Reception

About Our Reception

Welcome to Reception at Parkgate, where we believe in fostering a love of learning and nurturing each child's strengths and interests.

Our ethos is centred around providing children with a safe, stimulating, and nurturing environment that promotes their physical, emotional, social, and cognitive development. We firmly believe that our balance of child-initiated and adult-led activities give our young learners a real sense of independence and self-motivation.

Our team of experienced teachers and learning facilitators are dedicated to providing each child with the attention and support they need to reach their full potential. We believe in building strong relationships with our families and encouraging open communication to ensure that every child's needs are met.

We are excited to embark on this journey of learning and discovery with your child and look forward to working together to create a love of learning that will last a lifetime.

Meet our Adults

Our Curriculum

At Parkgate we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum. This is the framework for learning and development for children from birth to 5 years old in the United Kingdom. It is designed to provide children with the broad range of knowledge and skills that enables them to fulfil their potential, and underpins all future learning.

The EYFS curriculum is divided into seven areas of learning and development. These are:

Three prime areas:

Personal, Social, and Emotional Development, which focuses on self-awareness, self-confidence, and social skills.

Communication and Language, which focuses on listening and attention, understanding and speaking.

Physical Development, which focuses on gross and fine motor skills, self-care and healthy decision making.

And four specific areas:

Literacy, which focuses on the development of reading and writing skills.

Mathematics, which focuses on numbers, quantity, shape, space and patterns.

Understanding the World, which focuses on exploring people, places, technology and the environment.

Expressive Arts and Design, which focuses on the development of imagination and creativity through music, art and design.

At Parkgate, we have taken these seven areas of learning and development and created a rich and varied curriculum balanced between focused learning and child-initiated play, actively supported by adults, which we feel meets the needs and interests of our children. Our play-based philosophy allows children to learn through practical, hands-on experiences and encourages them to take an active role in their own learning, fostering a strong sense of independence and self-motivation. Our aim is to send happy, confident learners on their journey into Year 1.

Being School Ready

There are a number of things you can do with your child at home before, and whilst, they attend Reception:

Share stories rhymes and songs
Talk to them all the time, asking and answering questions about the things you see and do when you are at home or out and about
Engage your child in as many varied experiences as possible such as drawing, painting, cooking, singing, building, completing jigsaw puzzles and playing turn-taking games
Challenge them to try some things independently like putting on their own shoes and doing up their own coats
Creating routines including going to bed early
Talk enthusiastically about school

Attendance and Punctuality

A good education gives a child the best possible start in life. We must ensure that all our pupils have an equal chance to make good use of the education that the school offers by providing a positive and encouraging atmosphere. To achieve this it is important that each child attends school regularly and punctually. When a child does not attend school regularly and on time they will have difficulty keeping up with their work and will therefore underachieve.

As we are a very large school site, for your child’s safety the doors to Reception will be locked at 8:55 am (Ofsted Safeguarding). If for any reason you and your child arrive after this time, please report to the main office where your child will be registered and we will know they are in school and are safe. Children not registered will trigger a follow up call from a member of the school team to establish that they are safe.

Keeping in Touch

As educators, we understand that you know your child better than anyone and that you are their most important role-model. We value your knowledge about your child’s development and interests, and we would love for you to share any information that you feel would either help us to inspire them to learn in our setting or add to their profile of achievements. We feel privileged to be able to share in your child’s learning journey and we look forward to welcoming you to Parkgate Primary School.

At Parkgate our doors are always open. If you wish to speak to your child’s teacher you may do so briefly any morning as you arrive at school, or you may prefer to make an appointment to see them at the end of the day.

We offer a number of ‘Stay and Play’ opportunities throughout the school year where you can engage in a range of activities with your child. We also offer a number of workshops to help you support your child’s learning. Dates and times for these will be posted on the website accordingly.

Trips

During the summer term we take the Reception children to Brandon Marsh Nature Reserve in Warwickshire. This visit provides the children with the opportunity to learn outdoors in a new environment. They get to experience a range of exciting activities including, pond dipping, bug hunting and bird watching, all led by specialist teachers. This is a full day trip which includes a picnic lunch. Travel to and from the reserve is by school minibus.

Brandon Marsh is open to the public. You can see what they have to offer at:

https://www.warwickshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/BrandonMarsh

Recent Events

Throughout the year we invite parents into school for ‘Stay and Play’ sessions. This gives parents the opportunity to see, first hand, how our children learn through the many exciting activities we offer. Our Christmas ‘Stay and Play’ is always popular.

In December, winter wonderland came to Parkgate in the shape of an ice rink. Our children loved having the chance to ice skate, for many of them it was their first time on the ice.