YearR

We trust that you have all had a good break and the children enjoyed lots of Easter fun! We certainly enjoyed our Easter themed learning just before the holidays and it was especially lovely to see our Year R children spending time with their Year 6 buddies at our Easter event. We are looking forward to arranging other opportunities to meet with our buddies during the Summer term. 

For the whole of the Summer term our topic is ‘What an adventure!’ After this first week when we are focussing on RE and the concept of ‘belonging’ we will begin our adventure with an imaginary hot air balloon ride. Once we are off in our balloons we will visit the Amazon and the UK this half term before continuing on to Africa, the Great Barrier Reef and then up into outer space during the last half term.

You can find out more about our topic and other learning for this half term in our newsletter here.

We are looking forward to travelling the world with your children! As always, information about what we have learned day by day will be shared on your child’s ‘walk and talk’ board.

The Year R team

The children so enjoyed our topic last term ‘People Who Help Us.’ We were very fortunate to be visited by the police service, the fire service and a GP and these visits really did ignite the children’s interest and promote so much discussion, role play and learning. We are grateful to those who gave their time to come and tell us about their important roles. We hope that your child enjoyed telling you about these special visits!

One of the other highlights of the term was celebrating Chinese New Year; making Chinese music, dancing like a Chinese dragon and making money envelopes, lanterns and Chinese dragons. 

This half term our topic is ‘Spring to life!’. Please click here to read this term’s newsletter which briefly outlines the topic and explains a little about what we will be focussing on across the curriculum. 

As always, you can find more information about what we have been learning each day on Tapestry in our ‘Walk and Talk’ post. 

The Year R Team 

We hope that you have all had a wonderful Christmas and that the children enjoyed the festivities! We have enjoyed hearing about their Christmas presents and the fun they had during the holidays. 

After our RE focus this week on ‘Jesus as a storyteller’ our topic for the half term is ‘People Who Help Us’. We have some visits lined up from the fire service, police and a doctor and we hope that the children enjoy these visits and it fills them with enthusiasm for their learning! 

Please click here to read the newsletter for this term which briefly outlines our learning.

As always, you can find more information about what we have been learning each day on Tapestry in our ‘Walk and Talk’ post. 

The Year R Team 

We hope the children all enjoyed a fun Half Term break. After such a fabulous start at school they deserved a well earned rest! 

They have all come back very happily and we are already getting stuck into our first week of learning focussing on Autumn, Diwali and Bonfire night. Thank you for supporting your child over the Half Term by taking them to collect Autumnal objects; they so enjoyed showing their collections to friends in their class. We were so lucky with the weather on Monday as we went on our Autumn walk and it was the perfect start to the term! 

Please click here to read this term’s Newsletter which briefly outlines our topic for the remainder of the term – ‘Terrific Tales!’

As always, you can find more information about what we have been learning each day on Tapestry in our ‘Walk and Talk’ post. 

The Year R Team 

Dear Parents and carers,

At St Mark’s, we embrace changes that are going to have a positive impact on the children’s learning and education. As you may already be aware, the DFE have introduced a new EYFS framework, commencing September 2021.

What does this mean for your child?

Your child will follow the updated EYFS framework and will work towards the final assessment at the end of the Reception year, using the new ELGs (Early Learning Goals). These goals are short statements that teachers assess your child against at the end of the year. These statements will be shared with you all at the first parent’s evening. The 7 main areas of learning remain the same. These are:

• Communication & Language
• Physical Development
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Expressive Arts and Design
• Understanding The World

As part of the changes to the new framework, it also means that there is less emphasis on recording paperwork, meaning we, as adults, can spend more time with your child getting to know them and having those quality interactions. The new framework is also more aligned with the KS1 curriculum, further ensuring your child’s educational journey from reception to KS1 is building upon previous knowledge.

Reception Baseline

In addition to the informal, play based activities we have always done at St Mark’s in order to get to know your child and find out their starting points, a new statutory Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) will also be completed with your child during their first six weeks of school.

The RBA is a short, interactive and practical assessment of your child’s early literacy, communication, language and mathematics skills when they begin in school. It will be undertaken 1:1 with your child by one of their familiar Year R adults and will provide a snapshot of where your child is when they start in Reception. The data gathered from these assessments will only be accessed by the DFE.

Once your child has reached Year 6 and completed their SATS the DFE can then measure your child’s progress from Reception to Year 6. This informs them of how well we as a school have supported your child’s cohort throughout their time with us.

If you wish to read further on the reception baseline, then you can find a parent booklet here;

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1004560/2021_Information_for_parents_reception_baseline_assessment.pdf

You can find out more about the data which will be collected about your child here RBA pupil data privacy notice

Many thanks for your continued support,

Mrs Baird, Mrs Hearn and Mrs Rushton