A big welcome back to Robin Class and a very Happy New Year to you all

Our aim at Our Lady’s School is to give every child an excellent foundation as they begin their school learning journey. Children will learn through a play-based curriculum and have access to daily outdoor learning opportunities. Through a careful balance of both adult and child-led activities, we provide a rich, stimulating and exciting environment through which children are motivated to be curious, to explore and to learn. Children are encouraged to become independent in daily routines from very early on and are well supported to develop skills to carry them forward in their learning.

All children follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum and work towards achieving their Early Learning Goals across the Seven Areas of Development at the end of their Reception year. The three Prime Areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum underpin every child’s learning. These are Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Communication and Language, and Physical Development. With these skills, children are then able to learn and develop skills across the four Specific Areas of Development which are Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding of the World and Expressive Art and Design. A final Early Years Profile will be made for each child in June.

We firmly believe that strong early reading skills provide the gateway to children’s future successes. Therefore, we begin our daily Phonics teaching following the Read Write Inc Programme from the very first week of school. This half term we will continue our daily phonics teaching, where we will revisit the sounds we already know and move on to look at digraphs (two letters that together make one sound). Our focus will be on developing our independent segmenting and blending skills which will enable us to read and write simple words and sentences.

This term, we will focus our learning around castles, knights and dragons to support our learning of the celebration Lunar New Year. We will then explore the weather, focusing on the season of winter and discover more about the Antarctic. We will then move on to explore spring in our step, with a focus on some traditional tales including Jack and the Beanstalk and the Enormous Turnip. We will learn how to tell these stories with actions and with our story voices, and become confident story tellers.

Our maths focus for this term will be developing a secure understanding of the numbers to 10 following our Power Maths scheme of learning. We will develop our understanding of addition and subtraction by using a range of resources. We will continue to develop our knowledge and understanding of numbers and the number system through our daily fluency activities.

Our RE learning will focus on how we know that we are part of God’s family. We will visit our local church, and listen to stories from the Bible. We will prepare for Easter as we move through the period of Lent.

Below you will find Robin Class termly information sheets so that you can see what your child will be learning across the Early Years Curriculum. Please log on to your child's Tapestry Online Learning Journey regularly where you will be able to see what your child is learning through photos and videos. You will also see how your child is progressing. We love to see what your child is up to at home, so if you wish to add your own comments or observations to your child's Learning Journey then please do so. We look forward to continuing to work with you to support your child on their school learning journey.

Many thanks

Miss Knill and the Robin Class Team