Owls 2024 - 2025

Welcome to Owls' Class Page

Our class teacher is Miss Dalby and our teaching assistant is Mrs Rathbone.

We are very excited to share our Early Years adventures with you!

Our Learning:

At Lostock Gralam Church of England School, children are at the heart of everything we do and we believe children learn best when they are absorbed, interested and active.  We are proud that our Early Years setting promotes learning through play, building children’s confidence as they learn to explore, develop relationships, set their own goals and solve problems.

Learning is child-led, guided by the childrens interests and their curiosity, we establish themes and topics to explore each term, incorporating high quality texts and hands-on experiences through our continuous provision areas which are regularly enhanced to challenge children and encourage meaningful play.

Phase 1 - Feelings Detectives 

Our key question this half term is: Who are you and can we be friends?

This is a really important time for the children to explore their new learning environment and begin to develop new friendships with peers and build relationships with adults through group activities and play-based learning.

Literacy:

Starting school can make us feel very excited but it can make us feel a little nervous too...  Our key text, ‘The Colour Monster’ is an incredible book to explore the different emotions we might have and will help us to understand and share our own feelings about starting a brand new adventure in school!

Phonics:

The children begin Reception learning initial phonemes (single letter sounds) through Read Write Inc phonics programme. We support children to move through the programme at a speed that is personalised to their development, prioritising their confidence with reading in order to inspire a life long love of reading.

In Reception we encourage children to continue their learning at home in order to quickly build confidence and fluency. Initially with single letter sounds but later moving on to storybooks and decodable phonics books going home every week for children to practise their reading and comprehension skills at home.

 Numeracy:

 At this early stage, we are getting to know the children and are gaining an understanding of their                     knowledge of numbers. We will be encouraging them to discover numeracy through play, exploring numbers   through their environment and resources. 

Religious Education: During the Autumn term, the children will develop their understanding of being special and unique. We learn that as Christians, each one of us is loved, valued and and made by God in his image. We will also be exploring the wonder of God's world and the changes that we can see in Autumn with beautiful red and orange leaves falling from the trees and animals preparing for the Winter months ahead.

Phase 2 – Nature Detectives  

Our key question this half term is: Where do you live and can I come to visit?

This term, the children are continuing to use their learning environment to explore around the world! We will be investigating different types of environments and how we can compare different features to our local area. We will be watching out for the first signs of Spring and discussing any new visitors we might start to see in our classroom garden!

Whole School Topic:

We will be exploring 'Exceptional People' and in Owls Class we will learning about the inspirational life of Sir David Attenborough, who through his exciting exploration of the nature world and advocacy of protecting all natural things, we will be exploring ways in which we can be like this exceptional person in our own school and local community.

Literacy:

Our key text for the first half term will be ‘The Naughty Bus’ by Jerry and Jan Oke. In this story we will be joining a little toy London bus on a big adventure! We will be comparing the busy and crowded sights of London city to our local area of Lostock. We will finish the unit by using our knowledge and new vocabulary from the story to recreate our own London bus journey.

Phonics:

The children will be encouraged to continue their learning initial phonemes (single letter sounds) at school and practise at home in order to quickly build confidence and fluency. When able to blend sounds into simple words, children will be moving on to storybooks and decodable phonics books which will go home every week for children to practise their reading and comprehension skills used in school.

 Numeracy:

being special This term the children will become confident counters to 10. Able to discuss the number bonds to 5 through their strong knowledge of composition through play in the setting. Children will be exploring adding one more and taking away to make one less using number lines and resources to support this.

Religious Education:

We will be exploring the question: Why do people believe that Jesus is special?

Jesus was special and performed miracles. What jobs do people choose to do now that particularly show Christian values in action. We will also be discussing why Christians believe that Easter is all about love and the importance of the easter story when thinking about how much God loves us.

Physical Education:

In Owls Class we have PE on a Monday and Wednesday, please can children come to school wearing their

PE uniform and remain in it all day. PE uniform includes:

• Black/navy PE skirt or shorts, black/navy leggings or joggers 
• Plain white or school logo t-shirt plain blue/black hoodies or school logo hoodies 
• Trainers that can be fasten independently.
• Please remember children will need to remove earrings (or bring plasters to cover their earrings) They will also need to tie their long hair up for their PE lesson 

Can we also ask that your child has a drink bottle that is clearly named and contains only water.

Useful Links and Resources:

Parents’ Guide to Read Write Inc: https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/read-write-inc-phonics-guide/#:~:text=If%20your%20child%20has%20learnt,made%20up%20of%20those%20sounds.