Welcome to Reception

Reception is the first year group at school. At Mitton Manor, we have one reception class with a full time teaching assistant. Our aim is to ensure a smooth transition from their Nursery/Pre-school settings to continue their journey in Early Years Foundation Stage education. 

In Reception, we use our school's ethos of Try, Enjoy, Achieve and Move Forward to ensure that the children become curious, enthusiastic, confident and independent learners. Our personalised curriculum provides the children with the skills, knowledge and understanding to become successful learners ready to continue their journey through Key Stage One and Key Stage Two at Mitton Manor. 

Children at Mitton Manor experience the seven areas of learning through a mixture of whole class, group learning and child- led play. Learning is carefully planned to support communication and language; personal, social and emotional; and physical development, as well as literacy, mathematics, understanding the world and expressive arts and design. Daily Twinkl Phonics sessions provide the children with the skills and knowledge to become successful early readers and writers. 

We use the child's interests, topics and themes to ensure an engaging and stimulating learning environment. Daily continuous provision activities are carefully selected to support and extend the children's learning. 

Meet Your Reception Staff

EYFS Lead and Class Teacher: Miss Reeve (currently on maternity leave)

Class Teacher: Miss Wadley

Class Teaching Assistant: Mrs Thomas

PPA Cover: Miss Reeve

Keeping Informed About Your Child in Reception

Miss Reeve, Miss Wadley and Mrs Thomas will make important announcements through the school app or on our online learning platform: Seesaw. You can also use the messaging function on Seesaw to contact any of the teachers. Whole school announcements can be found on the school app, website or on the newsletter. 

Useful Information

Homework is set on a Friday, through Seesaw, and must be returned the following Wednesday. Children must complete their homework in their personalised homework books and return it to their teachers to be marked. PE will normally be on a Tuesday morning but this may be subject to change depending on weather and extra events. PE kits must be in school all week. Parents will be notified of forest school days each term and we ask that all children have an outdoor learning kit available in school every day in case of extra visits to Rainbow Woods. 

Autumn Term 1

Our topic for this half term is Mitton Manor HQ! We will be looking at superheroes in stories and real life superheroes! In literacy, we will be focussing on the story Supertato! We will be creating our own wanted posters to find the evil pea and exploring instructional writing. In maths, we will be comparing amounts and size, mass and weight. We will be learning all about the numbers 0, 1,2 and 3 using Numberblocks to support us. This term is all about settling in to life at Mitton Manor and becoming part of the school community. We will be learning the school rules and discussing why they are important in our personal, social and emotional time. There will be lots of opportunities to be creative in expressive arts and design, including designing our own superhero masks and sewing our own evil peas. We will be learning Harvest songs in music and taking part in our first whole school event 'The Harvest Festival'. 

Autumn Term 2

Our theme for this term is Winter Wonderland. We are learning all about how the seasons change in autumn and winter. We will explore how ice is made and talking about how we can keep ourselves warm in the cold in understanding the world. In RE, we will be learning the Christmas story and will be using our words and actions to retell it in our literacy sessions. We will be taking part in lots of exciting activities, including making salt dough decorations and learning lots of Christmas songs for our Christmas play in expressive arts and design. There will be lots of opportunities to develop our communication and language skills in our Christmas post office and Santa's workshop role play areas.  We will also be heading on our first school trip to visit Santa at West Midlands Safari Park. 

Spring Term 1

This term we are learning all about Amazing Animals. We are exploring different animals around the world. We will be learning all about rainforest and jungle animals before looking at animals which live in the desert and under the sea in understanding the world. We will then be using our knowledge of animals to complete some animal themed writing in literacy, including some poetry. In physical development this term, we will be really focussing on our pencil grips and ensuring that we form all of our letters correctly. We will also be thinking about our different movements in dance and gymnastics. Out in Rainbow Woods, we will be designing our own houses for mini-beasts as well as creating our own lion and jelly fish crafts in expressive arts and design. 

Spring Term 2

This term our topic is Our Wonderful World. In our literacy sessions, we are going to be working hard to write captions and sentences using all the level 2 and 3 sounds we know. We will become confident at counting forwards and backwards to 10 and will be doing lots of comparing numbers to 10 in our maths sessions.  In understanding the world, we will be exploring the different continents and oceans and discovering how they are different to where we live. In communication and language, we will be discussing the different climates and weather from around the world and will be asking and answering questions about how the seasons changing affects where we live. We will be thinking of ways we can look after our planet and the people and animals who live on it. In expressive arts and design, we will be creating pieces of art inspired by the different seasons and will also be listening to Vivaldi's four seasons. 

Summer Term

Our final topic for this academic year is Astonishing Animation! This was designed based on the interests of our 2023-2024 cohort of children. There will be plenty of opportunities for the children to develop their communication and language skills in our Fairy Tale Cafe role play area. We are using our knowledge of traditional tales to identify the beginning, middle and end of stories in our literacy sessions. We will then be using our level 2, 3 and 4 phonics knowledge to write our own beginning, middle and end stories. In our personal, social and emotional sessions we will be focussing on keeping ourselves fit and healthy. We are excited to learn all about travelling to space and the planets in understanding the world and can't wait to create our own flags and crowns to celebrate the King's coronation in expressive arts and design. 

Reception's Big News 

A letter from the Queen

In the summer term, we made and sent cards to the Queen to celebrate her platinum jubilee. The children used lots of craft materials to design a new crown for the Queen and wrote her a lovely message. We were so lucky to receive a card from the Queen and a letter from one of her ladies in waiting. We were so pleased to read that she loved our cards.  

A Package from Lydia Monks
Recently, the children have discovered the value of illustration. They were particularly interested in Lydia Monk's illustrations in the What the Ladybird Heard collection. The children had a go at doing their own illustrations based on descriptions read to them and wanted us to share their work with Lydia Monks! To our surprise, she got back to us and sent us a fantastic package which included one of her brand, new books! Woohoo! Thank you, Lydia Monks. 

A Letter from Sir David Attenborough

Reception wrote letters to Sir David Attenborough to wish him a happy birthday and tell him all about our PLANET EARLY YEARS topic.
Not long after, we received a handwritten response from Sir David Attenborough himself! The children were absolutely over the moon. We are so grateful that he took the time to write back to us. Thank you, Sir David Attenborough!

​​​​​​

A Video Message from Hugh Jackman
The children in the class had been coming into school humming the Greatest Showman soundtracks and talking about the circus. So, we decided to create a 'Greatest Show' topic. The children became very interested in the song 'This is Me' and the meaning behind it. They were passionate that everyone should be treated the same. They also became very concerned about animals being used in the circus and decided to try and raise awareness and stop this from happening. After lots of hard work, the children put together a big show for the rest of the school and their parents. We tweeted Hugh Jackman to tell him about their hard work and grown up ideas and he sent the class a message.

Reception's Picture Gallery

Important Reception Documents