Welcome to Reception

Overview

Reception at Queen’s Hill Primary School offers an engaging and nurturing environment for each child to learn and flourish. Our goal is to instill a ‘Passion for Learning’ that will continue throughout pupils' lives by providing stimulating lessons, enquiry-based learning opportunities and a child-centred approach to help children develop their own love of learning.

We believe that each and every child has the right to achieve and in the Early Years we seek to develop this at every stage. Our purpose built Reception classrooms and outdoor area provide a rich environment in which the children can learn through their play and children are able to access our large outdoor area on a free-flow basis every day. A balance of adult-directed and child-initiated learning ensures that children make progress across all areas of their learning and development. We follow the phonics scheme Read, Write, Inc. which teaches children to use letter sounds to support their reading and writing. We use a maths mastery approach when teaching early number skills.

Useful Links

Read and write alphabet and letters

Number Rhymes

Phonics made easy

How we teach phonics at Queen's Hill

Home communication

At Queen’s Hill Primary School we see education as a partnership between the home and school. We use Tapestry, an ‘online learning journal’ which enables you to see photographs, videos and written observations of the activities your child does at school. Good relationships between parents and staff are valued and there are frequent opportunities for parents to come in and share what their child has been doing.

Download the Reception Long Term Plan

Download the Reception Learning Resources

Useful Websites

Here are some of the websites that can be accessed at home to support children’s learning and development specifically for the early years. Please find a list of suggested websites below. We hope you find this information useful and enjoy using these sites to enhance your child’s learning experiences at home!

Please do remember to review the sites ahead of time so that you are able to help your children find the best resources available within the sites. Some offer a great number of games, songs, stories, videos etc. so it is important to know the site well in order to support and develop your child’s learning.

www.busythings.co.uk
Excellent site built around the 7 areas of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage. You can access a free 7 day trial but you need to subscribe after this period to access the content – various subscription packages available.

http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/freeIndex.htm
Great site with some free phonics games

http://www.phonicsplaycomics.co.uk/comics.html
Practise your phonics whilst reading simple comics

www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies
Many games often recognised by children from their favourite programmes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/websites/eyfs/
Links to particular cbeebies games from areas of learning.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/stories
Cbeebies stories and rhymes.

http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/
Interactive books and reading activities to share with your child at home.

http://www.funwithspot.com/
New and improved! Try creating your own Spot story.

www.sebastianswan.org.uk
Books for reading together with links to understanding of the world (good for natural science).

http://www.ictgames.com/
Some excellent numeracy and literacy resources

http://www.ictgames.com/looCoverWriteCheck/LCWC_demo/index.html
Good for spelling high frequency and tricky words!

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/Early-Years.html
Lots of maths and literacy games

www.boowakwala.com
Many games and songs including those relating to festivals.

www.poissonrouge.com
Many delightful games. Spend some time exploring!

http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?Subject=37
Games of varying quality to support different areas of learning.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/
The Little animals’ activity centre - plenty of good quality activities to support learning

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/story/sbi.shtml
The Little animals’ activity centre – stories

www.abc.net.au/children/play
Various educational games, videos and craft ideas

Reception Blog Posts

Reception Police Visit

14th March 2025

Reception pupils had an exciting visit from PC Andy last week, where they learned all about what it's like to be a real police officer. The children had the chance to sit in a police car and even turn on the flashing blue lights, which was a highlight of the day!The visit sparked so much interest that the pupils couldn’t wait to head back to class and create some fantastic pictures to remember the special experience! oplus_34 oplus_34

Year 3 and Reception Buddies

15th February 2025

Year 3 had a great afternoon with their reception buddies on Thursday. They were able to ask about their learning this half term and then share their own fantastic Egyptian non-chronological reports. They have worked so hard on them and it was great to celebrate success!

Deserts and Valentine’s day

14th February 2025

This week we have been learning about the Desert and the celebration of Valentine's day. We learnt about what animals live in the desert and why it is so difficult to live there. We also learnt about how people celebrate Valentine's day and we made cards for our loved ones.

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The Polar Regions

7th February 2025

This week in Reception we explored the Polar Regions. We learnt about which animals live in the North or South pole and what it is like there. We spent the week playing with polar region toys, creating artwork and we watched our teachers do an experiment with string, ice and salt!

Lunar New Year

31st January 2025

This week in Reception we have been learning about the celebration of 'Lunar New Year'. We learnt about what foods people eat to celebrate and how they decorate using colourful decorations- we even made our own Chinese Lantern. Children explored different resources and really enjoyed learning about this celebration!

Oceans

28th January 2025

Last week Reception travelled to another destination- the ocean. We learnt about the different oceans in the world and how the temperature of the ocean changes depending on where it is. We learnt about the creatures you can find in and next to the ocean. Children enjoyed exploring the water trays and creating some ocean themed artwork.

The Rainforest

21st January 2025

We travelled to the Jungle in Reception last week. We learnt about the environment there and the animals that live there. The children played with jungle animals, made parrots and jungle inspired pictures.

Volcanoes

14th January 2025

Our topic in Reception is 'All Around the World' and each week we will be learning about a different geographical feature. This week learnt about volcanoes. The children took part in an experiment where they mixed together washing up liquid, vinegar and bicarbonate of soda to make a chemical reaction to look like an erupting volcano. We learnt about where some volcanoes are in the world and we made some art inspired by

School Council Christmas Bauble Project

19th December 2024

This year the school council decided to run the Christmas bauble project again. The plastic baubles were very kindly bought by the Friends and each year group chose their own designs and have been busy over the last few weeks creating them. In Reception they decorated wooden baubles with paint, glitter and sequins. In Year 1 they used tissue paper to collage the inside of their baubles. In Year 2 the children measured their height and filled their bauble with ribbon that is the same height as them in 2024. In Year 3 they filled their baubles with cotton wool 'snow' and decorated the outside with Christmas patterns. In Year 4 the children decorated their baubles with glitter. In Year 5 they used tissue paper to create bright and colourful baubles that have been hanging on their class Christmas trees. In Year 6 they chose glitter for the insides and drew Christmas patterns and messages on the outside. We think they all look amazing! A great big thank you to the School Council for organising this for everyone and an even bigger thank you to the Friends for supplying us with the baubles.

Reception Science

22nd November 2024

In Reception we have been looking at floating and sinking. The children learnt about what it means for objects to float or sink, made predictions and then did an experiment using the water trays to see which objects floated or sank.