Routines

Playtimes and OPAL Play

Children will have the opportunity to play within the Reception area throughout the school day, and at times, on the Key Stage 1 yard. When the class teacher feels that the children are ready, they will join the rest of the school in OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning) playtime. OPAL is an exciting programme that runs over the lunch period for all children in school and allows them to engage in high quality play each day. We have a variety of play zones around the whole school site and children can play alongside their peers and/or friends in different classes. You can find out more about OPAL here.

PE

Whilst PE is not a statutory requirement in the Early Years curriculum, we offer our pupils a weekly PE session. Throughout the year we have coaches in from 'Little Kickers' and 'Little Rugby' and pupils thoroughly enjoy these sessions. Children also benefit from 'Commando Joe's' sessions delivered by NUFC at different points of the school year. The PE day will change throughout the year and the Reception team will keep you updated as to when it will be.

Homework

Homework will be given out at the end of the week and needs to be handed back into school on a Monday if possible. Most of the homework in Reception class is recapping of words/sounds/numbers taught in class that week, and children will benefit from practising these throughout the week at home.

Phonics

At Bill Quay Primary School, we use the Read, Write, Inc (RWI) phonics scheme to get our pupils off to a flying start with their reading. In the daily phonics lesson, pupils will learn to read sounds speedily and blend them into words. You can find out some more information about how we teach phonics at Bill Quay here and some more general information about the RWI scheme here.

Mathletics

Mathletics is an online platform offering interactive activities, games and challenges for children to boost their love of maths. All pupils at Bill Quay have access to Mathletics through their own username and password. Activities may be assigned as homework or pupils may log in play 'Live Mathletics', where they can challenge other children (from across the world) to real-time races that will boost the speed and accuracy of their own mental mathematics. When pupils use Mathletics, they are awarded with points that can earn them a weekly certificate.

Reading books

We encourage you to read to and with your child every day from a wide selection of books (some recommendations here). The reading book that your child will bring home from school is carefully matched to our phonics scheme and should be read multiple times throughout the week to support children's blending and fluency. Please ensure that this book is kept in your child's book bag every day. It will be changed weekly.

Red words

Children will bring home key word flashcards which they need to learn to read on sight. These are words that not easily phonetically decodable and for this reason, we call them 'red words' so that children are aware that they will not be able to use their phonic knowledge to read them.

Google Classroom

In the event of class or school closure (for example, due to a lockdown or a snow day etc.), we will use Google for Education to deliver remote education. For live lessons/sessions (e.g. phonics), we use Google Meet and for setting tasks etc., we use Google Classroom. Each child will have their own login credentials for Google and these will be provided in September. You can find out more about using Google Classroom on our Remote Learning Hub.

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