Rabbits Class
Welcome to the Rabbit’s Class Page
We are the Reception Class.
Mrs Moreland is our Reception Class teacher four days a week with Mrs Homewood teaching Reception on a Wednesday. We also have two Teaching Assistants in Rabbits Class. Mrs Willis works all day on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and Miss Baker who works all day on a Thursday and Friday. The children will also get to know Mrs Goulding, who will be with the children during their lunch time sitting in the hall.
At St Matthew’s, our aim is for all our children within the Foundation Stage to be confident, independent, resilient learners who build strong relationships with the adults and children within our safe, stimulating environment. It is important to us that the children feel part of the wider school community and they are involved in many whole school events and activities. We want our children to leave Reception with high levels of self – esteem, effective communication skills and the ability to think critically and imaginatively. We ensure children are well prepared for the National Curriculum by providing engaging, hands-on learning opportunities within our carefully planned continuous provision, during our whole class and group learning sessions and through our staff competently moving children’s learning forward using children’s individual next steps. We ensure all children are challenged, as well as excited and interested to learn making sure sustained progress is made and that each child can reach their full potential. We aim to harness each child’s natural curiosity and motivation, and to build on their strengths and interests in order to promote positive attitudes to learning.
We believe that play, both indoors and outdoors, is the fundamental way in which young children develop and extend their knowledge and skills. Play can be both enjoyable and challenging. When playing, children behave in different ways, sometimes their play will be boisterous, sometimes they will describe and discuss what they are doing, and sometimes they will be quiet and reflective as they play. Through play, children will be developing skills across all of the Prime and Specific areas of learning, working towards achieving the Early Learning Goals.
We teach through six engaging themes that are designed to capture the children’s interests and excite them in their learning. Our themes can change based on the children’s interests and plans will be adapted accordingly. We provide the children with exciting new experiences and challenges and encourage them to develop their own ideas. We teach Phonics through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds, our Literacy based sessions are taught using Greg Bottrill’s Drawing Club approach and we use Power Maths and Mastering Number to support our children’s Mathematical learning and understanding.
We strive to create and maintain a successful partnership with parents and carers, as we recognise, that together we can have a significant impact on children’s learning. We also welcome and encourage parents to participate actively in their child’s education and care by inviting parents into school regularly for a variety of school events, to view their child’s learning and to spend time in our environment. We use Tapestry, an online Learning Journal to document our children’s achievements and actively encourage parents to add their children’s ‘WOW’ moments from home.
Our trips and experiences include a visit to ‘The Look Out Discovery Centre’ and ‘Nower Wood Educational Nature Reserve’, where we take part in various Science activities. We have a Teddy bears picnic at Gatton Park in the Summer Term. We are also looking forward to a visit from Hobgoblin Theatre in the Autumn Term and a Storytelling Workshop in the Summer Term as well as a visit from our local Fire Department.
Our commitment to keeping children safe is of the utmost importance. We carry out daily risk assessments within our Early years setting to ensure the highest levels of safety are maintained.
