Starting School
School Day
Useful Info
Welcome to
Class 3
Our Early Years Aims
Our aim for the children in our Early Years setting is that they become confident, caring and respectful young people whose creativity and inquisitiveness is nurtured and enhanced through our Early Years Curriculum. We help our children to develop a love of learning by offering memorable learning experiences, a language rich environment and most importantly an enjoyable place to learn.
Meet the Team
Welcome to Class 3. Our reception class. Our teacher is Mrs O'Byrne and our teaching assistant is Mr Patey
Mrs O'Byrne
Mr Patey
Our Class Charter
Our class promises are decided by the children in our class. They are the rules and values that they think are most important to help our class be the best it can.
Our Curriculum
We offer a range of different activities to help our Year 1 children grow and learn. Our children enjoy direct teaching of English, Maths and Foundation subject skills, as well as the opportunity to develop and extend their thinking and learning through enhanced continuous provision, where the children lead the own play. The challenges and play on offer are based around our half termly topics and book hooks, which are further complemented by activities inspired by the children’s interests.
Please click on the link below to see our curriculum in more detail.
Our Timetable
Book hooks and 5-a-day
We really value reading at South Stanley Infant and Nursery, and know the positive impact reading for pleasure has on your child’s future achievements. That is why we read the same ‘book hook’ 5 times a day, every day. This helps the children to get to know these carefully chosen stories inside out! They learn the repeated refrains, new vocabulary, get excited when anticipating events in the story.
It enables them to know the book well enough to talk about it with their friends and to use this story knowledge in their play, recreating and innovating new tales of their own!
Poetry
Children build up a bank of twelve well known nursery rhymes throughout the year with a different focus each week
Every half term, a poetry 'pick' is enjoyed - a poem picked for its quality language, recommendation and links to learning. Children unpick the vocabulary and enjoy listening to, then joining in with the poem, leading to in class and shared performances. We also share a weekly maths book hook which also promotes rhythm and rhyme.
These are the poems we enjoy throughout the year.
Book Bags and Homework
All of our children are provided with a book bag and reading record, which we ask parents to sign and comment in so we can see how the children are progressing at home.
We ask that ALL Reception children bring their book bag to school every MONDAY. The children choose a story book to take home and enjoy for the week – this is their ‘reading for pleasure’ book and can be enjoyed as many times as you like.
Reception children are also given a ‘phonics’ homework book, which is for reading to you – please remind your children to ‘say the sounds, read the word’. They will bring their book bags home again on Tuesday. We ask that you also send the book bag back to school for a quick check in on Thursday. We will read your comments and see if any additional help is needed and send it back the same day.
We expect our children to read their phonic book to you 5 times throughout the week, with a minimum of 3 times, and there is more information in their reading record about this and possible comments you might make. Please sign the reading record every time you listen to your child read.
On THURSDAY we send home a homework challenge. There will be an English phonics and reading challenge and a maths challenge linked to the teaching that week. These short activities are all about what your child is finding out about in school, so you are more connected to and able to be more informed and involved in their learning.
WOW Stars
We always love to hear from home, and ask that parents send in ‘WOW’ stars to share celebrations and achievements outside of school (we provide the stars – please ask for more if you have run out!). We share these ‘WOW moments’ with all the children and display the stars in class.
Our Children!
Our children enjoy learning new skills through a range of teacher led challenges, have fun expressing themselves and showing off their skills through child led learning and also have the opportunity to explore and have fun through play each and every day.
After such a busy, fun-packed day, your child may not remember everything they have done, so please enjoy these photos showing some of the activities they have enjoyed.
Class newsletters
Please click on the links below to see Class 3’s newsletters.
Class 3 Newsletter Autumn 1 2023
Class 3 Newsletter Autumn 2 2023
Class 3 Newsletter Spring 1 2024
Class 3 Newsletter Spring 2 2024
Class 3 Newsletter Summer 1 2024
Useful information and links
Free Early Childhood Education Tutorial – Help your child to read and write | Udemy
Words for Life | National Literacy Trust | Words for Life
Numberblocks – CBeebies – BBC
If you would like to know more about Class 3 or would like further information about our school, please see your child’s teacher or ring the school office on 01207 232445.