EYFS Information Evening Tuesday 13th November 3.45pm

Reception at St Gregory’s Believe and Achieve Together

Your Child’s Day 8.45-9.00 Arrive and carry out an activity such as name writing, fine/gross motor activities. 9.05-9.10 Registration and prayers 9.10-9.30 Phonics 9.30-10.10 Session 1 10.10-10.25 Snack and chat 10.25-10.45 Break 10.45-11.00 RE 11.00-11.20 Maths 11.20-12.10 Session 2 12.10-1.15 Lunch

Your Child’s Day 1.15-1.30 Reading/Buddy Time. 1.30-1.50 Literacy 1.50-2.55 Session 3 2.55-3.20 Collective Worship 3.25 Home time

Every week one child is chosen as ‘Star of the Week’ by the EYFS team. Rewards Every week one child is chosen as ‘Star of the Week’ by the EYFS team. Stand Out Star! Absolutely Amazing Delightful Decisions Ready to Learn Make Better Choices Time out to Think Go to the Office

Special Helper Every day two children are chosen to be the special helper. Their responsibilities may include: Taking the register to the office Holding the doors for their peers Taking things to the office Checking the classroom is tidy

What is Early Years? Early Years is the stage of education for children from birth to the end of the Reception year. It is based on the theory that children learn best through play and active learning.

EYFS Curriculum The EYFS curriculum is broken down into seven specific areas of learning: Communication and language Physical development Personal, social and emotional development (PSE) Literacy Mathematics Understanding the world Expressive arts and design Within each of these areas, there are specific Early Learning Goals – for example, in the case of Communication and language, these are Listening and attention, Understanding, and Speaking.

Phonics What is Phonics? Phonics is a strategy that is used to enable us to teach our children to read.

Phonics But what does it mean? Words are made up from small units of sound called phonemes. Phonics teaches children to be able to listen carefully and identify the phonemes that make up each word. This helps children to learn to read words and to spell words In phonics lessons children are taught three main things: GPCs They are taught GPCs. This stands for grapheme-phoneme correspondences. This simply means that they are taught all the phonemes in the English language and ways of writing them down. These sounds are taught in a particular order. The first sounds to be taught are s, a, t, p. Put simply the grapheme is the spelling of the phoneme (the sound). Segmenting Children are also taught to segment. This is the opposite of blending. Children are able to say a word and then break it up into the phonemes that make it up. This skill is vital in being able to spell words. Blending Children are taught to be able to blend. This is when children say the sounds that make up a word and are able to merge the sounds together until they can hear what the word is. This skill is vital in learning to read.

Phonics How is phonics taught? Here at St Gregory’s we follow the Letters and Sounds scheme with a helping hand from Jolly Phonics. Phonics is taught daily and the sessions are entirely made up from games, songs and actions and these sessions only last for 15-20 minutes per day.

Putting sounds together to make words Words are decodable c a t Blending Putting sounds together to make words Words are decodable c a t

Tricky Words Some words are simply not decodeable. These words have to be learnt and include: I, to, no, go,

Reading Your child will bring home one book at a time. Initially your child will take home picture books with no words. Once your child has mastered initial sounds and is beginning to segment and blend sounds in simple words, they will bring home books with text. Your child should reread this book until they become familiar with the text. The National Curriculum states: “Children should read aloud accurately books that are consistent with their developing phonic knowledge and that do not require them to use other strategies to work out words. They should re-read these books to build up their fluency and confidence in word reading.” Please use your child’s home reading record to indicate home reading. Your child will be listened to by an adult at least once a week and this will be recorded in your child’s reading record.

Writing Writing is developed alongside reading and handwriting. Children: learn to write the letters/letter groups which represent the 44 sounds learn to write words by saying the sounds and graphemes learn to build sentences orally using adventurous vocabulary start with simple sentences and develop towards more complex ones by the end of the programme

Handwriting This is taught within the phonics sessions and a pre-cursive style font is taught within early years.

Maths Maths, covering number and shape, space and measure, is taught in small chunks on a daily basis. The teaching focuses on a concrete-pictorial-abstract approach. Put very simply, we ensure your child understands what ‘6’ actually is before expecting them to work with the numeral 6 without pictorial or practical support.

Maths

Number Formation

RE RE is taught in small chunks on a daily basis. This half term we will be learning about: God’s World God’s Family RE is also woven into other areas of our learning including that of literacy and topic work. Collective Worship, singing and celebration assembly takes place most days at 2.55pm.

Tapestry An easy-to-use online learning journal used to record, track and celebrate children's progress in early years education. Tapestry captures children's experiences as well as monitor development and learning. This unique journal is shared online with parents, who are able to see special moments and view their child's progress. Text, images and videos can be easily uploaded via PC, tablet or our mobile app - anywhere there's an online connection. Every entry helps to create a complete story of a child's time at nursery, pre-school or school. Tapestry covers the EYFS and is designed to simplify and improve recording within these curricula. Information can be filtered and displayed in different ways, and assessments and statements can be made for each entry. This means there is no need for using ring binders or scrapbooks as learning records, or time consuming written notes and glued-in photos. When children leave the setting you can provide parents with a permanent version of their child's journal as a keepsake, either as a hard copy or on CD.

Any other questions ?