This week our main focus has been Religious Education, which has been our core learning each day. The children have thoroughly enjoyed exploring how different communities celebrate the New Year around the world.

As respectful learners, we began by learning about how many people celebrate New Year on 31st December, discussing traditions such as countdowns, fireworks and spending time with family and friends. The children shared their own experiences and spoke confidently about how they celebrate at home.

As global citizens, we then explored how other faiths and religions celebrate New Year in the Springtime, including Lunar New Year, Nowruz and Holi. The children learned about the different traditions, special foods, decorations and ways families come together to celebrate these important festivals. They showed curiosity and respect when discussing similarities and differences between celebrations.

Alongside our RE learning, we continued our focus on Internet Safety – staying safe when using phones and tablets.

As digital citizens, the children learned how to keep themselves safe online. Through stories, discussion and role play, they explored what to do if something pops up on a screen that makes them feel worried. They confidently practised our safety rule: Stop – Close – Tell, using actions and repeating the chant to help them remember.

As communicators, the children answered questions thoughtfully, shared their ideas clearly and practised speaking in full sentences during circle time discussions. They talked about who helps them when using devices and how they can ask a trusted grown-up for help.

As decision makers, the children sorted pictures into “Safe” and “Not Safe” and explained their reasoning, showing a growing understanding of how to make sensible choices when using technology.

As writers and readers, the children continued applying their phonics knowledge to reading and writing, using their sounds to compose simple sentences and decode words during our daily sessions.

As storytellers the children enjoyed our Tales Toolkit session and giving ideas to build a story based on a character, setting, problem and solution. ome of the Receprtion children have started to record their stories and it has been lovely observing other children using the props to create their own stories. The Pre-schoolers have enjoyed lots of storytimes this week revisiting their favourite books and stories from this term. 

This week we have also been revisiting our school Golden Rules and ensuring that during lessons all children are ready to learn by looking at the teacher, sitting quietly and doing what has been asked of them straight away, as well as remembering their manners at lunchtime. Please support us by insisting on these behaviours at home too, as consistency really helps the children to develop positive habits. Today the children tried really hard to follow the rules and adjust their beaviour and were rewarded with popcorn and a watch of the 'Smeds and the Smoos' short film which made for a wonderful end to our topic 'Outer Space'

Staffing Update

Our lovely and highly skilled Nursery Nurse Pamela has now returned to The Pod Day Nursery, as her expertise are needed with our under 3’s children. We thank her for all the wonderful support she has given the children in Barrier Reef.

We are pleased to share that Maria, our very skilled practitioner, will be stepping into Pamela’s shoes as the Clownfish Key Person from next term and will be supporting all of the children in The Barrier Reef. We know the children will continue to thrive with her care and guidance.

Home Learning

Reading (Reception):
Please support your child to complete 5 minutes of reading each day to help build fluency and confidence. Use the logins sent home on the sound mats to access the online eBook, and continue reading the physical book in your child’s book bag.

As we reach the end of this half term, we would like to wish all of our families a very enjoyable and restful break. We look forward to welcoming the children back to school on Tuesday 24th February for another exciting term of learning. Nxt term our topic will be 'Long Ago' and our first week we will be learning about Dinosaurs. Look out for our topic web which will be going on our web page very soon to see all the learning that will be happening next term.

Thank you for your continued support.

Kind regards,
The Barrier Reef Early Years Team