Home Classes Welcome to reception - oak and maple classes

Welcome to Reception - Oak and Maple classes

Teachers:

Mrs Driver

Teacher: Maple Class

My name is Mrs Driver and I have worked at Sandown for 11 years. I love to learn and study and I recently completed a Masters in Early Years Education. I enjoy living on the South Coast and often go for walks in the countryside or down to the beach. Although I’m not a keen cook, I do like to bake when I can, carrot cake is my signature dish! I love my garden, from planting and nurturing the plants and flowers to sitting and relaxing in the sunshine with a really good book! I also like listening to a range of music genres and enjoy going to watch live bands and festivals.

Miss Richford

Teacher: Oak Class

My name is Miss Richford and I have taught at Sandown Primary School and Nursery for 10 years. I enjoy travelling and am currently exploring new places in the world by using the alphabet to choose each destination. So far, on my alphabet tour, I have visited Amsterdam, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Dubrovnik and Edinburgh. I wonder where it will take me next! In my spare time, I enjoy exercising, eating out and going to musicals. My grandmother was Italian so I blame my genes for my love of Italian food!

TAs:

Mrs Milton

TA:

Mrs Beadle

TA:

Miss Byrne and Miss Richford would like to welcome all children and their families to Sandown School.

We acknowledge that starting school can be an exciting but also an anxious time for both children and their parents and carers. Therefore, we work hard to ensure that all families have a smooth transition from Nursery into Reception. We begin this in July with communication with nurseries, home visits, Teddy Bears Picnics and inviting all parents and carers to Class Dojo. When the school year begins in September, we focus on the children being happy and settled above all else. We truly believe that happy and settled children make motivated and independent learners.

We are also very lucky to have two Nurture Teaching Assistants, who run Sandown Seagulls, Mrs Groves and Miss Blackman and a Speech and Language Teaching Assistant, who works closely with the children.

Let’s Explore

What a fantastic start to Reception! The children have settled in well to their first term at school. We have done a lot of exciting things this term! The children have begun their phonics journey and are enjoying learning lots of new sounds. They have also been learning to read and represent numbers. In the Let’s Explore project, the children explored their class environment and school grounds so that they feel settled and happy in their new surroundings. We also learnt about the local environment and found out about places the children have visited on holiday. The children enjoyed looking at and creating maps for journeys. We ended the term with a trip to explore our local area. Our journey ended at Christ Church Ore, where we met Reverend Tim, who told us about the church and why it is a special place for Christians. Thank you to all the parents for their support in their child’s first term at school.

Marvellous Machines

This term in Reception we have been learning about technology, how it is part of our daily lives and how machines can help us. We used machines in the playhouse to develop our understanding as part of our role play and even got to explore a real vacuum cleaner! We explored other machines such as microphones, calculators, telephones, and robots. The children built their own circuits and had the opportunity to tinker with the inside of some machines. To consolidate our learning we designed, built and created our own marvellous machines, which we showcased to the other Reception class at our Marvellous Invention Convention. Our trip this term was a visit to our local fire station. We got to explore their fire engine, uniform and equipment and learnt how to keep ourselves safe. We ended the term with a visit from Father Christmas, a Christmas dinner and our spectacular nativity performance of ‘The Twinkly Nativity’. We certainly have some stars in the making.

Term 3

Long Ago

This term we have been exploring the topic ‘Long Ago’. We began the term by taking an adventure to Sandown Museum, where we looked at objects from long ago and compared them to objects that we use today. As well as looking at how objects and places have changed over time, we also looked at how the children have changed from babies to now and how they are going to change in the future. We were lucky enough to have a visit from two mothers and their babies, where we learnt more about what babies can do and how they change as they grow. During the term we looked at old toys and discussed how people used to make their own toys, food and clothes. We even made our own peg dolls. At the end the term we invited our grandparents into school. We asked them lot of questions and they talked to us about what life was like for them as a child and in school. They also taught us how to play some traditional games.

Term 4

Ready, Steady, Grow

This term we have been learning about food and farming by exploring where food comes from, what plants and animals need to grow and how to keep ourselves healthy. We started the term with an adventure to RSPCA Mallydams, where we went on a minibeast trail, explored habitats, and participated in creative activities in the woods. Throughout the term, we have been creating our own pictures of plants, fruits, vegetables and animals, thinking carefully about which parts are required. We have enjoyed trying new foods and preparing food to eat, following instructions and recipes. We have made a fruit salad, butter and a vegetable salad in the shape of a caterpillar or a butterfly. We have been exploring our Sandown gardens with Kathyrn, our school gardener, exploring spring flowers, as well as planting bean seeds, strawberry plants, potatoes and cutting off the tops of root vegetables to grow the scraps. We were very excited to meet some real lambs, Charlie and Lola, who were only 2 and 3 weeks old! We also celebrated World Book Day and Science Week this term. On World Book Day, we dressed up as our favourite book characters or ready for a story and spent the day sharing lots of books, creating paper plate book characters and recommending books for others to read. In Science Week, we thought creatively about how the dinosaurs became extinct, undertook a dinosaur excavation and invented our own tree planting machines. We ended the term by planting some new seeds in our Lorax Forest and planting sunflowers with our parents.

Term 5

This term, Reception went on an ‘Animal Safari’. The children learned about animals that live around the world. They started the term by learning how to care for pets and what all animals need to grow, survive and stay happy and healthy.

The children learned about animal features and practised sketching them, remembering to include all their features. They explored various animal habitats and compared the animals that live across the globe with animals that live here in the UK. how they survive in the wild as well as comparing how animals are similar or different. They learned how to look after animals and the importance of caring for our local and global environments.