Reception
At St Columba's Catholic Primary our large Early Years Department is made up of three stages – Eden (our 2 yr old provision) the Nursery Class (3-4 years) and the Reception Class (4-5 years). We are very proud of our purpose built unit that provide a thorough and carefully designed pre-school education.
As in the main school the first and abiding priority is the education and welfare of each individual child. The curriculum is carefully planned, covering all areas of the development of each child.
The Early Years staff work closely as a team, making sure that all aspects of the child’s development is carefully monitored and a smooth transition into main stream education is ensured. The Early Years department follow the progressive and carefully planned Foundation Stage Curriculum.
Our EYFS Leader is Mrs Eagleton. Our class teachers are Miss Swift and Mrs Little and our teaching assistants are Mrs Redman, Mrs Holmes and Miss Parker. Ms Breen also covers the class on PPA days. We all work together to give every child the best learning experience and provide an education to meet all children’s needs. At St. Columba's we will help the children to achieve their full potential, developing their thinking, their knowledge, skills and attitudes to prepare them for life in our ever- changing world.
We understand that we set the foundations for children's education and aim to create a warm, happy, secure and inviting learning environment. This will help the children to feel comfortable, confident, and respectful of themselves and others, regardless of gender, race or culture. We want the children to have fun and to be happy, independent – to think and do things for themselves by learning to make choices and to share and co-operate. We believe our environment will deliver effective learning where children will develop essential life-long skills, enthused and inspired to become autonomous and intuitive learners.
What happens in Reception:
A typical day in Reception consists of daily phonics, Drawing Club -literacy and maths inputs. During the afternoon, as well as our RE learning, we cover a wide range of activities to help develop children who are curious, resilient and confident. Our Early Years setting, follows the curriculum as outlined in the 2021 statutory framework alongside the Development Matters document milestone and assessment points. We follow a blended approach in our curriculum. This involves delivering our curriculum that is knowledge based and focusses on what we want our children to know and do. This then runs alongside following children's skills and interests in our continuous provision and planning in the moment, with developing the unique child at the centre of what we do.
We aim to create an attractive and stimulating learning environment where children feel confident, secure and challenged. We have areas of provision; both inside and outside -which are enhanced regularly to support our experiences and learning. We aim to build children who are independent, confident and thoughtful, which is an essential part of each child's learning journey.
We enjoy celebrating our faith in God through songs and worship and it is through this that we make positive choices in everything we do. We recognise that all of our children are unique, individual and special and allow all of our children to show their many talents.
We recognise the important work that parents play in building on the skills learnt in school. Our children are encouraged to read at home, practice their letter sounds and reading their tricky words and complete their homework activity, alongside the homework challenge on set on Tapestry every week.
Tapestry
In Reception, we are using Tapestry to 'capture' our children's learning. Tapestry is an easy-to-use online learning journal which helps school and parents/carers to record, track and celebrate children's progress in early years education.
Log on to see your child's profile - photos, videos and written comments and don't forget to add your own - we love to see what our children are doing at home too!
Please download the Tapestry app. Fill in the Tapestry agreement and give it to Mrs Eagleton and we will quickly get you set up with an account so that you can access your child's learning journey and contribute from home.
Important Days
Friday – Tapestry homework challenge will be added for both Nursery and Reception children to complete.
Book Bags - please send your child's book bag every day.
PE - please send your child in house hoodie or T-shirt, trainers/pumps, leggings, tracksuit bottoms or shorts.