Welcome to Shooting Stars Class. We are a class of 25 fabulous children. Mrs Norton teaches us from Monday to Wednesday. Mrs Hardy our teaching assistant, teaches us on a Thursday and Miss Martin (SENDCo) teaches us on a Friday.
Important dates
Tuesday 4th - Pancake day
Thursday 6th - World Book Day
Wednesday 26th March - Expert group afternoon
Sunday 30th March - Mother's day
Friday 4th April - Last day of term
Tuesday 22nd April - Back to school
We have our lovely Star the alien who is looking for a 'Star of the Week' to take him and our weekend scrapbook home for weekend adventures. This will come home on a Friday and should be returned to school on the Wednesday ready for sharing with the class and sending home with our next star on the Friday.
On our webpage, you will find updates on our learning each term and useful information. Alongside our webpage, please see our class ‘Dojo’ for our regularly updated class stories and any new messages. Through Dojo, we will continually update yourselves on any key dates, events, reminders, or important information, therefore, please check daily. You will also be able to access observations of your child’s learning on Dojo. Just a reminder, the messages you send on Dojo will go to all our EYFS staff. Please place the name of the teacher on the message, if the message is for their attention.
You will also receive weekly newsletters via dojo to keep you up to date with our weekly learning, star of the week recipients and reading raffle winners.
Please also keep visiting the 'Parents' tab regularly, to view Mrs Houseman’s new updates and information.
If you have any questions or any concerns, you are very welcome to message through 'Dojo' or via our school emails:
mnorton@dovedale.derbyshire.sch.uk
Our School Day
The school day starts from 8:40am - 3:20pm.
In the morning, please drop off your child at the main gates so they can independently walk to their classroom. Familiar staff will be at the gate to support this.
On collection, if you wait outside our classroom and your child will be in the line to come out to you. Please give us a wave and try and stand in a similar spot each day to aid with getting the children out quickly and safely - especially in the wetter months.
Water Bottles
We encourage all children to bring their own water bottles into the classrooms everyday with their full name clearly labelled on the side. Children are provided access to their own water bottles throughout the day to ensure hydration. Please could you ensure that only water is put into them and not juice! This will be returned each day to be washed and refilled for the next school day.
Book bags
The children will be given book bags. Please could these be named clearly and brought into school each day and checked every evening for any new letters. Please could we ask these are the only bags brought into school as we have limited space in the cloakrooms.
PE day
Our PE day will be every Tuesday.
Please can the children bring in their PE kit in a named small bag and this will stay on the children's pegs through the term. This will be sent home at the end of each half-term to be washed. PE will include alternating both indoors and outdoors. Please could you ensure both indoor and outdoor kit is placed in the children's PE kit bags at the beginning of each term.
Please note the PE kit should be: a plain red t-shirt with or without the school logo, plain black sports jacket/zip-up jacket, plain black or navy joggers/shorts and trainers. Please can you ensure all PE clothing and footwear is labelled with your child’s full name.
Medical
Any children who require any medical support such as inhalers, EPI pens and medication will need a form to be completed, which can be collected from the school office. This will then be signed once administered by staff. Inhalers and EPI pens if needed, should remain in school.
School Money
You will shortly receive a text message /email about joining 'School Money'. This is our system on paying for things in school as we do not handle cash. This will include things like school milk, trips wrap-around club etc. Any questions please Dojo, email or ring the school office.
Milk
While the children are 4 years old, they will receive milk for free. Once your child turns 5 years old, unfortunately they will no longer receive it. If you wish for your child to continue to have milk at school, please visit: www.coolmilk.com
Birthdays
To celebrate this special day, the birthday boy or girl can come dressed in their own clothes for the school day. If their birthday is on the weekend, they are welcome to pick the closest day to come in non-uniform!
Jewellery and Hair
To ensure the safety of your child our school policy regarding jewellery, hair and nails is as follows:-
- No jewellery other than stud earrings and watches.
- We recommend that children who have long hair (below their shoulders) should tie their hair back for school; however, it is essential that it is tied back for PE lessons.
- Appropriate hair bobbles of size and design.
- Nail varnish should be removed for the school week.
This half term we will be learning about 'Get Set, Grow'. We will look into parts of a plant and find out what the best conditions are for a plant to grow, by observing what happens when we do not give it one of the things it needs.
We will be looking at the life cycle of animals and watching caterpillars turn into butterflies and look at artists who use flowers and food to create art like Acrimboldo and Yayoi Kasuma.
We will continue to observe our surroundings and notice anything growing now that the weather is getting warmer and we will also look at what surrounds our school such as shops and parks.
The main stories we will be reading the stories Jack and the Beanstalk, The Little Red Hen and The Giant Jam Sandwich.
We will arrange a visit to Green's Windmill later in the year to consolidate the learning we will do on growing.
This half term we will be learning about Long, Long ago. We will be looking at old and new objects and reading stories and watching animations based on life and stories from a long time ago. This will feed into learning around the classroom for the children to access independently.
In Understanding the world we will be learning about melting and freezing, continue to look at the seasons and the changes that we see outside and also looking at the world around us and on maps such as buildings, trees, roads that we see from the school grounds. We will also be discussing what is around us like West Park, the train line and supermarkets. We will also be looking at a Monet painting and trying to create the bridge and water lilies using masking tape.
We will also be looking at special celebrations this term like Chinese New Year, Valentine's day and Pancake day.
We will also be doing some pre-learning on our next theme by practicing the production called 'There's a sunflower in my supper'. We will perform this to the parents during three performances on the last week of school. We are really looking forward to it.
These are the books and animations we will be reading and writing about in Drawing Club. The children are working towards using their phonics knowledge to write short phrases with support to enable them to be come independent in applying their sounds to create sentences. Children who struggle we encourage to find and have a go at the sounds then model the words using a highlighter then get them to trace over the top.
Welcome back to Autumn 2. This half term our learning focus is Far Far Away. We will be introducing a range of books and animations to enhance our learning through Drawing Club and build up to the magic of Christmas.
We will be focussing on a range of celebrations such as Diwali, Bonfire Night, Remembrance day and Children in Need and how people from different cultures and religions celebrate them.
In Maths we follow White Rose and will look at numbers up to 3. This will include subitising, one more and one less and writing the numeral. We will also continue to watch 1:1 counting. We will also look at different ways that we can make 3 such as 1 and 2, 3 and 0 etc.
For our understanding of the world we will be looking at different materials and sorting them into their properties of rough, smooth, hard and soft and finding objects from around the room. We will also be looking at where objects are on a map and looking at how we can use pictures to show what things are on a map (key). We will also look at past and present (then/a long time ago and now) and sort toys into old and new; when we discuss what we might like for Christmas and what children from the past had. For People and Communities we are also going to be looking at a church, who goes to a church and learning the story of Christmas.
Stories and Animations we will look at during Far, Far Away
In our learning this half term we will be focussing on 'Super Me'. We will get to know the children and find out about their family, what their house looks like, what they like and dislike and what they are good at.
We will also be doing some assessments around name writing, numbers and their phonics knowledge so far, as well as carrying out the Reception Baseline Assessment. This is a compulsory assessment from the government which will provide statements for your child about what they can do. We will provide you with a copy of this report at parent's evening.
At Dovedale we love to read. To begin our reception year we will read lots of stories about feelings, settling into school and looking at books showing diversity and difference. These are so important to get the children to recognise that we are all unique and individual.
In phonics we will begin using the Read Write Inc scheme to introduce the children to the pictures for each letter. We will then teach one letter sound per day and have a go at forming these in our phonics books. We will then assess the children to see what they remember and sort children into streamed groups according to their current knowledge. Children who appear to be finding remembering the sound trickier will get extra inputs per day to try and enable them to continue with their learning.
