Waynflete Infants' School - Class pages

Welcome to Reception!

The Reception Team for 2023/24 are:-

Mrs Jordan, Mrs Finch, Mrs Griffiths, Mrs Isham, Mrs Brown and Mrs Gibson. 

Here’s to a great first year at Waynflete!

Information for new parents and children

Life in Reception

The teachers in the Foundation Stage are Mrs Jordan, Mrs Finch and Mrs Griffiths. We are supported by Mrs Isham, Mrs Brown and Mrs Gibson. We are very lucky in Reception as we also get many other adults coming to help us too, so you will get to meet them all.

We are looking forward to many busy terms in Reception!

Who is who?

Here is a little Waynflete Video which was recorded during lockdown 2020, so we thought we would leave it on the website for new Reception children and parents to enjoy. See if you can spot Mrs Lagdon our Headteacher.

We are looking forward to a year filled with learning, friends and fun! Things you need to know

Please see the list below on what your child will need in school:

  • School uniform and dressed for the weather (All uniform to be clearly named please)
  • A school dinner needs to be ordered or a packed lunch sent in each day. We also provide children with milk and a snack
  • Book Bag with your child’s Reading Book
  • Water bottle filled with water each morning
  • Wellies (Please can these be named and kept in school all year)
  • A PE Kit (for the first half term)
  • A smile for teachers and friends!

Topic overviews

Our topic overviews will be emailed to you at the beginning of each term and a copy will be added below.  It contains information about what the children will be learning in all of the different areas of the Foundation Stage Curriculum in Reception.

Please do not be surprised if there are any changes along the way to our overview as we do like to follow the interests of the children and any significant events.

Waynflete’s Reading Challenge

At Waynflete we encourage children to read at home 5 times a week which was set out in our home school agreement that parents have signed. We believe that providing children with this opportunity is crucial to their development. Please see the information below where we have provided you with some ideas on how to support your child’s reading at home. Each time you read or share a book with your child you need to date and sign this ‘Reading Comment Book’. This does not always need to be your child’s reading book, they can read anything! On a Monday your child’s class teacher will check the comment book, and a sticker will be stuck in the back of the reading diary for those who have read on 5 separate days. When 5 reading stickers have been given children will be awarded a special sticker in their big book and a small prize by Mrs Lagdon. If you need any further support or have a question please speak to your child’s teachers.

How can I help my child read?

Research shows that the most important thing you can do to help your child achieve at school is read with them. Little and often is the key! Roughly 10 minutes a day is perfect for a child in Reception. Reading with your child should be enjoyable. The more fun you have, the more likely you are to encourage a love of reading.

Tips to support reading at home

Take turns to read: Often you’ll want to listen to your child read aloud – reading to an adult is the most important thing children in the early stages of learning to read can do to develop their reading. But don’t stop reading aloud to them. It’s a great way of building their understanding, showing them what expressive reading sounds like and letting them enjoy a story.

Encourage them to point to each word and re-read the sentence

Find the sounds they know and encourage them to blend when they are ready.

Talk about the book: Asking your child questions such as ‘What can you see in the picture?’, ‘What might happen next?’ and ‘Did you like this story?’

Teaching Phonics

Children will be having 5 Read Write Inc Phonic sessions a week.  The children will be learning new letter sounds each week and as these new sounds are taught they will be dated in their phonic books. Please remember to review all previous sounds too! All children will be bringing home sound cards for them to use at home so please look at the sounds with your child and see if they can name the sound either with or without referring to the picture clue on the back of the card. You can use the cards to make  words that you can blend with your child or say a word and ask your child to find the card with the initial, final or even middle sound on it.  A couple of minutes each day will really help your child to build on what they have been taught in school.

Ideas for using your phonics books at home:

Can children remember the taught sounds?

Can children remember the formation rhyme? Can children write the letter correctly? (Please do ensure children use the correct formation at all times even when writing their name)

Can children find the sounds they know in their reading books? Can children begin to blend simple words when reading once they know more sounds?

Can children think of words that start with the sounds?

Can children make simple 2 or 3 letter words using the sounds they know?

We teach children pure sounds and the link below might be useful if you want to check how the sounds are pronounced: (When you open the page below scroll down until you see the video links, the link / video you need is called “How to pronounce pure sounds”.

Here is a video to help parents learn the correct way of saying letter sounds to support children’s learning at home.

Common Exception Words - These are words that the children need to learn by sight as these cannot be sounded out using their phonic knowledge

Next Step Footstep Targets

Each child will be given a “Next Step Footstep Target” for them to work towards. Once your child has a target these will be sent home so you can also support them at home. 

This target is something which we feel your child needs to be able to do so please support your child at home with their target. We will be reviewing these targets on a regular basis.

We will send home a new target once a  “Next Step Footstep Target” has been achieved. This could be a personal or academic target, such as, putting on and zipping up coats or recognising numbers to 20.

Next step targets will be coming home during Autumn Term 2.

If you have any questions please speak to Mrs Jordan or Mrs Finch. 

Tapestry is an online learning journal that creates an individual profile for each child. All members of the Foundation team will use iPads to record observations of the children’s learning, which we then link to the foundation stage curriculum as evidence of the children’s progress. When an observation is added to your child’s profile you will receive an email. Parents are able to log onto the learning journal to view and comment on the observations that have been made of their own child.

The website can be accessed using the link below:

We hope that over the next year parents will support us with Tapestry by accessing the children’s Tapestry learning journeys. We welcome parents to like and comment on the observations and we look forward to seeing observations that have been uploaded from home. Please can we ask for all parents to upload their own observations so we can share with the children what they have been doing at home. If you need any help on uploading an observation please speak to the Foundation Stage Team.

Creating a Tapestry observation at home

Tapestry User Guide

Useful website links for supporting your child at home

Being Active at Home

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