Whingate Primary School

Half Term 5 Newsletter 

Our Staff

In Reception Teachers that help us learn are Miss Swift, Mrs Cooper, Miss Smith, Mrs Gelder and our HLTA Mrs Waterhouse. Our fantastic Teaching Assistants are Mrs Binks, Mrs Massey and Mrs Sykes.

Key information

Clothes

• Please check that your child has the correct uniform, including pumps, in line with our uniform policy. 
• Please also ensure that all items of clothing, including pumps, PE kits and uniform are clearly labelled with your child's name. 

Bookbags

Please ensure that your child has their book bag at school every Wednesday. This will enable us to change their reading book to reflect the phonemes they are learning in Phonics that week. Book bags will go home on a Friday

PE

The children will do PE indoor every Monday. Please ensure that your child has their PE kit in school on this day and everything is correctly labelled.

Homework

In Reception we will send home a topic and Math's based challenge each week as well as a sound book, ditty sheet or reading book to reflect what the children have been learning in Phonics.

Phonics/Reading

This is a key area of the Early Years curriculum that underpins everything we do. We learn to read through the Phonics programme Read Write Inc. We have daily Phonics/reading session every morning. Please see the Phonics section of our website to find out more about what Phonics is and how we teach it at Whingate.

https://www.whingate.leeds.sch.uk/curriculum/phonics-1 

Maths

This year we have adopted the Maths mastery approach as well as following the White Rose Maths Hubb progression of learning. Maths is very visual and multisensory and embedded throughout the provision areas, as well as focused adult led sessions.

Vocabulary

We aim to enrich and widen the children's vocabulary daily at every opportunity. This is done through story telling, introducing new topic words and through conversation and interactions throughout the different provision areas inside and outdoor. 

Our Curriculum

In EYFS we teach and assess the children against the 17 areas of learning. We aim for the children to make good progress and to reach age related expectations working towards the Early Learning Goals.

Supporting Your Child's Learning At Home

One thing you can be working on at home is forming the letters in your name correctly. Remember you need a capital letter at the beginning, then lowercase letters for the rest of your name, for example Albert. It might be that you can write your name already but need to practise your letter formation, or that you are working on holding a pencil and forming the first letter.

It is important to work on your fine motor skills to make sure you can hold a pencil correctly to write. You can build the strength up in your fingers and hand by doing lots of fun things such as playing with pegs, playdough and threading.

Phonics                                                     

In School we follow the Phonics Scheme Read Write Inc. Please see the letter below for information about how we teach Phonics.

We enjoy singing the 'Phonics Song' and 'Tricky Word Song' at the beginning of every Phonics session. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPVbJ-IaHIw 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvMyssfAUx0 

Phonics Play is a great website to help embed what the children are learning in Phonics by playing games.

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/