Information for parents: Reception baseline assessment

The Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) is a short, interactive and practical assessment of your children's early literacy,  communication, language and mathematics skills when they begin school,  using materials that most children of your child's age will be familiar with. It is statutory for all schools from September 2021.

The RBA will provide an opportunity for your child to have valuable one-to-one tome with their teacher at an early stage, so that the teacher can get to know your child better. It will provide a helpful snapshot of your child so that they can be supported in the most appropriate way.

You do not need to do anything to prepare your child for the assessment. Your child is unlikely to even know that they are doing an assessment when they are completing tasks and activities.

For more information the full booklet for parents is below.

2022 information for parents reception baseline assessment.pdf

The EYFS Profile is a government handbook that is produced to help EYFS practitioners make accurate judgements about a child's progress. Built around examining children's development based on the 7 Areas of Learning and the developmental outcomes of the EYFS Statutory Framework, the assessment provides a clear evaluation of development, strengths and areas of improvement for each child.

The EYFS Profile is used primarily by:

• EYFS and KS1 practitioners.
• Head teachers and managers.
• Local authorities.

The EYFS framework requires the EYFS profile assessment to be carried out in the final term of the year when a child turns five.

What does the EYFS profile assess?

The EYFS profile assesses a child at the end of reception to ensure they're progressing well and meeting national requirements. The report is sent home to parents for them to read and will include assessments on the following:

• Communication and language - Listening, attention, understanding and speaking.
• Physical development - Gross motor skills and fine motor skills.
• Personal, social and emotional development - Self-regulation, managing self and building relationships.
• Literacy - Comprehension, word reading and writing.
• Maths - Number and numerical patterns.
• A child's understanding of the world around them - People, the natural world, culture and communities, and past and present.
• Art and design - Creating with materials and being imaginative and expressive.

These assessments are carried out by teacher observations alongside their knowledge of your child. During a child's time in reception, their teacher will spend time watching, listening and observing the formal elements of their learning as well as their social activities, such as eating their lunch and socialising with friends.

At the end of the EYFS profile assessment, children and KS1 practitioners can prepare for the year ahead as children have shown which areas they have developed and excelled in, or which areas require monitoring.

How are the results recorded?

The report is graded using the following criteria:

• Your child is at the expected level of development.
• Your child is at the emerging level of development. This means your child hasn't quite met the expectations but isn't far off.

These grades are referred to as ELGs (Early Learning Goals) which are 17 in total. When assessing a child and making the report, teachers follow this guide to help them form the report. In addition, a teacher has to be confident that a child meets all requirements for a particular outcome.

Who is the EYFS profile data submitted to?

The EYFS Profile provides a national child-development data set at the end of the EYFS. After a thorough assessment carried through the practitioner's professional judgement of each child's progress, the practitioner is expected to complete a report with data which is later submitted to local authorities.

Local authorities will have it prepared and sent to the DfE for further evaluation. This includes an assessment to find any changes in children's learning, and whether there are any national or regional measures which need to be taken to improve children's learning and level of development.

Other organisations also make use of the data returned to capture information and compare the different outcomes in children's learning.

Concerning who the EYFS profile data is submitted to, it's necessary to ensure that the profile document itself provides:

• Achievement in relation to the 17 Early Learning Goal (ELG) descriptors.
• A summary describing the child's skills and abilities in relation to the three Characteristics of Effective Learning (Playing and Exploring, Active Learning, and Creating and Thinking Critically).

When was the EYFS Profile introduced?

The EYFS Profile was first published in 2007 by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). Setting in place standards for development, learning and care for children who fall under the banner of EYFS, all registered early years providers are required to complete a profile for each child.

Occurring at the end of the academic year when children turn five, the profile has been a statutory requirement since September 2008.

In September 2021, the Revised framework became statutory.

In order to help complete the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile, non-statutory guidance on how the different areas of learning work together are provided with the Development Matters document, which you can read about here.

The main purpose of the profile assessment at the end of the EYFS profile is to support a successful transition to Key Stage 1 (KS1) by informing the professional dialogue between EYFS and Year 1 teachers. This should inform Year 1 teachers about each child’s stage of development and learning needs, and help them to plan the Year 1 curriculum to meet the needs of all children.

The EYFS profile is also used to inform parents about their child’s development.

What does GLD mean?

GLD stands for Good Level of Development. Children are defined as having reached a Good Level of Development at the end of the EYFS if they have achieved at least the 'expected' level within:

• Prime Area: Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED)
• Prime Area: Physical Development (PD)
• Prime Area: Communication and Language (CL)
• Specific Area: Literacy (L)
• Specific Area: Mathematics (M)

The 'expected' level is defined as firmly achieving the expected outcomes of development for these areas and if they are not quite achieving them, it is 'emerging'.

There are two further Specific Areas of Learning:

• Expressive Arts and Design (EAD)
• Understanding the World (UtW)

These two further areas are evaluated in the EYFS Profile but are not required to achieve a GLD

Autumn 1 Our Changing World

We will be learning lots of new vocabulary related to our topic of Our Changing World and school words.

We will develop our communication skills to listen to someone talking, look at them and then carry on the conversation. We are also going to learn to wait if someone is talking before we talk.

At Home

Encourage your children to look at you while they are talking and encourage them to wait if you are talking.  Use any opportunity to talk about what they can see,  imagine, know and ask the magic questions ‘Why do you think that?’ and ‘How did you know that?’

Keywords

• Book, cover, pages, title, author, illustrator, story, character.
• Predict, recall, prosody, comprehension, decoding, remembering, learning.
• Letter, word, phoneme, sound, grapheme.
• Shuffle time, your turn, my turn, blending, talk out the words.
• Autumn, changes, colder.

This half term, in our PHSE lessons, we will be looking at Being Me in My World. This area of learning will cover building friendships, starting school,  getting to know each other, school routines and behaviour expectations, making friends and starting to describe our feelings.

Our class value is Friendship, and we will be talking about this value and how we can be good friends.

At Home

You could invite your child’s new friends over for a play or meet them at the park.

Talk to your child about what it means to have kind hands and feet. During this school year, the children will start developing an awareness of other peoples feeling and the consequences of their actions. When watching a programme on TV or reading a book, if an incident occurs, start asking your children how they would feel if that happened. What do you think that child feels? What would you do? These are excellent ways to begin to think about consequences.

Keywords

• Calm time, choices, ideas,
• Friendship, team work, helpful,
• Please and thank you, sorry,
• Assembly. Reception, teacher, teaching assistant, head teacher, deputy head teacher, cleaner, caretaker.
• Literacy, reading, phonics, maths, continuous provision, rainbow challenges, prayers, assembly.

We will develop our fine-motor control through Dough-Disco, Squiggle While We Wiggle and many activities to strengthen the muscles in your child’s hands, fingers, wrists, arms and shoulders. We aim to have everyone holding their pencil in a tripod grip by Christmas, so much practice is needed at home too.

We will make different obstacle courses to move around, using the bikes, scooters and trampolines to develop our Gross Motor skills.

On Side will be teaching the PE lessons on a Thursday, and this half term, they will be teaching spatial awareness and different ways of moving around.

At Home

Get the children moving and be outside, visit a park, play with a football or go on a hunt looking for different objects or colours.

Use the fine motor pack and practise cutting around simple shapes and pictures. If you Google Dough Disco can find lots of different videos to follow, but any music can be used and practise the moves shown here. Lego and other construction kits are great for developing fine-motor strength and control.

Keywords

• Pencil grip, 'pinchy' fingers- tripod grip.
• Squeeze, roll, squash, poke, twist.
• Up, down, around, under, over., walk, run, jump.
• Carrying, careful, look, aware.
• Snip, cut, scissors.

In Literacy, we will focus on the story Stanley’s Stick by John Hegley.

We will explore the illustrations and characters, building up our understanding and inference skills, so please keep the book a secret from your children until we have our big reveal.

We will be developing the following skills:

Engaging the children in a story with which they will empathise.

To explore, develop and sustain ideas through talk;

To examine and interpret stories through creative activity, including play, art, drama and drawing;

To write for meaning and purpose in various narrative and non-narrative forms.

To explore and develop our ‘Understanding’ of the World and the changes that occur over time.

 We will start learning the second part of the Phase 2 graphemes, and this term, we will begin to send a reading book home when the children are  ready for a reading book.

At Home

Read lots of different books to your child that have an autumn theme. Read a range of books that are fiction, non-fiction and poetry that are linked to our topic. 

Keywords

• Autumn, change, cool, cooler, darker.
• Red, orange, yellow, brown.
• Hibernate.

Clifton is a Maths Mastery school and which means our pupils acquire a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of Maths. We use Power Maths and we will be focusing on amounts to five. They will learn to recognise and count different representations and use a five frame. We will be offering some parent workshops this half term.

At Home

Ask your child how many cars, birds, wheels, claps they can see or hear and ask the magic questions ‘Why do you think that?’ and ‘How did you know that?’

Make sure your child is pointing at each object as they count and only giving an object one number.

Key Words

• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, one, two, three, four, five, number
• count, count forwards, count backwards
• how many, total, altogether,
• five frame, same, different, next, after, arrange
• equal, less than, fewer than, greater than, more than, equal amount

We will be looking at our local environment and: 

Understand the effect of changing seasons on the natural world around them.

Look for key features of each season and use them to explain the current season.

Investigate different man-made and natural materials, and describe their attributes and properties using a range of common and scientific words.

To be aware of the safety aspects of using our environment.

We are using inspiration from the surrounding areas in our artwork.

Explore simple coding to move a Beebot around different areas.

At Home

Go on autumn walks and search for autumn treasures. Be imaginative and play with your children pretending items are different things, such as a stick could be a fishing rod.

Keywords

• forwards, backwards, left, right,
• autumn, season, hibernate, changes,
• senses, smell, taste, sight, sound, like, dislike, smooth, rough, cold and warm.

We will look at various artists and our environment to inspire our creative artwork.

We will explore colour mixing and look at the autumn colours around us.

We will use autumnal materials collected and make sculptures with them, exploring shape and colour.

We will explore rhythm in music and learn a variety of new songs and nursery rhymes.

We will be sewing lines onto autumn leaf shapes. 

At Home

Go on a colour walk and collect different colours of leaves. Make leaf print pictures. 

Keywords

• Sculpture, natural, man-made, design.
• Shape, curved, smooth, spiky.
• Primary colour, secondary colour and colour mixing. 

We will introduce new vocabulary this half term to support our new learning and encourage the children to use it in their daily conversations.

We will encourage the children to be good listeners by facing the person who is talking and to whom they are talking.

We will be encouraging the children to extend verbal sentences and use the following keywords to extend their sentences:

Auxiliary 'is' – e.g. The girl is skipping.

3rd Person Singular – e.g. "He wants the ball"; "It eats grass", "She reads books".

Contracted Negative – e.g. isn't, doesn't, haven't, shouldn't.

Contracted Copula – e.g. He's happy.

At Home

Keep talking to your children about what they can see, hear, imagine, feel and think. get them to explain their thoughts. Make sure they are developing good language skills by looking at you when you and they speak, encourage the children to wait if you are already talking. 

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

We are starting our Taking Care programme to learn how to keep ourselves safe, learn the correct terminology for our bodies' private areas, and recognise our early warning signs.

We will continue building our friendships, developing the children's self-regulating abilities, and making appropriate behaviour choices. 

At Home

Invite any new friends over for a play date or meet in the park. Read stories that are about making friends and being a good friend. 

Key Words

• Different, same, special.
• Anus, penis and vagina.
• Respect, care, compromise, team, sharing.

We will continue developing our fine-motor control through Dough-Disco, Squiggle While We Wiggle and practising our letter formation.

We will be working hard to develop muscle control so we can hold our pencils correctly.

I will send home a fine motor bag for your children to practise at home.

At Home

Use the fine-motor bag with your children. Encourage your child to play with lots of different small manipulate items such as bolts and nuts, Lego, play dough. Make larger arm movements using scarves to twirl. Google dough disco and have a go at the activity.

Keywords

• 'Pinchy' Fingers, tripod grip, control, size, direction.
• Circle, round, curved, straight, zigzag, up and down. 

This half term, our Power of Reading text is ‘Oh No George!’, but please keep it a secret from your children because we will be story detectives and try to work out the book.

We will encourage the children to explore their mark-making for writing and ask them what they have written. 

We will start Autumn Term 2 of our Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised.

At Home

Read lots of stories and discuss what they think will happen, and a crucial questions are; ‘Why do you think that?’ and ‘How did you know that?’ They could talk about the pictures as a point of reference. 

When your child receives their reading book, aim to read it three times.

Keywords

• Book, cover, pages, title, author, illustrator, story, character.
• Predict, recall, prosody, comprehension, decoding, remembering, learning.
• Letter, word, phoneme, sound, grapheme.
• Research, discover, non-fiction, information.
• Beginning, 

This half term in Mathematics, we will be exploring:

Sorting- exploring the characteristics of two objects.

Comparing groups within five- comparing quantities of identical and non-identical objects. 

Change within five- one more and one less. 

Time- using time language to talk about time to aid problem-solving.

At Home

Encourage your child to describe what they can see. What is the same and what is different?

Collect autumn treasures such as conkers and count them, make different groups of amounts and comparing them using descriptive language such as more and fewer. 

Keywords

• Same, different, odd one out, describe, group and sort.
• More, fewer, represent, compare,
• Match, equal, less than, fewer than, greater than, more than.
• First, then, now, one more, one less, order, number story, add, altogether, and count.
• Later, before, after, time, clock, face, o’clock, order, timetable, day, night and sequence.

We will look at our community and learn about the people who help us.

We will celebrate our differences and similarities.

We will look at homes past and present and look at the different household items and how they are the same and different. We will visit the Black Country Living Museum to become History Detectives and discover what it was like living when our Great Grandparents were children.    

 We will be learning how to look after our teeth.

We will learn the proper names for parts of our body and how to keep ourselves safe as part of our Taking Care Project

At Home

Talk about how your children have grown and changed since they were babies. Look at photographs and discuss how they have changed.

Please talk about the homes and household items that were around when you were your child's age and What their grandparents' homes were like. Ask what is different and what is the same.

Help them get into a good routine of brushing their teeth and why it is important. Talk about healthy food and foods that can damage their teeth.

Talk to your children about keeping their bodies private especially where our pants cover our bodies. The NSPCC have lovely songs about a Pantasaurus.

Keywords

• Baby, child, teenager, adult,
• Teeth, brushing toothpaste, plaque, healthy, food that are good for our teeth and not good for our teeth.
• House, home, flat, cottage, terraced house, detached house, semi detached house.
• Living room, kitchen, bathroom, dining room, bedroom..
• Penis, anus, vagina.

We will look at various portrait artists such as Picasso, Anne Berenge and Jamini Roy and Urban Landscape artists such as Antonio Lopez Garcia,  LS Lowry and Gustave Caillebotte.

We will be painting and drawing lots of  different pictures  and adding details.

We will be using imaginative play in our campsite and our house.

We will be learning lots of different songs and rhymes.

At Home

Let your child draw, paint and make different models and talk to them about what they have made.

Join in with their pretend play.

Keywords

• Primary colours , secondary colours,
• Red, blue, yellow, orange, green, brown, purple.
• Triangle, tambourine, glockenspiel, wood blocks,

Communication and Language

We will be learning lots of new words relating to movement, vehicles, traffic and road safety. 

At Home

You can help your child by talking about the different vehicles that they see. encourage them to discuss what they look like and  do they like them, always ask Why? Discuss their ideas, what they are doing and asking the following questions:  why, what, when, who and where.

During the Spring term we will be developing the following language.

Talks about past and future events.

Comparative –er and Superlative -est: e.g. big, bigger, and biggest.

Connector ‘because‘–e.g. The boy was crying because he fell over and hurt his knee”.

Adverb –ly – e.g. quickly, slowly, quietly

Our Jigsaw programme for this term is Dreams and Goals. We will be exploring setting ourselves challenges and developing resilience and perseverance. We will talk about how it feels to overcome disappointment and be how we should be proud of our friend's achievements.

At Home

You help your child at home by encouraging them to be more independent. Children must learn to cope with disappointment and not always get their way or consistently achieve things the first time. The children need these essential life skills to develop while being supported in a loving family. As teenagers and adults, they will then know that they can overcome things because they are resilient, able to persevere and realise they are capable.

Keywords

• Friendship  · Take-turns  · Angry   · Sad   · Happy   · Worried
• Sharing ·Perseverance · Resilience  · Compromise
• Help ·Support ·  Goals  · Aims  · Achievements Ÿ Celebration

We will continue developing our fine motor skills and practising our letter formation. We will be using the Jedi Handwriting video to help our letter formation.

The link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX2uuabAyf4 Reception Jedi Handwriting. Please, make sure it is not the cursive version you are using.

In PE, the children will be exploring dance and gymnastics.

At Home

You can help your children by making sure they have lots of time outside and are physically moving around. Encourage your child to play with manipulatives such as lego, playdough, screws and various tools, scissors and other art equipment. Practice their name and the letter formation. Play the Reception Jedi Handwriting video and talk about how the letters are formed. Complete the handwriting sheets that are sent home. 

Keywords

• Balance · Jumping · Space · Moving · Stopping 
• Pencil hold using ‘pinchy’ fingers,  Pencil grip
• Firm · Even · Smooth· Perseverance  · Resilience · Safe

Our main Power of Reading Text is Naughty Bus! by Jan and Jerry Oke. We will look at the journey and the great use of font size and layout. We will investigate the structure of the story.

At Home

You can help your child at home by reading lots of different stories, non-fiction and poetry books at home. Develop your child's inference by asking extended questions such as:

 What do you think?

 How do you know that?

What did you like/ not like? 

What was your favourite word or sentence?

What do you think will happen and next why?

Keywords

• Book words: title, cover, illustrator, author, end covers, text, blurb, font, impact.
• Beginning, middle, end.

This half term, we will be exploring positional and directional language. We will use this knowledge to write code for a BeeBot. We will be exploring number bonds and developing instant recall of these facts. We will also be exploring measurement.

At Home

You can support your child by encouraging them to count all different sounds and objects. It is vital that you ask how did you know that was four? We want the children to have a deep understanding and rich vocabulary is developed by modelling correct language and questioning.

Keywords

• Group, parts, whole, part-whole model
• How many, count/counting, more than the same, different I
• Total, addition, adding plus, altogether, equal, more, fewer.
• Large/larger/largest, bigger, small/smaller, longer/longest, shorter/shortest, tall/taller/tallest, further/furthest

• More, fewer/fewest, greater/greatest, smaller/smallest, large/largest, taller/tallest, shorter/shortest, compare, how many/how many more, different/difference 
• Heavy/heavier/heaviest, light/lighter/lightest, same, different, amount, widest, thinnest
• Length, width, height, weight,  equal, the same, balanced, balance scale.  estimate, predict, check, measure, compare, order

• Left, right, above, same, in front of, behind, next to, forwards, backwards
• Ten frame

• one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight
• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 , 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
• in, on, below, under, up, down, across, difference

We will be exploring vehicles that move on the land. We will look at the history of different vehicles and how they developed and recall the vehicles we saw on our visit to The Black Country Living Museum. We will look at vehicles in other countries and compare them with our vehicles. We will be looking at maps and begin to identify some key features. We will learn about the people who help us and their vehicles and how to keep safe on the road and when we travel. Finally we will look at our new season, winter and we will be going on a winter walk.

At Home

You can help your child at home by taking them on a bus or train journey and talking about what you can see. Let your child plan the trip by looking at the timetables.  I had hoped to visit the Transport Museum but I am not sure this will be possible, but maybe you could go as a family.

Keywords

• Past and present, old and young.
• Listening, concentration, looking.
• First, then & now.
• Land vehicles.
• Road signs
• Delivery: Lorry, van, transporter,
• Service: Police car, Ambulance, Fire engine, Paramedic, Motor Bikes.
• Travel: Car, Bus, Coach, Mini-Bus
• Leisure: Bicycle, Scooter, Tricycle
• Design, motor, engine, fuel,  axle, wheels, steering, light, indicator, car seat, seat belt.
• Road safety: Zebra crossing, Pelican crossing, Toucan crossing, Puffin Crossing.,
• Road, pavement, path
• Maps, globe, atlas.
• Winter snow, ice, cold, freezing.

We will continue to explore colour this half term. We will be mixing colours and developing a recall of what primary colours we need to make  secondary  colours. We will explore cold and hot colours and develop our drawing and art skills by adding more details.  We will be singing

lots of new songs and learning to compose simple repeating  musical phrases. we will be making our own vehicles using of boxes, crates, wheels.

We will be sewing buttons on a felt bus. 

At Home

You can help your child at home by letting your child draw and paint art home using paint , crayons, chalks and pastels.

Keywords:

• Primary colours , secondary colours,
• Red, blue, yellow, orange, green, brown, purple.
• Loud, quiet. fast, slow.
• Triangle, tambourine, glockenspiel, wood blocks,

This have term we will be continuing to practise the key words from the previous term. We will linking our past learning about food types for healthy teeth, to healthy bodies. We will be observing how things grow.

At Home

You can help your child by talking about their ideas, what they are doing and asking the following questions:  why, what, when, who and where. Describe and name different parts of a plant. Plant some seeds at home and talk about what is happening.

Keywords

• Grow, die, alive.
• Seed, beans, stem, leaf, leaves, flower, bud.

Our Jigsaw programme for this term is Healthy Me. We will be exploring how we can make healthy choices and  the importance of exercise, good sleep and a good diet.

At Home

You help your child at home by encouraging them to help you prepare their food. Encourage them to move away from their tablets and explore outside.

Keywords

• Healthy, choice, well, well-being.
• Help, care, try, taste.
• Healthy, unhealthy.

We are now becoming more focused on letter formation so please practise the letters on the sheets I sent home before half term holiday.

At Home

You can help your child by making sure they have lots of time outside now the weather is improving  and the days are getting longer it is easier to enjoy their local environment.  Encourage your child to play with manipulatives and complete the cutting practise that I send home. Practice their name and the letter formation.

Keywords

• Balance · Jumping · Space · Moving · Stopping
• Pencil hold using ‘pinchy’ fingers.
• Pencil grip · Firm · Even · Smooth
• Perseverance  · Resilience · Safe
• Cutting: controlled, steady, slow, smooth

I have made a decision regarding our teaching plan for Spring 1. Due to the short half-term, we will continue using The Naughty Bus as our primary text so that our students can fully immerse themselves in the story. Additionally, we will be reading The Gigantic Turnip as a supportive text to complement our planting activities.

At Home

You can help your child at home by reading lots of different stories, non-fiction and poetry books at home especially those relating to healthy choices, growing plants and environments. Develop your child's inference by asking extended questions.

Such as:

The answer is right there in the text.

What did……… do?

Who did……… do it to

How many……… were/are there?

Who are………?

Can you tell me what this word/bit means?

What kind of ……… is that?

Can your child think and search for the answer?

The answers are found in different parts of the story and they might have to apply prior knowledge or personal experience to an answer.

How do you make/do……?

What happened when……… did………?

What happened to………?

What do you think might happen next OR what happened before?

How many times…

What examples can you find?

Where did this happen?

Where was…… when this was happening?

Can your child answer questions without referring to the story?

The answer is not in the story, it is your child’s opinion and thoughts.

Have you ever…

If you could…

If you were going to…

In your opinion…

Do you agree with………? Why?

Do you know anyone who………?

How do you feel about……?

You have these questions in the introductory letter I sent home about Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised.

Keywords

• Book words: title, cover, illustrator, author, end covers, text, blurb, font, impact.
• First, then, now.

This half term, we will be exploring measurement and comparing items by their weight, length and height.  We will explore and learn our number bonds to 10 and be able to explain their understanding. We will also be exploring patterns and using letters to describe the position and repetition of patterns.

At Home

Encourage your child to recall their number bonds to ten. for example 5+5, 6+4. Look at different items and discuss using 

Key words

• How many, count/counting, more than the same, different
• Total, addition, adding plus, altogether, equal, more, fewer,  number bond
• Large/larger/largest, bigger, small/smaller h longer/longest, shorter/shortest, tall/taller/tallest, further/furthest
• Heavy/ heavier/ heaviest, light/ lighter/ lightest
• Same, different, amount, widest, thinnest
• Length, width, height, weight h equal, the same, balanced, balance scale,  estimate, predict, check, measure, compare, order
• Ten frame, whole-part model
• One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten
• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 , 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, + ,
• In, on, below, under, up, down, across, difference
• Repeating, patterns, identify, error, correct, incorrect, beginning, middle and end.

We will be exploring Food Glorious Food! We will explore different elements of growing, classifying, labelling different types plants, vegetables, flowers and fruit, We will learn about healthy choices. We will also talk about keeping safe when we eat.

At Home

You can help your child at home by talking to them about where our food comes from, healthy choices, let them help with food preparation in a safe way. Talk about the environment around them and the different plants they can see. Encourage your child to use their senses and try new food.

Keywords

• Life cycle, young, old, decay, new life.
• Seed, stem, leaf, leaves, petals, flower, bud, roots.
• Water, sunlight, soil, food.
• Identify, observe, predict.

• Maps, globe, atlas.
• Urban, rural, woodlands, wild area, hedgerow.
• Fields, forest, wood, parks
• Houses, shops.
• Senses, smell, touch, see, hear and taste.

We will be exploring colour this half term. We will be mixing our own colours paint various landscapes and still life images.

We will use clay and make pots using Kate Malone’s ceramics as inspiration.

We will be singing lots of new songs and learning to compose simple repeating  musical phrases and keeping a steady beat.

At Home

You can help your child at home by letting your child draw and paint art home using paint , crayons, chalks and pastels. Visit Art galleries and museums.

Keywords

• Primary colours , secondary colours.
•  Like, dislike
• Shade, tone, tint. hues
  • Shade is a colour that has had black added.
  • Tone is a colour that has had grey added.
  • Tint is a colour that has had white added.
  • Hue is the colour. It can be a primary colour red, blue and yellow, a secondary colour violet, green and orange,  or a tertiary colour all the other combinations of the primary and secondary colours combined in different ways.
• Shape, smooth, rough, wavy, spiky, soft, hard.
• Loud, quiet. fast, slow.
• Triangle, tambourine, glockenspiel, wood blocks,

Artists and drawings that we will be exploring:

Butterfly and Chinese Wisteria Flowers by XU Xi (Hsϋ His) 970

Pine Tree and Chrysanthemums by Chen Shu.

Dandelion by Elizabeth Blackwell .

Flower Still life by Rachel Ruysch

The Strawberry Thief by William Morris.

Sunflower by Vincent van Gogh

Flowers in a crystal Vase by Édouard Manet

White Iris by Georgia O’Keeffe

Flowers by Andy Warhol

Study for Wildflower Bouquet by Tom Wesselmann

We will be learning lots of new words related to our space topic and learning about the different planets and the different jobs.

At Home

You can help your child by talking about their ideas, what they are doing and asking the following questions:  why, what, when, who and where.

Visit the library and look for information books about space and different planets. The Space Centre in Leicester is also a great day out.

Keywords

• Summer, hot, seaside, holiday
• Listening, concentration, observe, predict, experiment, identify
• First, then & now, because, or, why, what, where, when, how
• Responsibility, care
• Planets, space, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, moon, asteroid, shooting stars. Change, observe, reversible, fixed.
• Experiment, discover, investigate, challenge, persevere.
• Light, dark, sources of light, light bulb, candle, sun, glow sticks, lightening, fire.
• Astronauts, Mae C. Jemison, Tim Peake, Helen Sharman.

During the summer term we will be developing the following language.

Pronouns ‘his, hers, theirs’ – e.g. “It is his/ hers/theirs“.

Use of ‘is’ vs ‘are‘ – e.g. “The monkey is eating a banana” vs “The monkeys are eating the bananas”).

Past Tense “to be” – e.g. “I was running” and “They were running”.

Our Jigsaw programme for this term is Relationships. We will be understanding what makes a good relationships and how to keep ourselves safe.

At Home

You help your child at home by encouraging them to talk about their friendships and what they believe is a good friend. There are lots of books that are useful to help introduce topics about relationships and their own personal development. 

Keywords

• Friends, support, care, help, empathy, compassion,
• Safe, early warning signs, share, discuss, talk, personal, private.
• Penis, anus, vagina.

We are becoming more focused on letter formation, so please practise the letters on the sheets I send home.

At Home

You can help your child by ensuring they have lots of time outside. Now that the weather is improving and the days are getting longer, it is easier to enjoy their local environment and encourage your child to enjoy the outdoors and get moving.

Practice their name and the letter formation, this is an important part of the EYFS Profile and the expectation is that the majority of letters are formed correctly and with a tripod grip. I will send home the handwriting sheets again and post a video on Class Dojo to see the correct formation. Please ensure you sit with your child, even if it is just for five minutes to ensure they are not practising errors.

Keywords

• Pencil hold using ‘pinchy’ fingers., Pencil grip, Firm, Even, Smooth.
• Balance, Jumping, Space, Moving, Stopping.
• Run, skip, hop, jog.

Start our new Power of Reading Book Astro Girl by Ken Wilson-Max

We will be writing labels, captions, lists, a simple story and recounts. 

At Home

You can help your child at home by reading lots of different stories, non-fiction and poetry books at home especially those relating to space. What can they recall from our previous learning?

Read your child’s reading book with them a few times so they develop fluency.

Encourage your child to write using their phonic knowledge. They could write shopping lists, write letters to their friends and family members.

Develop your child's inference by asking extended questions.

Such as:

The answer is right there in the text.

What did……… do?

Who did……… do it to

How many……… were/are there?

Who are………?

Can you tell me what this word/bit means?

What kind of ……… is that?

Can your child think and search for the answer?

The answers are found in different parts of the story and they might have to apply prior knowledge or personal experience to an answer.

How do you make/do……?

What happened when……… did………?

What happened to………?

What do you think might happen next OR what happened before?

How many times…

What examples can you find?

Where did this happen?

Where was…… when this was happening?

Can your child answer questions without referring to the story?

The answer is not in the story, it is your child’s opinion and thoughts.

Have you ever…

If you could…

If you were going to…

In your opinion…

Do you agree with………? Why?

Do you know anyone who………?

How do you feel about……?

Keywords

Book words: title, cover, illustrator, author, end covers, text, blurb, font, impact, non-fiction,

New Phonic Terminology: adjacent consonants.

We will explore counting on and back. We will be looking at number patterns and our number bonds.

At Home

You can help your child at home by playing the quickfire number bonds recall game. You say a number, and your child says the number added to make a given number, for example. You say we are making 5. You say 2 your child says 3. You say 4 your child says 1. repeat this game with all the numbers up to and including 10. Remember to also use 0.

Keywords

• How many, count/counting, more than the same, different
• Total, addition, adding plus, altogether, equal, more, fewer,  addends, summends, number bonds.
• Large/larger/largest, bigger, small/smaller h longer/longest, shorter/shortest, tall/taller/tallest, further/furthest
• Ten frame, whole-part model
• More, fewer/fewest, greater/greatest, smaller/smallest, large/largest, taller/tallest, shorter/shortest h compare, how many/how many more, different/difference,
• Estimate
• One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten
• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 , 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, + , =
• In, on, below, under, up, down, across, difference
• Repeating, patterns, identify, error, correct, incorrect, beginning, middle and end
• Doubling, halving, odd and even.

Understanding the World

We are going to explore space and look at the role of astronauts.

We will be looking at changes in materials when they are heated or cooled and light and dark.

We will be continuing to look at the changing seasons and the effects of summer on our local environment.

At Home

You can help your child at home by talking about the change that happens when you cook and freeze food.  Can it change back or is it a permanent changed.

Keywords

• Spring, new life, warmer, spring showers, growth
• Listening, concentration, observe, predict, experiment, identify
• First, then & now, because, or, why, what, where, when, how
• Responsibility, care
• Planets, space, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, moon, asteroid, shooting stars. Change, observe, reversible, fixed.
• Experiment, discover, investigate, challenge, persevere.
• Light, dark, sources of light, light bulb, candle, sun, glow sticks, lightening, fire.

We will be exploring how to design and label a space craft that we will make.

We will explore folding and joining different materials and make our own rockets and have a little DT exhibition. 

At Home

You can help your child at home by letting your child draw and paint art home using paint , crayons, chalks and pastels.

Listen to different types of music and encourage your child to dance along and say if they like it or dislike it and why.

Visit Art galleries and museums.

Keywords

• Primary colours , secondary colours.
  Join, fold, bend, stick, like, dislike
• Shade, tone, tint and .hues
• Shade is a colour that has had black added.
• Tone is a colour that has had grey added.
• Tint is a colour that has had white added.
• Hue is the colour. It can be a primary colour red, blue and yellow, a secondary colour violet, green and orange,  or a tertiary colour all the other combinations of the primary and secondary colours combined in different ways.
• Shape, smooth, rough, wavy, spiky, soft, hard, rough, textured,

We will be looking at animals that live in our local environment and recognise how we care for them. 

At Home

You can help your child by talking about their ideas, what they are doing and asking the following questions:  why, what, when, who and where.

Visit the library and look for information books about habitats and the different animals that live there. 

Keywords

• Habitat, environment, pondlife, mini-beasts, insects.
• Caterpillar, chrysalid, butterfly, life-cycle.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Our Jigsaw programme for this term is Changing Me! and we will also be starting our Relationships and Sex Education. We will be understanding changes that happen to us and other people from a child to an adult. We will be talking about how we feel about moving into Year 1. We also talk about keeping themselves safe and healthy.

At Home

You help your child at home by talking about how they feel about changes. Are they worried about going into Year 1? How do they feel? Talk about keeping safe and remind them that if they feel any of their early warning signs to talk to a grown-up that they trust.

Keywords

• Change, different, challenge, choices, exciting, new, worry.
• Safe, early warning signs, share, discuss, talk, personal, private.
• Penis, anus, vagina.

We are still focusing on letter formation, so please practise the letters on the sheets I send home.

At Home

You can help your child by ensuring they have lots of time outside. Now that the weather is improving and the days are getting longer, it is easier to enjoy their local environment. Please encourage your child to play with manipulatives and complete the cutting practice that I send home.

Practice their name and the letter formation as this is an important part of the EYFS Profile.

Complete the weekly cutting Homework and send pictures to Class Dojo.

Keywords 

• Balance, jumping, space, moving, stopping, dodging.
• Pencil hold using ‘pinchy’ fingers.
• Pencil grip, firm, even and smooth
• Perseverance, resilience, safe
• Cutting: controlled, steady, slow, smooth 

Literacy

Our main Power of Reading Text is the The Bog Baby by Jeanne Willis and Gwen Millward.

At Home

You can help your child at home by reading lots of different stories, non-fiction and poetry books at home especially those relating to animals, habitats, different countries.  Develop your child's inference by asking extended questions.

Such as:

The answer is right there in the text.

What did……… do?

Who did……… do it to

How many……… were/are there?

Who are………?

Can you tell me what this word/bit means?

What kind of ……… is that?

Can your child think and search for the answer?

The answers are found in different parts of the story and they might have to apply prior knowledge or personal experience to an answer.

How do you make/do……?

What happened when……… did………?

What happened to………?

What do you think might happen next OR what happened before?

How many times…

What examples can you find?

Where did this happen?

Where was…… when this was happening?

Can your child answer questions without referring to the story?

The answer is not in the story, it is your child’s opinion and thoughts.

Have you ever…

If you could…

If you were going to…

In your opinion…

Do you agree with………? Why?

Do you know anyone who………?

How do you feel about……?

You have these questions in the introductory letter I sent home about Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised.

Keywords

Book words: title, cover, illustrator, author, end covers, text, blurb, font, impact.

New Phonic Terminology: chunking.

We will explore counting on and back.

We will be looking at number patterns and our number bonds.

At Home

You can help your child at home by playing the quickfire number bonds recall game. You say a number, and your child says the number added to make a given number, for example. You say we are making 5. You say 2 your child says 3. You say 4 your child says 1. repeat this game with all the numbers up to and including 10. Remember to also use 0.

Keywords

• How many, count/counting, more than the same, different
• Total, addition, adding plus, altogether, equal, more, fewer, , number bonds.
• Large/larger/largest, bigger, small/smaller h longer/longest, shorter/shortest, tall/taller/tallest, further/furthest
• Ten frame, whole-part model
• More, fewer/fewest, greater/greatest, smaller/smallest, large/largest, taller/tallest, shorter/shortest h compare, how many/how many more, different/difference,
• Estimate
• One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten
• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 , 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, + , =
• In, on, below, under, up, down, across, difference
• Repeating, patterns, identify, error, correct, incorrect, beginning, middle and end
• Doubling, halving, odd and even.

 We will be exploring our world around us and different animals and how to classify them.

We will be looking at the life cycle of a butterfly and recognising the different stages of its life cycle, including death. 

At Home

You can help your child at home by talking to them about looking after animals. Go on a mini-beast hunt.

You could visit a zoo, or go to Brandon Marsh, they have many excellent activities for children and their families.

Keywords

• Life cycle, young, old, decay, new life.
• Baby, child, adult.
• Reptile, fish, birds, insects, mammals, amphibians.
• Care, responsibility. 

Please note that a butterflies make and emerge from a chrysalis and

not a cocoon. Cocoons are made by moths and some insects and are

Spun. I’m sorry Eric Carle,  I love The Hungry Caterpillar, but you got it a

bit wrong!

We will be sewing our  Bog Baby toy and making a Fimo Bog Baby habitat.

At Home

You can help your child at home by letting your child draw and paint art home using paint , crayons, chalks and pastels.

Listen to different types of music and encourage your child to dance along and say if they like it or dislike it and why.

Visit Art galleries and museums.

Keywords

Primary colours , secondary colours.
Join, fold, bend, stick,

Like, dislike

Shape, smooth, rough, wavy, spiky, soft, hard, rough, textured.

Adapt, change, create.