Welcome to Reception

Overview

Reception at Queen’s Hill Primary School offers an engaging and nurturing environment for each child to learn and flourish. Our goal is to instill a ‘Passion for Learning’ that will continue throughout pupils' lives by providing stimulating lessons, enquiry-based learning opportunities and a child-centred approach to help children develop their own love of learning.

We believe that each and every child has the right to achieve and in the Early Years we seek to develop this at every stage. Our purpose built Reception classrooms and outdoor area provide a rich environment in which the children can learn through their play and children are able to access our large outdoor area on a free-flow basis every day. A balance of adult-directed and child-initiated learning ensures that children make progress across all areas of their learning and development. We follow the phonics scheme Read, Write, Inc. which teaches children to use letter sounds to support their reading and writing. We use a maths mastery approach when teaching early number skills.

Useful Links

Read and write alphabet and letters

Number Rhymes

Phonics made easy

How we teach phonics at Queen's Hill

Home communication

At Queen’s Hill Primary School we see education as a partnership between the home and school. We use Tapestry, an ‘online learning journal’ which enables you to see photographs, videos and written observations of the activities your child does at school. Good relationships between parents and staff are valued and there are frequent opportunities for parents to come in and share what their child has been doing.

Download the Reception Long Term Plan

Download the Reception Learning Resources

Useful Websites

Here are some of the websites that can be accessed at home to support children’s learning and development specifically for the early years. Please find a list of suggested websites below. We hope you find this information useful and enjoy using these sites to enhance your child’s learning experiences at home!

Please do remember to review the sites ahead of time so that you are able to help your children find the best resources available within the sites. Some offer a great number of games, songs, stories, videos etc. so it is important to know the site well in order to support and develop your child’s learning.

www.busythings.co.uk
Excellent site built around the 7 areas of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage. You can access a free 7 day trial but you need to subscribe after this period to access the content – various subscription packages available.

http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/freeIndex.htm
Great site with some free phonics games

http://www.phonicsplaycomics.co.uk/comics.html
Practise your phonics whilst reading simple comics

www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies
Many games often recognised by children from their favourite programmes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/websites/eyfs/
Links to particular cbeebies games from areas of learning.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/stories
Cbeebies stories and rhymes.

http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/
Interactive books and reading activities to share with your child at home.

http://www.funwithspot.com/
New and improved! Try creating your own Spot story.

www.sebastianswan.org.uk
Books for reading together with links to understanding of the world (good for natural science).

http://www.ictgames.com/
Some excellent numeracy and literacy resources

http://www.ictgames.com/looCoverWriteCheck/LCWC_demo/index.html
Good for spelling high frequency and tricky words!

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/Early-Years.html
Lots of maths and literacy games

www.boowakwala.com
Many games and songs including those relating to festivals.

www.poissonrouge.com
Many delightful games. Spend some time exploring!

http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?Subject=37
Games of varying quality to support different areas of learning.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/
The Little animals’ activity centre - plenty of good quality activities to support learning

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/story/sbi.shtml
The Little animals’ activity centre – stories

www.abc.net.au/children/play
Various educational games, videos and craft ideas

Reception Blog Posts

Getting ready for Christmas

3rd December 2025

Nursery have been busy getting the classroom ready for Christmas.

Stick Man is missing!

30th November 2025

This week in Reception we received a letter from Stick Lady. She said that Stick Man had gone missing and asked if could we help her! Children thought about what we could do to help and made wanted posters for him- we even put some up around school! Children have been painting using watercolours, creating their own stick men and searching for Stick Man outside.

Being a kind friend

21st November 2025

To celebrate Antibullying curriculum day we have been concentrating on the qualities needed to be a kind friend. Children made friendship bracelets, worked on our fine motor skills, friendship pictures and wore our odd socks! We also have learnt about floating and sinking and using the phonics we know to begin to write words.

Poppies and Balancing

14th November 2025

This week in Reception we have been learning about Remembrance day and the meaning of poppies. Children did a range of poppy themed activities including counting, playdough and art. We have also been concentrating on our balancing skills both inside and outside. Some children even made their own obstacle course to challenge themselves.

Diwali and Fireworks

7th November 2025

This week the children have been learning about how people celebrate Diwali and Bonfire night. They have been making firework pictures and learning about Rangoli patterns, Mendhi patterns and made Diva lamps using salt dough.

Reception Pumpkin Party

24th October 2025

Reception have had a very messy and spooky week! We have been looking at the story "Room on the Broom" and have been doing lots of magical activities such as potion mixing, pumpkin printing and bubbling cauldron painting.

Autumn in Reception

17th October 2025

We have been learning all about the seasonal changes which come with Autumn. The children have been reading the story "The Leaf Thief" and have learnt about what happens to the leaves in Autumn and why. We have learnt about the vegetables and plants which grow, the animals who hibernate and created pictures inspired by Autumnal colours. The children even got to visit our on-site outdoor classroom for an Autumn hunt!

Dinosaurs!

3rd October 2025

Last week Reception, we had a mystery visitor in our classrooms. They left some clues; footprints and a tray of fossils. We discovered from reading "The Girl and the Dinosaur" that just like the dinosaur in the story, we had been visited by night dinosaurs too! We have had lots of fun exploring dinosaurs in the classroom and like in the story the children made their own wishes that they hope to come true!

All about me

19th September 2025

Reception have been settling in to starting school and looking at the topic "All about me". We have been sharing facts about ourselves and drawing self-portraits- noticing lots of our facial features. This week we have been learning about the story "And Tango Makes 3". In the story, Tango lives in the zoo with two daddies. We have been talking about all of our families and who we live in a house with. We have discussed that every family is special and unique, but the thing that they all have in common is that there is lots of love! Children made marks as to who lives in their house and if they have any pets.

Big Toddle

20th June 2025

We had so much fun during our Big Toddle! We completed different Physical Development activities such as 'Balance Along the Tree Branches' and 'Don't Fall in the River'. Parents and carers helped us raise £150 for Bernardo's- well done Nursery and Reception!