Early Years

Welcome to Reception

RP - Mrs Wareing
RP LSA - Mrs Kaur
RB - Miss Jung
RB LSA - Mrs Sidhu

Letters and Overviews 2024 - 2025

Using Tapestry

In Reception, we use Tapestry to communicate with parents and share the work that our children have been doing at home and at school. Parents should be checking their child's Tapestry page every day.

Click on the links below to view the Tapestry guidelines for parents:

Tapestry Parents Guide

Parents Guide Android App

Parent Guide iOS App

Please watch the video below for instructions on how to access and use Tapestry and speak to your child's class teacher if you have any further questions.

n our reception classes we strive to provide stimulating and exciting learning challenges which help make children’s first school experiences memorable. We set the foundations to support children to become independent and confident individuals, who are ready for the more formal learning in Year 1.

In reception we teach the children through play based activities with the aim for them to achieve a good level of development in 17 key areas:

Communication and Language:

Listening, attention and understanding
Speaking

Physical Development:

Gross motor skills
Fine motor skills

Personal, Social and Emotional Development:

Self-regulation
Managing self
Building relationships

Literacy:

Comprehension
Word reading
Writing

Mathematics:

Numbers
Numerical patterns
Understanding the World:
Past and present
People, culture and communities
The natural world
Expressive Arts and Design:
Creating with materials
Being imaginative and expressive

We plan our experiences with the individual child at the centre of our curriculum and build on their knowledge and interests. Our topics are changed half termly and provide meaningful and engaging activities that get progressively more challenging to build on the children’s prior knowledge. They are taught through carefully planned adult focussed tasks, teacher led activities, challenges and child initiated play to support their individual learning styles.

Our learning environment promotes exploration and independence where children can flow freely between two linked classes and an outdoor area. We encourage the children to take risks, persevere and not be afraid to make mistakes while they discover, explore and investigate their surroundings.

We share the achievements the children make through an online learning journal called ‘Tapestry’. We encourage parents/carers to share the work and achievements the children accomplish at home as this builds a strong and trusting parent/teacher partnership.

To view your child’s journey, you can download the tapestry app onto your smart phone or alternatively use the following link:

https://tapestryjournal.com/

Phonics:

At Guru Nanak Sikh Academy, our Phonics and Early Reading is the starting point to build competent and lifelong readers. We teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised; which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme.

For further information on the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds programme, please click here.

Useful Links for Parents

Here are some links to websites and videos which you may find useful when helping your child practice what the have learnt in school.

Phonics

· Tricky Words – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvMyssfAUx0

· Blending strategies – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqvqMtSNswo&feature=emb_title

· Blending practice – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ovJIxTQpsU

· Phonics games – https://www.phonicsbloom.com/

· Sound mat - https://www.greyfriars.academy/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/jolly-phonics-pic.jpg

Reading

· Collins E-books – https://ebooks.collinsopenpage.com/

Maths