. We also practice our ‘tricky words’ daily. (words that cannot be sounded out - the, no)

The children will read in guided reading groups 3 times a week revisiting the same book. These books are matched to the children’s current learning in the phonics sessions and this allows them to apply their new learning.

Children who need any extra practice are supported through daily ‘catch up sessions.’

Phoneme teaching order and pronunciation…

Phonics For nursery age children -

We follow ‘Little Wandle Foundtions’ and ‘Foundations for a Love of Reading.’

Reading in Robin Class - We really love stories and reading for fun in Robin Class, be that sharing a much loved book at home, choosing one to snuggle down with in the reading corner or voting for our story time book.

Click the link below to see a list of the top 100 Reception age good quality texts.

Reception 100 books

How many have you read before? Could you visit our local library to find some of them?

This reading list has come from Books for primary schools - Peters and includes many interesting titles.

Nursery 100 Books

Maths - White rose maths

Maths in Robins Class

As a school we follow the ‘White Rose Hub’ Maths curriculum outline to ensure that the children are both learning and consolidating their maths knowledge in discrete lessons, group work and during child initiated play.

Celebrating the Coronation of King Charles III

We thoroughly enjoyed all the activities and celebrations to do with the coronation, from fact finding….Did you know the crown is the St Edwards Crown? To art work and being royal portrait painters…. to wearing red, white and blue….making sandwiches and enjoying a teddy bears picnic.

Summer Term 2023 A New Chapter for our Early Years Unit

We are so excited to start this new chapter of learning with out wonderful nursery and reception age children in a more combined and fluid way. A love of learning in all areas of the curriculum will be fostered through a creative and structured approach that will meet all our learners needs.

Our Reception children will be able to act as role models and as a stimulus to our younger friends allowing their natural and most caring side to flourish, whilst our youngest members will benefit from that desire to emulate and share their ideas with their older friends. All ably supported by a very experienced and enthusiastic team of EYFS professionals.

We have been busy getting the rooms ready for our new shared topic of…..Growing Every Day.

Here is our Medium Term Plan for the topic ‘Growing Every Day’

We wish you all a Happy and Holy Easter.

Here are just some of the ways Reception Class have been celebrating and exploring the story of Easter.

Move for Mary’s Meals -Our Minnie Vinnies group organised and ran a sports event for the children to raise money for ‘Mary’s Meals.’ The Reception Class children loved it and joined in enthusiastically with all the sports and games. We were also wearing Blue to remind us of Mary.

As part of the Easter message we decided to look after our school community so the children wrote a list of all the adults that help us every day and delivered a small Easter gift to them. It made each and every one of them smile!

Jesus Sees His Mother

As part of our work on the Easter story each class took a part of the ‘Stations of the Cross.’

In Reception we reflected on how Mary must have felt when she saw her Son, Jesus carrying his cross. We thought about what she would have been thinking and what she would have wanted to say.

The children painted a picture of Mary at that time and created a speech bubble to go with it.

Can you design a cardboard castle that will not get soggy in a REAL moat?

The children split into teams of their choosing and were given a cardboard box each to transform into a castle. They were then asked to make sure that when we poured real water around the bottom it didn’t get all wet, soggy and fall apart.

The children selected materials and tools in their groups to try to come up with a plan……

And then we tested their ideas and models with a REAL WATER MOAT….

Happy Mother’s Day to all our lovely Mums.

Our current reads are……

Spring term 2023

Our topic this half term is based on CASTLES AND DRAGONS - The children have expressed such a love of role play learning and an interest in the past that we are looking forward to where our imaginations take us next.

There is a whole world of familiar and new books that we can use to spark our curiosity. From Jack and the Beanstalk to Cinderella, from sleeping beauty to George and the Dragon, That’s Not my Dragon and Puff the Magic Dragon. Not to mention a wealth of castle non-fiction books and gruesome facts from the past!!

We are lucky to have a brilliant castle ruin in our town that I am sure many of you have already explored, but have you been to any others?



Spring term planning

Maths in the Reception Class

As a school we follow the ‘White Rose Hub’ Maths curriculum outline to ensure that the children are both learning and consolidating their maths knowledge in discrete lessons, group work and during child initiated play.

Phonics in Reception

As a school we have recently began our journey with a new phonics scheme called ‘Little Wandle.’

Each day the children share a whole class phonics session from 9.05-9.25 where we are introduced to a new phoneme (sound) starting with single graphemes (letter shapes) moving on to digraphs (2 letter sounds- ch, sh, ee) and trigraphs (3 letter sounds - igh, ear)

Each day we practice blending the sounds for reading and segmenting the sounds in a word for spelling. We also practice our ‘tricky words’ daily. (words that cannot be sounded out - the, no)

The children read in guided reading groups 3 times a week revisitng the same book. These books are matched to the children’s current learning in the phonics sessions and this allows them to apply their new learning.

Children who need any extra practice are supported through daily ‘catch up sessions.’

We have really enjoyed our visit with Raswan today. He told us about being a Muslim and the 5 Pillars of Islam. He showed us how he prays and his beautiful calligraphy art work. We then had a go. He sent us outside to look for sticks to use as paintbrushes and talked about the shapes he likes to make. We loved it and could remember a lot about it afterwards.

We visited Holy Trinity and St George with the rest of KS1. Father Hugh talked to us about his job and let us ask questions about his role and the things we could see in the church. We even did a treasure hunt and tried on some of his special vestments!

Painting portraits in a historical style….