Reception

Joining Reception is an exciting time for your daughter as she is now part of the Main School and attends 5 days a week, until 3.15pm.

At Seaton House, all children in Reception belong to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). The EYFS sets early learning goals, which cover the seven main areas of young children’s development and learning. During the EYFS these areas will be introduced in ways that are suitable for young children, often through play. Staff support the girls to develop The Characteristics of Effective Learning: Active Learning, Playing and Exploring and Creating and Thinking Critically. These characteristics support the foundations of future learning. Wellbeing is also an integral part of the curriculum and ethos within the Early Years. The girls are supported to recognise and understand their emotions and the feelings of others. They are supported to develop skills to develop perseverance, resilience and self-regulation. Wellbeing activities form part of the daily routine and support the girls to learn strategies to support positive mental health.

The staff will build on the children’s existing skills and interests in order to help them learn and to develop independence, curiosity, self-respect and resilience.

The girls have a daily mathematics activities, which are practical using as much hands on experience as possible. They also have regular maths challenges to encourage the girls to apply their skills and explain their thinking. For literacy, the whole school uses the ’Read Write Inc’ scheme by Ruth Miskin. This is a highly successful way of learning to read and write the 44 sounds of the English language, using synthetic phonics. The phonics lessons are designed to be short, active, fun lessons where the girls participate at all times, listening, repeating, sounding out together or to a partner, using “Fred Talk” or spelling using “Fred Fingers”. This is then extended into reading and writing activities where stories are examined for punctuation, vocabulary and meaning. The girls also have a story focus each half term and are supported to develop creative writing skills through a variety of exciting and meaningful activities.

All girls have a weekly French lesson, which aims to introduce them to this new language in a sympathetic and motivating manner. The girls also have a weekly music, with a specialist teacher, take part in cooking once a fortnight and have a weekly IT lesson with a specialist teacher. Once a fortnight the girls also take part in activities in our Nature Garden. To enhance the curriculum, a wide variety of workshops and outings occur throughout the year. This includes drama productions, hatching ducklings, adopting a caterpillar, trips to the local area and a science day.

The Reception class teacher is assisted by a Teaching Assistant.