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.

Reception Blog Posts

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Year 3 and Reception Buddies

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!
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Lunar New Year

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!
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Oceans

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.
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The Rainforest

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.
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Volcanoes

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
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School Council Christmas Bauble Project

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.
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Reception Science

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.
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Remembrance

In Reception we have been learning about what Remembrance day is and about the poppies that represent it. We made some art inspired by poppies and the children chose to create poppy pictures and sculptures during their busy learning time.
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Diwali

Reception have been learning about the festival 'Diwali'. We learnt about how people celebrate Diwali with fireworks and food. We made Diva lamps using salt dough and created firework pictures too!
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Pumpkin Party

A big thank you to Mrs Singleton for kindly arranged with Longwater Aldi for EYFS to have some pumpkins. We have been exploring the pumpkins all week, scraping out the middles for the seeds, making potions and carving some too!