At Elstow School we welcome children into our Reception Classes in the September after they turn 4.
This is such an important time in your child’s school life, where routines are established and relationships are built between home and school. Elstow prides itself on providing a quality learning experience with our highly skilled teachers and teaching assistants. We ensure our staff are all trained in phonics, early maths and in specific areas of supporting the development of our youngest pupils.
At Elstow School the children will be given the opportunities to work independently, in pairs, and in groups. During their day, children will be able to explore the activities and resources on offer as part of learning through play and exploration. Much of the learning will be practical, allowing the children to develop both their understanding and their fine motor skills.
Throughout Early Years, our practitioners consider the individual needs interests and development of each of our children. We incorporate playing and exploring, active learning to stimulate intense concentration and give ample opportunity for children to explain their ideas and begin to develop their own strategies for doing things.
Behaviour management in Early Years is an adapted version of the expectations across the school. Children are encouraged to make good choices for themselves and learn to do so for those around them. Focus is on giving rewards through Dojos, stickers and verbal praise. Sanctions are entirely age appropriate to enable children to understand how their actions might have affected others.
For more information about what the children have been learning in Reception you will have opportunities to speak to Miss Ricketts, the Owls class teacher and Miss Keates, the Robins class teacher.
We are particularly proud of our high quality outcomes in Early Years and spend a great deal of our time ensuring that children have every opportunity to show their learning and parents are fully involved, through communication on Class Dojo and at the school door. If you have specific concerns about your child starting school, speak to Mrs Maples, our SENCo or Mrs Polson, our Family Support Worker.
Children in Early Years follow our Sounds Write phonics programme to learn how to read and they are introduced to this on day one. Your child will be given a phonics reading book to take home and we ask you practice reading with your child. We have a Sounds Write parents phonics programme which you can watch to help you understand how your child is learning to read. If you want more information speak to the class teachers or Mrs Maker, the school’s English Lead.
By the end of Early Years, children will be expected to have a deep understanding of the number 10, including the composition of each number. We work on teaching the children how to subitise (that is, recognise quantities without counting them up) up to 5 and we work on automatic recall of number bonds to 5 including their subtraction facts. We spend a lot of time on this; teaching these concepts in a wide variety of different ways and in different parts of their day to embed the understanding deeply.
Children will also verbally be taught to count reliably beyond 20 and begin to recognise the counting system. They learn to compare quantities up to 10 and recognise and explain if one quantity is greater, less or the same as another. Children also learn through play and concrete apparatus, how to recognise patterns within numbers – for example odds and evens and doubles.
Children will have P.E during the week. Please send your child to school in P.E kit on those days – a plain blue tracksuit and black or white trainers are fine.
We ask that P.E kits are non branded, plain dark colours and suitable for all weathers.
EYFS information is given out by Class Dojo. Please contact class teachers about any concerns.
If you have concerns regarding children’s education or emotional and social skills, please email [email protected]
If you are worried about general settling in, day to day issues and learning activities, or have daily messages regarding your child’s health and welfare in EYFS, please speak to the class teacher or call the office.