What do they do in Reception?

[Greensleeves]

DS1 starts in September (he'll be nearly 5 - late September baby) and I really honestly haven't a clue what they do with them in the first year. Any Reception teachers/mums who can give me an overview? What should he be doing by the time he leaves Reception?

See this site . There are several specific areas that get marked on a scale at the end of the Foundation Stage (Nursery/Reception).

piss about...but in a constructive way - and strangely it seems to work.

Can only go by ds1

They did lots and lots of playing - role play, drawing, painting - they had a planning sheet each day when they planned their activities for the day (each child did this individually), and some structured things led by the teacher.

Some 'circle time' when they talked, read stories, did singing.

Literacy - jolly phonics to learn letters - brought home books to 'draw things beginning with the letter...', 'guided reading' - a book they'd looked at in class, to practice at home, 'independent reading' - a book to read at home, without having looked at it at school, 'word tin' which had sight words to learn (the 45 reception key words). Latterly some spellings to learn using 'look, cover, write'.

Numeracy - counting 1-10, then 10-1, learning the concept of 'adding 1' and 'taking away 1'. A little bit of money and time work.

They also had a topic every 4-5 weeks, so could take in things for the topic, and would do work/drawing etc based round the topic, one or two topics had special events, like a party or a trip. Also a bit of PE/dance etc. hth!

OK thanks, that's really informative

Have looked at the website, but it all seems very nebulous and woolly - lots of unspecific waffling management-speak about self-confidence and learning through play etc, but nothing about what the children will actually be expected to do by the end of the Reception year. I know they do an assessment at the end of the year - so what are they assessing, how is it graded, and what would be a poor/average/good set of skills for a child on exit of Reception?

Sorry if I sound nuts, I'm just trying to work out whether it's a good idea to send ds1 to school at all (I almost certainly will, he wants to go, but I toy with the idea of HE every once in a while). I want some Actual Facts

You would find more detail of the Foundation Stage here . However have just looked at dd's Reception report which was loosely based on those 6 areas and summarised the Reception Learning Objectives.

tbh it is still fairly woolly and about degree rather than specific achievements but it covers things like how persistent they are at finishing things, social interactions - listening to others both peers and adults , cooperating, empathising use of appropriate language etc and clarity of ideas and thought, plus knowledge and understanding the world, physical coodination, creativity through art , dance , role play etc .

More specifically for Literacy there is a range of Phonic knowledge from basic recognition of sound/letter relationship to using knowledge of words for independent reading and writing, Reading Skills recognising that you read left to right and top to bottom to reading books with fluency, Writing , own name and words from memory to putting in simple punctuation to create meaningful sentences. For Maths, from reciting numbers in order through to counting, ordering and writing up to 20, from a basic concept of addition and subtraction to recall of number bonds as a strategy for addition and subtraction, recognising and recreating simple patterns to describing 3d and 2d shapes.

hth

I have the foundation stage goals on an Excel spreadsheet - if anyone wants them e mail me on willow underscore catkin at hotmail dot co dot uk