Diamond Class

Welcome to Diamond Class, our Reception year group.

I am Mrs Fearby, your child's Reception teacher and I am also the Early Years Lead, your children will also be supported by Mrs Wharton and Mrs Sutherland throughout the week.

We are a happy Hetton family!

PE day is Wednesday

Library day is every other Wednesday

Take a look at our plan for learning in Spring One 2026

Take a look at our plans for learning in Autumn 2025.

Week beginning 9th February 2026

Spring Term One, Week Six

Reception feeling the love this week…Valentines Day, taller, shorter, longer, and decorating for the Lunar New Year.

Week beginning 2nd February 2026

Spring One Term Week Five

Number Day, Paint Mixing, Ball Rolling and Stair Climbing!

This week Reception have fully embraced our Numbers theme, based around the NSPCC number day on Friday.

As well as dressing in clothes with numbers on, we have started practising our numeral formation every morning while we have our breakfast, on Friday we painted numbers, we built numbers with cubes, we drew around numbers, and then we went on a number hunt around the school, lots of people wear numbers every day, on their clothes, on their watch, and school had SO many numbers, numbers on classrooms, numbers on packed lunches, numbers on instruments, they were everywhere!

In Maths this week. Reception enjoyed learning all about making pairs, doubling and combining two groups. To make pairs, we made a human ten frame and made sets of pairs on it. We then got our special doubling cauldron out, and when we said the magic words double bubble toil and trouble, anything that we put into the cauldron came out doubled! We are beginning to understand what it means to have groups of objects, and how to combine them, using our knowledge of the composition of 6, 7 and 8, and also our knowledge of doubles. We had lots of fun!

In Literacy this week we began to create our own story maps of the story The Magic Paintbrush, learning the story off by heart then in our play we decided to choose books to write our own story maps about! Lots of new story language was used, and we helped each other remember our most favourite stories.

In PE this week we completed more on our MultiSkills learning by passing and rolling balls to each other, learning all about accuracy rather than speed! We did find it quite tricky! In addition we practised climbing up and down stairs on a walk around school, learning about being careful and safe, and how best to walk up and down the stairs. We loved our school tour!

In Expressive Art and Design, we read the story ‘Mixed’, which was all about colours living in harmony together and creating new colours, then we had a go ourselves at mixing new colours together, we had SO much fun, and we learned lots of new colour combinations and vocabulary. Some of us even worked outside on a large scale canvas.
 

Next week Reception will be feeling the Valentine’s Day love, and preparing for Lunar New Year the following week. 
Thank you for your continuing support.

Mrs Fearby, Mrs Wharton and Mrs Sutherland.

Week beginning 26th January

Spring Term One Week Four

Week beginning 19th January 2026

Spring One Term Week Three

Counting our Collections, MultiSkills and a Magic Paintbrush…

Happy Week Three of our new Spring Term to everyone this week, and as the weather as taken a very wet turn we have made the most of the opportunities we have had inside as well as out.

In Maths this week, Reception have been flexing their vocabulary muscles and learning all about Mass and Capacity, using Balance Scales to explore and compare which objects are heavier and lighter, and different sized containers to explore which has the greatest capacity by counting how many cups of the same size it took to fill them. We made predictions, we argued, we measured, we counted, and thoroughly enjoyed it! We also explored the resources in our time to play, lots of new maths words and concepts were learned.

We have started Counting Collections up again on a Friday afternoon, and we used new boxes from our Maths Collections library, choosing a box in pairs, deciding how to count, counting and then recording what we found. Lots of mathematical talk has been used, again predicting how many there might be, subitising how many we could see, and then counting the groups.

We had extra sessions for PE this week, as some of us didn’t want to go outside in the cold and wind. We completed week three of our Multi Skills, and then spent some time using the large equipment in the Hall. There were some great stunts done by all, we have some very brave little souls!

In our Literacy sessions we finished our writing about Winter Animals, and we started our brand new focus story.

Someone had left a beautiful silk bag in our classroom when we came back from lunch. In it was a scroll with a letter from someone called Shen, who had given us a magic paintbrush and a story of the same name. We loved the paintbrush, and took turns holding it and saying what we would paint that could come to life and be helpful for people. We had some very unique suggestions, ranging from a House that people could live in, money for poor people, to a Goldfish and Diamond fish! Next week we will start our writing based around the story, the children are becoming very good at segmenting words for spelling, and we are privatising letter formation in our Handwriting sessions.

Look out for your new handwriting sheets coming home next week.

We have also had a great week as we are developing our play skills to play with more purpose. We have been singing, dancing, building, hiding, climbing, healing animals, and even the staff have been dressing up. 
Thank you for your continuing support, please remember to bring your library books in by Monday at the latest, thank you to those who have brought them already.

Have a great weekend!

Mrs Fearby, Mrs Wharton and Mrs Sutherland.

Week Beginning 12th January 2026

Spring One Term

Week Two

One More…One Less…

Only week two of our Spring Term, and we have been so busy already.
The children are speeding up with their progress and starting to become more involved in group times and adult led learning, as well as developing their own learning through play.

In Maths this week, in White Rose Maths we have been learning about one more, one less, and the composition of numbers, so how they are made up. We have sang maths songs, completed practical games with bean bags, hoops and five frames, and we have talked lots to develop our mathematical vocabulary, ‘What do you see, and how do you see it?’

During our Number Sense lessons this week we have been learning how to show numbers on our fingers when we have more than five, and subitising by putting together two lots of what we can see, so when we can see 2 and we can see 3, we know they make 5, we don’t need to count them again. Lots of fantastic discussion this week from that.

Every week we are going to learn a new board game, and play it with each other, to support taking turns, communication and language, oracy and physical development. This week we played Bingo, then we learned how to play Twister, it was such a hit! Next week will be Snakes and Ladders. If anyone has any old board games they would like to donate for us to use, we will gladly take them in! 
 

In PE this week, we have continued our MultiSkills sessions with Primary PE, and we have learned how to ‘walk the plank’ ‘scrub the decks’ ‘climb the rigging’ and escape into lifeboats! Lots of core strength and balance training this week, we have continued in our play outside, we are getting stronger…and braver!

Next week we will be finishing our book on Animals in Winter, and moving to a new focus story - we are excited to share this with you!

Thanks you for your support, Mrs Fearby, Mrs Wharton and Mrs Sutherland

Week beginning 5th January 2026

Spring One Term

Week One

Back to School!

Welcome back to school after a lovely Christmas break, we hope Santa has been good to everyone, it has been a busy week back, with new group times, new resources to explore, new areas in our provision, and lots of snow and ice!

Well done to our Stars of the Week, Poppie and Isabelle, and our Class Dojo Champion Amiyah.

This week the children spotted some animal footprints in the snow that fell, so as well as investigating the shape and size of the prints and matching them to some well known animals in our local area (rabbits, mice and maybe a fox!) we began reading the book ‘Winter Animals’ as our class focus text, and learning about what different animals sound and look like. We took some of our small world animals outside and made our own prints. We then decided that we would like to create a Vet’s Office in our writing area, so we gathered lots of resources to make it look a little like what you would see at the Vet, with signs and equipment, and filled it with soft toy animals that all had something wrong with them. We checked them in, bandaged them up, gave them medicine and listened to their chests. Mrs Wharton brought some leads and pet beds in too, we have learned so much about how to look after animals this week! 
Continuing with Expressive Art and Design, the children used the new resources in the Art area and created some pictures using stickers, peeling the circles was also great for our fine motor skills, and we loved the way some of the children used the circles as the hands and feet of their family they had drawn. We then had an adult led session on how to make different marks, such as lines, dots and spirals, then we completed some of our own pictures. 
In Maths this week, the children learned about 0-5, the composition of 5, and subitising models of 6 to 10 using ten frames. We all enjoyed joining in with the group activities including playing Five Little Monkeys with headbands and counters, and getting up in front of our friends to talk about ‘what can you see, and how do you see it?’ ‘I can see that the seven is five fingers on one hand and two on the other hand. I can see that the eight is one full row of five and three in the next row.’

In Literacy this week, we recapped on the phonics we did before the end of term, and we drew and wrote and labelled about the snow days on Monday and Tuesday. We are also continuing our handwriting sessions three times a week to practise writing our names, some common shapes, and letter formation.

We now have a new revamped junk modelling area, which I am sure some parents know a lot about! We would appreciate donations of any recyclable materials from home such as cardboard boxes, plastic tubs, tubes and spray bottles, so that the children can use them to practise joining materials together and making weird and wonderful creations!

Thank you for your continued support, Mrs Fearby, Mrs Wharton and Mrs Sutherland.

Week beginning 15th December

Autumn Term Two Week Seven

Ho, Ho, Ho…Must be Santa…or is it The Grinch?

Christmas Party, Christmas Cards, Calendars, Gingerbread Trains, Santa, Santa Dash, Games, Treats, and lots of play…with a little phonics and maths thrown in, and a visit from The Grinch, what another busy week!

We hope you have a safe and happy break, wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, thank you for your support and also your generosity this week, and we can’t wait to see everyone bright eyes and bushy tailed back in January.

Lots of Love from Mrs Fearby, Mrs Wharton and Mrs Sutherland!

xXXx

Week beginning 8th December

Autumn Two Term Week Six

Kings, Shepherds, Starry Nights and Singing…all in a week’s work for Reception.

Week beginning 1st December 2025

Autumn Two Term Week Five

A King is Born! Back to full health, and full steam ahead…

After a very strange and quiet couple of weeks we are all back to school and (mostly) fighting fit in Reception. 
This is just in time as our Nativity is getting closer, so we have really ramped up the practises this week, well done to the children for their wonderful singing, and those who have changed parts to fill in. It’ll be alright on the night!

The first of December brings Advent along with it, we have a sticker advent calendar to fill in every day, and Christmas has arrived, lots of decorations and costumes along with it. In our Art Space we have created our very own fireplace for home corner. We are having so much fun embracing the festive season alongside the children’s interests.

Unfortunately it also brings a naughty elf along with it, keep tuning in to see how he gets on!
 

In Literacy this week we have been completing our Stick Man story map, rehearsing the story orally every day, and starting to think about the character of Stick Man, who he is, what he looks like, how he feels in the story. We are going to use this as a focus for some writing next week.

We have also been learning to orally retell the story of Christmas, why we celebrate it, and what Christians believe happened when Jesus was born.

In Maths we are learning all about five, and how to subitise numbers within five, we have been using dice and five frames to support us with our learning.

Reception had great fun breaking the rules on Friday, we wore makeup, Christmas clothes and pyjamas, we ate unhealthy snacks, it was bedlam! Thankfully we had so much to keep us busy on that day that it didn’t affect us too much…and we raised money for a great cause, thank you to everyone who donated.

Reception also had the opportunity to watch a pantomime in school on Friday, Little Red Riding Hood. They cheered for little Red and Granny Hood, and booed the Big Bad Wolf…who wasn’t really that bad…a great time was had by all… “Oh, yes it was!”

As ever, our most important work in Reception is our play, practising and developing our language, our skills and our friendships, indoors and out.
We are making so much progress getting along with each other, and the next two weeks is going to be jam packed with magic and sparkle!

Thank you for your continuing support.

Mrs Fearby, Mrs Wharton and Mrs Sutherland.

Week beginning 24th November 2025

Autumn Two Week Four

Wintery Skies, Starry Nights…coughs and runny noses!

Week beginning 17th November 2025

Autumn Two Week Three

“I’m Stick Man, I’m Stick Man, I’m Stick Man, that’s me!”

Another busy week in Reception, as the snow fell fast and the wind blew wild!
 

The children have coped really well with the changes in routine, as we have spent a lot of time in the outdoors, exploring and investigating the snow, looking closely and observing the changes from water into ice and snow, and how we could change it back again. We also built a snowman (and sang THAT song!), and we threw softly packed snowballs at the snowman. Lots of amazing vocabulary and understanding of the natural world. We enjoyed some hot chocolate afterwards.

Our focus story in Literacy this week is Stick Man. He came into the classroom when we weren’t there and left us a parcel, to much excitement! We need to learn Stick Man’s story off by heart so he can find his way home, we started by looking at story sequencing cards, and next week we will start our story map and thinking about the character of Stick Man.

 Coincidentally, we had a lot of baby trees to plant this week to try and rejuvenate the woodland that we lost when the new school was built, so we planted our very own baby trees and gave them all a name, they will still be here when we are long gone from Hetton Primary School, which is a lovely thought as well as a little sad…we will grow very quickly!

We have embraced expressive art and design this week, and started learning about Van Gogh, and his painting Starry Night. This week we learned how to create swirls with our wrists and paintbrushes, we painted backgrounds to our own paintings, and we explored colour mixing to get the hues of our blues just right!

In Maths this week we have been learning all about the fourness of four, and recognising three or four objects, without counting, then recognising the numerals.

As ever, we had lots of time to play, to explore, and investigate, we played with snow dough and different play dough cutters, we created swirls and circles in the art area, we built models, we connected, we painted ice, we talked, we sang and we danced…more of the same to come!

The children have brought their handwriting booklets home and they will be bringing words home next week, ready for their nativity, I hope you can join us. I will also post these individually on Class Dojo so that you have them.

Thank you for your support,

Mrs Fearby, Mrs Wharton, Mrs Sutherland and the Early Years Team.

Week beginning 10th November 2025

Autumn Two Week Two

Anti-Bullying, Remembrance Day, A Visit from the Dentist, Michael Rosen Day and Children in Need…what a week!

Week beginning 3rd November 2025

Autumn Two Week One

Fireworks, Firepits, Four, and Half Term News.

Week beginning 20th October

Autumn One Week Seven

Pumpkin exploring, broom painting, spooky dancing, story sequencing…Hallowe’en is Coming!

Week beginning October 13th 2025

Autumn One Week Six

Let’s go the Dough Disco…then have a bedtime story!

As we are racing towards the half term holiday break, Reception have showed no signs of slowing down…

In Maths this week we continued with our new Number Sense lessons, we have learned about the ‘oneness of one and the ‘twoness of two’, expanding our vocabulary and making tables of one and two objects, we have also learned how to do a two handed snap when we see two - I wonder if we can do that at home…

For our Literacy this week we created a story map and learned actions for the story of Where the Wild Things Are, and we started sequencing the story using pictures, we know it really well, we could probably tell the story with no book by now! In phonics we are progressing well, and we will all have a short assessment job next week to see how well we are doing, and if we need to change which sound we are learning. 
 

We are on a mission to become experts with our fine motor skills, so we combined fun with fine motor this week and went to the Dough Disco! We used playdough and dance together to exercise our fingers and wrists, of course the children absolutely loved this, I have included some links to some playdough disco videos below if you’d like to try at home.

https://youtu.be/BOLR3pQt8zg?si=N7HzEX3Ct-7iK6fU

In PE we had our last Balance Bikes session, wow we were amazing! We even rode on a seesaw with our bikes! We were sad to say goodbye to Patrick from Wheel Education and made him a card with all of our faces in - he has said he will miss us, and definitely not forget us.

For Understanding the World we are still immersed in Autumn, learning about different fruits and vegetables you would find in the season, we ate Blackberries, and we have been making all things pumpkin, nature pumpkin faces and decorating white pumpkins. We have also experimented with different ways of making marks, and we have covered the walls and floor with materials and sheets, using paint in different ways to cover the white parts (and having loads of fun making a mess!) lots of new vocabulary was used while we played and painted, vertically on the wall, on the floor, on tyres and on giant Cardboard Autumn animals, what a lovely process.

We ended the week with a very Itchy Bear! We had our Bedtime Stories event in the Hall, drinks, biscuits, snuggles with our blankets and bears, looked through stories and then listened to stories from our grownups in school as well as parents. Mrs Fearby read a story about a very itchy bear and some of the adults and children joined in to make an itchy sound. This was to launch our Bedtime Stories bags. In Reception these will be coming home on a Tuesday, to be returned every Tuesday from next week, and will be a quality picture book to share at bedtime together. Happy Reading!

As always we enjoyed our own time to play lots, indoor and outdoor and really practise our skills. It is our last week in next week before half term and we will be going spooky for the week, learning all about Halloween traditions and creating crafts and reading spooky books, dancing spooky dances and eating spooky treats. 
 

Thank you as always for your continuing support.

Mrs Fearby, Mrs Wharton and Mrs Sutherland.

Week Beginning 6th October 2025

Autumn One Week Five

Let the Wild Rumpus Begin!

This week has gone by really fast for us all in Reception, we have packed so much in! 
 

In Maths this week, we completed lots of activities around capacity, then we moved on to pattern, we measured water in different containers, using language such as full, nearly full, empty, and half empty. We then looked at different types of pattern, we learned the word repeat, we looked at stripey patterns, spotty, and then patterns in movement and sound, such as stamping and clapping. We also enjoyed listening to ‘We Will Rock You!’ and stamping and clapping in time. In the provision, we made our own repeating patterns using different objects to stamp with in paint.

In Literacy this week, we focused again on our focus story of Where the Wild Things Are.
We found Max’s Bag again, he told us he liked things that started with the ‘p’ sound, and we sorted picture cards of things that began with the sound ‘p’and things that did not begin with the sound ‘p’, and we visited the library for a look around and listened to a story.

We have been looking again at Autumn this week, exploring natural resources, learning about storms and the impact of Storm Amy, and enjoying reading The Leaf Thief story.
We decided to open an Autumn cafe outdoors, making muddy lattes and pumpkin pies, and scooping out the guts of pumpkins to use the seeds. We placed orders, took money in the till, and made lovely drinks and food for the customers. We have had a lot of outdoor time, playing in the new areas, using the chalks, and also learning how to play playground games, such as 

‘What’s the Time Mr Wolf, and Duck, Duck, Goose.’

In PSCHE this week we talked about and role played what it means to have kind hands and how our actions can make people feel, and we sang the ‘feelings’ song, the link is below if you’d like to watch at home. 

Next week is our last week of Balance Bike training, we have done amazingly well in such a short space of time, every single one of us went over the ramp on our bike this week, even some of us that haven’t had much confidence before, Patrick from Wheel Education was so impressed!
 

Each week we focus on a different area of development for our fine motor skills, this week we were spreading, cracking and stirring! We spread buttery spread on our crackers for snack time, and then we made Monster Cookies for Max in our story, so he didn’t go hungry after being sent to bed with no supper…we cracked eggs, and we stirred a stiff cookie mixture,  they were a monster green colour with creepy monster eyes, we ate them then we finished off our week with a ‘Wild Rumpus’!

Thank you for your continued support, remember to check out your Class Dojo chat for your child’s Read, Write Inc. videos and that next week is our Bedtime Stories event on Friday at 2:30pm, we look forward to seeing you all there.

Mrs Fearby, Mrs Wharton and Mrs Sutherland.

Week Beginning 29th September 2025

Autumn One Week Four

More Wild Things, Wet Weather, Superhero Lunch, Dinosaur PE and Autumn Walks.

Welcome to Week Four in Reception, and while we’ve seen a change in the weather this week, it hasn’t stopped play in Reception!

We have been learning in small groups all about how to put on our school waterproof suits, this supports our physical development as well as our personal development, as we start to become more independent. It meant we could still enjoy the outdoor environment even when the weather is cold and rainy - as Billy Connolly says, there’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothing! 
All parents should have received their phonics videos on Class Dojo this week, to practise at home.

In PE we started our Dinosaur Dance unit. We flew like Pterodactyls, we stomped like Stegosaurs, and we tiptoed like Velociraptors. We also remembered what a warm up was, and we cooled down to a guided meditation. We had so much fun and learned lots about movement and exercise.

In Understanding the World this week, we immersed ourselves in the season of Autumn! We went for a walk around the school woodlands on the most beautiful morning, we painted using Autumn colours, and created leaf collage pictures of Hedgehogs and Squirrels by snipping and cutting leaves and the other natural material we found on our walk, after learning about these animals in Autumn. We had an amazing time, and we are starting to develop our knowledge and vocabulary all about the seasons of the year.

At lunchtime this week we had our school Superhero theme, which the children were really excited about, the lunchtime staff and Mrs Hill even dressed up to serve them, they were so impressed, one of our children found a golden ticket which meant he won a huge novelty cupcake, he was so proud and had a smile to match the size of the cupcake!

In Maths this week, we have been looking at grouping objects into sets, and comparing sets to see which has fewer than, more than and less. We have been using Autumn natural materials to sort and group, as well as practising our counting skills and comparing the mass of objects.

An important part of our curriculum is embedding the skills of Oracy, to enable our children to develop and speak fluently and confidently. This week, Lara brought in a Sunflower, and she stood up in front of the class and told us about it, and she also answered some questions her friends had for her, we then looked up sunflowers on the web, and learned some facts about how they grow, and about how Bees help them to grow. Thank you for sharing, Lara.

In Reception this year we are supporting our children with their fine motor skills by planning a progressive curriculum each week, practising different skills. This week it was pulling and tearing, we all had a go at pulling balls from sticky lines, and helping the teachers in school recycle paper by tearing all the scrap paper from the printer room up for them. All of these activities strengthen our fingers and wrists, and get us ready for writing.

Next week we are moving on to Cracking, Stirring and Mixing, baking Monster Cookies, get ready for some messy uniforms!

As always, thank you for your continuing support to help your children achieve and be the best they can be.

Mrs Fearby, Mrs Wharton and Mrs Sutherland.

Week beginning 22nd September 2025

Wild Things!

Well Week Three started with a bang this week, as we began with our first formal sessions of phonics, after Wake Up Shake Up every morning, we met Fred the Frog, learned how to ‘say the sounds and then the words’, then we learned the sounds m/a/s and d, how to say them, how to recognise them and how to write them, and because that wasn’t enough, lots of us had a go using the sounds in our play and in our Literacy group time…great job everyone!

In Literacy this week we were amazed to find that someone had been into the Hall before us, and left a trail behind…we found footprints, green fur and a bag labelled ‘Max’s Things.’ Inside the bag was a book called ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ and lots of things in the bag started with the sound /m/, which we knew from phonics so we were really good at spotting them. We worked out that the bag was from Max, and we read his story. We rolled our eyes, we roared our terrible roars and we gnashed our terrible teeth, and we showed our terrible claws! We promised Max that we would work on some job he will leave us every week that relate to our new focus story. Thanks Max! 

We started our RE group times this week, focusing on how special we are, and how people believe that we are special to God. We each chose a picture of a new friend, and talked about why they were wonderful. ‘Bonnie is wonderful, because she is good friends and plays with me.’ Zack. ‘Tahlia is wonderful because I love to sing with her!’ Scarlet. ‘I like playing with Olivia, she is wonderful because she is lovely’. Bonnie.

During our play this week as usual this week, we have had our fine motor skills workshops in the environment, to get our fingers and wrists ready for writing. This week we have been pulling and squeezing, and we used clay to support this, pulling, squeezing, rolling, and we have created snails, slugs and faces, happy and sad. We learned all about how to use the clay tools, and used our wrists to roll and our fingers to pinch and squeeze….its a dirty job but someone’s got to do it! We also created a snipping and cutting station together, we cut and snipped along lines, and chopped up pages of flower petals and magazines.

For PE this week, as well as having the Balance Bike training again with Patrick, we focused on rules of the Hall, warm ups, cool downs and following the rules of games. We played Duck, Duck, Goose and chased and caught each other  according to the rules of the game, we had lots of fun and we were all hot and bothered and out of breath by the time we were finished!

In Maths this week, we continued to use the White Rose Maths scheme of work, we looked at matching pictures and objects identifying sets, in this small step, children are introduced to the concept of matching. They will start by matching physical objects with other physical objects, then move on to pictures, we are also introduced to the concept of identifying sets of different objects that go together such as things to make a lunch. Mrs Hill came to work with us and we told her what she needed to make a good lunch, and what would not make a good lunch, we had lots of fun and learned new vocabulary such as match, same, different, set, group, and sort. 

We loved working with Jigsaw Jennie this week as part of our personal and social learning. We learned all about feelings and how to identify them, we sorted different ones using photographs and discussed them together, we also learned a new song T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R as one.

As always, Reception's most important work is playing, inside and outside, using our senses, being curious and developing our physical skills, and the children are becoming adept at this already!

Next week is another busy one, thank you for your continued support which is always appreciated, and please please remember to put names on clothes!

Mrs Fearby, Mrs Wharton and Mrs Sutherland.

Week Beginning 15th September 2025

Balance Bikes, Parachutes and Jigsaw Jennie.

Welcome back to everyone for the second week of our Autumn term, and we have packed a lot in this week…as we will every week! We have enjoyed taking part in more group times this week, talking amd sitting together as a whole class and on smaller groups, as well as enjoying plenty of time to play and enjoy our school environments.

Understanding the World this week took the form of exploring Autumn and seasonal change. We discussed the seasons, drew our own seasons wheel and talked about signs of Autumn such as Conkers, Pine cones, Acorns and the changing colours of the leaves before they fall from the trees. We learned some new words and phrases and explored Conkers using our senses of sight, touch and smell. Some of them were still in their prickly cases! We also learned a new seasons song. As well as this we learned about houses and homes, and drew a map with some of our own houses on, to drive the trucks and cars to.

We also found a common lizard in our outdoor area, it was a bit cold so we gave it to Mrs Hamilton to look after in the office and when it was warm, she released it into the wild!

For our Physical Development this week we spent a lot of time outside, and we also took part in PE games in the Hall. We learned about why a warm up is important, and we learned how to use the parachute to play games, we played cat and mouse, and followed instructions, we had so much fun!
This week saw the start of our Balance Bike sessions with Wheel Education this week, Patrick was really impressed with us all, he said we were amazing cyclists! We learned about the bikes, how to stop and go, use our brakes, and we ‘crossed the river’ lifting our feet, it was amazing, thank you to Wheel Education for teaching us for the next five weeks.

In PSCHE we learned about Jigsaw Jennie and about how important what we think and feel is, by describing our favourite toys. We had lots of fun and enjoyed spending time with Jogsaw Jennie.

We shared number songs and rhymes together to support our mathematical learning this week, as well as this we started our Number Sense maths scheme, learning all about the ‘oneness of one’ and snapping the number.

Thank you for your support this week, the children were so tired when they left us tonight, they have had a good week making new friends, playing, and trying lots of new things!

Mrs Fearby, Mrs Wharton and Mrs Sutherland.

Week Beginning 8th September 2025

Welcome to Reception!

Welcome to Reception 2025 for our amazing children and families, and welcome back to our gorgeous Nursery children from last year, we were so happy to have everyone join us this week!

We have had a fantastic start to the new school year! The first week has been full of smiles, laughter, and settling in as our children explored their new classrooms, made new friends, and began to build routines that will help them thrive.

Our youngest learners have enjoyed exploring the indoor and outdoor environments to help them feel comfortable and confident - from outdoor adventures to imaginative role-play, it's been a joy to see their personalities shine through. We have really enjoyed learning new songs about our body parts, our faces and also movement songs to support our listening skills.

As well as supporting these skills we have also been giving our fine motor skills a real workout by smashing and mashing berries, vegetables and dough, and enjoying cutting and chopping (and eating!)

Some of the highlights of the week included creating our families using stones and discs and naming who lives in our house, making handprint keepsakes for our first week in Reception and drawing our self-portraits, giving children a chance to express themselves and make something special to mark the beginning of their journey this year. These lovely creations will be treasured reminders of how much they’ve grown by the end of the year, and should be coming out to grown ups next week when they are dry. We have also enjoyed going through our summer memories bags with each other in circle time and talking about what we got up to. If you haven’t sent yours in yet you still can!

We have also introduced school lunches this week, and it has been a delight to see so many children enjoying healthy, balanced meals together.

Lunchtimes have been full of chatter and new friendships, helping to build a real sense of community.

Well done to all of the children for settling in really well, it’s going to be a great year.

PE will start next week. The children will need to come in their PE kits on Wednesday which they will wear all day.

Please remember to put names in all clothing!

We are so looking forward to next week and our full days in until 3:20pm.

Thank you for all of your support, Mrs Fearby and the Early Years team.