Welcome to Reception!

 Hello and welcome to the families and children of 23/24!

I am thrilled to welcome you to The Prince of Wales First School and I cannot wait to start your child's learning journey with us!

This blog will contain all the information you need for the beginning of term.

As discussed at our Parent Information Session in July, the Reception learning landscape has had a major renovation and myself and the team are really looking forward to accompanying children on their learning experiences in our wonderful new classroom. 

It would be really helpful if you could show these photos to your children a few times before Monday as the changes are significant.

Here is our Carpet Kingdom, here we will share whole class time such as book snuggles, Understanding the World and the odd episode of Number Blocks.

Here is Reading Island, this is our reading space where children can have free access to books all day and an extra book snuggle or two with a grown up.

Here is Quest Time, this is where children will come to Drawing and Maths Club, it is a special place where children will complete Adult Led Activities with myself.

Here's our Message Centre, where children will write important messages, passwords and practice their drawing and letter formation.

Here is Malleable Mountain and Make and Create, here children will have playdough opportunities a plenty, and chances to create fantastic pictures, paintings and create wonderful junk models.

Here's Snack Station, more about Snack later!

Here's the Tinker Table where we can practice our Fine Motor skills.

Here's Tiny Town, where we can play with small world and role play in our brand new FANTASTIC kitchen!

Here's our locker area all ready and waiting for the children to keep their belongings, creations and treasures.

Our wonderful outdoor provision.

I can appreciate that you have lots of questions about day to day running and the first few days, so I will try to answer these now.

Snack:

We have a rolling snack station which opens at 9:30 and closes around 11:00 children can access at any time, rolling snack enables children to eat when they are hungry, not at a set time when they may rather be playing. Adults closely monitor the Snack Station and we ensure that all children access it during the morning.  We will also refill water bottles throughout the day.

The Government state that snack in EYFS should be a healthy snack, such as fruit and vegetables, it should not be high in sugar or fat such as chocolate biscuits and crisps. We will provide fruit each day and strongly encourage children eat this, if you would like to provide a snack from home that is absolutely fine, but please ensure it fits with our healthy eating ethos. There is also free milk for children under the age of 5, children over the age of 5 can access this for a small charge, please see the school office for details.

Welly boots and spare clothes:

Please provide your children with a pair of welly boots to leave in school (clearly labelled) children will always have access to water play and access to outdoors in all weathers. We will always encourage children to wear wellies to protect those all important school shoes! 

It is very helpful to have a spare set of school uniform to keep in children's lockers, for 'little accidents' mud, sand and water! We have extremely limited extra clothes and would hate for children to be wet and soggy!

Please ensure that EVERYTHING is labelled, it takes children time to learn how to look after their jumpers, water bottles and lunch boxes and this process is much easier if staff can support them in finding misplaced items. 

At the end of every day we will put a box outside with drinks bottles and snack boxes in please collect these for your children. (This becomes vital over the winter months when they have big coats and hats etc.)

Lunch time:

Children will be supported by the Reception Team at lunch time, we will encourage children to eat the meal provided by Local Food Links or the lunch you have provided, however please ensure you have chosen food your child has eaten before or feels confident eating, we will offer feedback if we have concerns about the amount of food your child is eating.

PE

Children should attend school on FRIDAYS dressed in their PE kit, they will have PE in the afternoon, this term we will be practicing our Ball Skills with Coach Luca.  Please ensure children wear clothing appropriate for the weather, jogging bottoms and trainers are acceptable in the colder months. 

Toys from home.

Toys from home are not permitted in school, it is very difficult for children to distinguish school toys and equipment and those which may have come from home and we would hate for something special to get lost or broken, so please support us in ensure that these situations don't arise. 

School Day.

Doors open at 8:45 and registration is at 9:00, I strongly recommend that your children arrive at 8:45 wherever possible, this will enable them to take part in our Linked Provision which gives children the opportunity to practice their pure skills such as counting, writing, cutting and sticking. It is a really lovely calm way to start the day.

We finish at 3:30, please arrive promptly to pick up your child, in the early days they can become upset if they can't see their grown up immediately  at the end of the day.

 Bird Groups

On Monday children will bring home a slip of paper with their 'bird group' on. Please spend some time talking about what group they are in. We use these groups for adult led activities, lining up and general activities and organisation. The groups are: Sparrows, Robins, Pheasants, Kingfishers, Flamingos, and Parrots!

The blog will usually be updated on a Friday with a story of our week together in Reception and all key information will be shared through the blog as required. Children love looking at the pictures in the blog and it is a great way for them to recall their learning, so we would encourage that you share the blog with them.

We fully understand that this is a significant new chapter for your children and your family, we take things very slowly during the first few weeks of term whilst we all get to know each other.  Activities and school life will be introduced at the correct pace for the children and we pride ourselves on our Child Led, Children Focussed approach. We will spend the first week exploring key components of our learning experiences such as Drawing Club, Maths Club and Read Write Inc. 

We also have a significant amount of time dedicated to child led play experiences through our continuous provision. Remember if your child said 'I just played all day' this is exactly what they should be doing at this age and stage of their development. We take the learning to them into their play and trust me they will flourish!

Phew! What a huge blog, well done for getting this far!

We are so looking forward to becoming childhood companions for your children we can't wait to get started!

Have a wonderful weekend and an early night on Sunday, 3 more sleeps my darlings and our adventure will start...

Please do not hesitate to get in touch over the first few days to discuss any concerns you may have. My email address is j.evans@theprinceofwales.dorset.sch.uk

Ms Evans, Mrs Rogers, Mrs Hibberd and Miss Street.