Latchmere School

Reception

Autumn Term

A huge welcome to Reception at Latchmere School for you and your child. We have enjoyed welcoming your children into Reception over the last few days. The autumn term is an exciting and busy first term of the Reception year. The team are really looking forward to working in partnership with you to ensure your child’s first year at school is a happy and successful one. This letter is designed to give you some helpful information about the coming term. Please refer to the Latchmere Starter Pack for more detailed information about the Reception year or see your child’s teacher if you have a specific query.

Attendance

As we begin the new academic year, we would like to remind everyone about the importance of attendance. Many of the subjects we teach rely on carefully sequenced and linked lessons and a missed lesson can have a detrimental impact on children’s understanding and ability to ‘keep up’ over the year. If your child will be absent for any reason, please let us know and do speak with your teacher if you have attendance difficulties that you need support with. 

Punctuality

The gate opens in the morning at 8.40am and closes at 8.50am. The KS2 gate closes at 9.00am allowing you time to drop off children in years 3-6 if that applies to you. It is important to arrive promptly as the children start learning as soon as they enter the classroom. Arriving on time sets your child up for a positive start to the day.

Reading

Our goal is to create confident, fluent, independent readers. We prioritise reading at Latchmere School and have very carefully chosen the texts your child will study this term. We focus on word reading to develop fluency and encourage the whole class to join in through strategies such as choral reading (the whole class read together) and echo reading (the teacher models the reading and the class echo back). We also have the Latchmere Reading skills. In Reception these are based on decoding, prosody, comprehension and vocabulary.

In Reception, here are some of the texts we will be looking at in the summer term:

  • Starting School
  • The Little Red Hen
  • All Are Welcome
  • The Colour Monster


Inside Out Stories

Every half term we lead with a text that the children learn off by heart. We call it an inside out story because they will know that story inside out by the end of the half term. We create a story map with symbols and have key phrases that the children learn. Our first text is The Little Red Hen.

Phonics

We start teaching the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds phonics programme on Monday 14th September. Initially this involves daily teaching of phonics and moves on to three reading sessions per week for every child focussing on decoding, prosody and comprehension.

Please see the separate phonics letter for further information. You can also look at the ‘Phonics and Reading Scheme’ page on the school website.

https://www.latchmereschool.org/web/phonics_and_reading_scheme/647029

Maths

Our curriculum is based on the NCETM Mastering Number programme. These research-based initiatives ensure that the skills and concepts children are taught are fully embedded before moving on.

This half-term we will be focusing on:

-          building on previous experiences of number from their home and nursery environments.

-          developing their subitising and counting skills.

-          exploring the composition of numbers within 5.

-          begin to compare sets of objects and use the language of comparison.

Curriculum Highlights

The half term very much begins with “settling in” and “getting to know you”. We will initially focus on the topic of “All about Me”. In autumn 2 we will be learning about different ‘Celebrations’ including Hanukkah and Christmas.

You can find more information about the autumn term learning by looking at the Reception medium term plan and knowledge organiser on the school website.

We hope you have found this information helpful. We aim to keep parents as involved and informed as possible. Please do not hesitate to ask your child’s teacher or other members of the Reception team if you have a question or just wish to have a chat about any of the above.

Thank you in advance for all your support in the term ahead.

The Reception Team

Mrs Mann (Year group leader), Ms Trigg and Miss Edwards

Mrs Charalambous, Mrs Stratten and Mrs Grisby

Key Dates

PE Starts

Week commencing 21 September 

Get to Know Your Teacher

Tuesday 15th September at 2:45pm


Updates and reminders

Parent Representatives

Each class will be inviting parents to volunteer for the 2 to 3 Parent Rep roles who will act as liaison between class teams and parents.

Class Notice Boards

Each class has its own notice board for messages. The weekly curriculum highlights will be put up each Monday giving you a brief outline of the learning for the week.

Snacks

In Reception, we have two snack times each day: mid-morning and mid-afternoon. In keeping with the wider healthy eating policy of the school, we would ask you ONLY send a small portion of fruit, vegetables, crackers or breadsticks for each snack. No other kinds of snack please. We feel that this not only helps promote a positive attitude to healthy eating but also encourages good eating habits. Please do remember, however, that school fruit and vegetable snacks are available in class for all children daily.

Bookbags

We send letters and important information regarding your child’s learning home in their school bags. Please ensure they are brought to school daily and check them on a regular basis.

Next week we will start our new phonics programme – Little Wandle Letters and Sounds. Please check your child’s book bag for daily flashcards.

Class PE

PE starts w/c 21 September.   

Owls – Tuesday

Hedgehogs – Wednesday

Foxes - Friday

We ask that all children come to school in their PE kit on their PE day - PE shorts, T-shirt, plimsols/trainers and a school jumper/cardigan. In colder weather track suit bottoms (ideally as plain as possible and in a dark colour such as blue, black or grey) can be worn instead of shorts. 

End of day pick up

If your child is being collected at the end of the day by someone different, please inform the class teacher. You may also email or phone the school office to inform us if there are any changes to pick up. We can only send children home with confirmed adults.

Toys from home

We ask that children do not bring in toys from home, as we cannot guarantee they will not get lost or damaged.

School Bags

In the Reception classes we do not have space for backpacks/rucksacks so please send your child with all their belongings in the blue Latchmere school book bag.

Parent Pay

You will be sent details for a parent pay account in the next few days. Please sign up ASAP as you will be sent correspondence from school through this account and be able to book school lunches.

Labelling

Please remember to label your child’s cardigan, jumper and coat and any other items they bring into school e.g. water bottle, snack pot, book wallet.

Class Assemblies

Performances will take place on a Thursday morning at 9.30am in the Drama Hall. The dates for the Reception assemblies are as follows:

Foxes – 28 January 2027

Hedgehogs – 4 February 2027

Owls – 4 March 2027

Winter Cake sales

Hedgehogs – Wednesday 4 November 2026

Owls – Friday 13 November 2026

Foxes – Friday 20 November 2026

Birthdays

We would be delighted if you would like to donate a book to the class library to celebrate your child’s birthday. Your child could talk to the class about why they have chosen this book and what they like about it. There is no obligation but this has worked well in previous years. As part of our healthy eating drive, we would rather not have sweets handed out at the end of the day for birthdays. If your child would like the class to sing happy birthday, please let the class teacher know.