Reception 2023-2024

Easter Bonnet

The children participated in an Easter Bonnet parade at school today. Children were tasked by the BSA to decorate their bonnets and enter it to the schools Easter competition. The children had the opportunity to then come to an Easter Egg hunt after school with their families and see if they can decode the clues to win a chocolate egg!

Science Day

The children participated in a science workshop. We were shown lots of different experiments where chemical reactions occur including how when solids change into gases the mass becomes bigger. This was demonstrated through dry ice and water reacting together due to the different temperature.  Needless to say there were true moments of awe and wonder!

World Book Day

The children thoroughly enjoyed World Book Day. Across the day we enjoyed participating in a whole school 'show and tell' assembly, parade and in class activities using our favourite book.

Number Day 2024

Today we celebrated Number Day alongside the rest of the school. As part of this we dressed as something Mathematical, joined in with a whole NSPCC school assembly, and participted in an HSBC workshop (Day 2). 

Number Day generated a lot of discussion about what each of us had come to school dressed as:

"I am Number seven!"

"I am number 95"

"I am pi (π)!"

HSBC Workshop

Today children at Broomgrove Infant School we welcomed members of the HSBC UK Education Network. Across two days children were involved in activities focused on developing children’s understanding around financial budgeting and in particular money.

Financial literacy is a critical life skill. HSBC UK runs award-winning financial education programmes for both young people and adults. At the heart of the HSBC UK programme is the opportunity to build the fundamental maths and numeracy skills required by each curriculum across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Important to this aspect of the financial education framework are:

• Understanding the value of money
• Performing calculations with money
• Understanding currencies
• Appreciating how money works
• Understanding borrowing and calculating interest

Across each year group lessons were delivered in person by a member of the HSBC UK Education Network, providing the children with access to these core financial capability skills. Each session lasted up to one hour and follows the HSBC UK learning framework of introduce, discuss and use, allowing for interactive learning and ongoing development of ideas beyond the session itself. The children thoroughly enjoyed this experience to build on from their learning about money.

For more ideas as to how you can support your child’s learning and development particularly in Mathematics please speak to your child’s class teacher, Mrs Worth (Subject leader and Local Leader in Mathematic Education) or follow the attached link to the Essex Year of Numbers campaign: Essex Year of Numbers 2023-24: Essex Education Task Force

Colchester Zoo

We arrived safely at the zoo after an exciting coach ride through Colchester on a double decker bus. Upon entering the zoo we dropped off our lunches to the Kalahari centre before our mammoth walk around the lower end of the zoo. We saw aardvarks, leopard, anteater, penguins, sea lions, monkeys, pigs, land snails, tortoise, hornbill, fish, snakes…. We enjoyed eating our lunches outside before walking around to the penguin experience. During our Penguin experience we learned all about penguins including their key characteristics and habitats. Before boarding the coach home we had a last chance to see some animals around the top part of the zoo.

During our Penguin experience we learned:

• 18 different types of PENGUINS
• Smallest- Little Blue Penguin (30cm tall)
• Biggest- Empire penguin (110cm tall)
• Penguins don't just come from cold countries. 
• PENGUINS are birds but can’t fly. Penguins are very heavy and so they can’t fly.
• Penguins wear goggles inside his eyes to stop salty water getting into their eyes.
• They have webbed toes to help them to swim.
• Penguin feathers are tiny in comparison to bird feathers. Double layer of feathers.
• Spiked tongues to stop the fish coming back up once they have been consumed.
• Penguins can hold their breaths for a long time.

Children in Need

Today the children participated in ‘Children in Need’ activities. This included dressing up in something spotty; making their own Pudsey Bears; playdough Pudsey Bears and baking Pudsey Bear biscuits. At the end of the day we also participated in our three laps of the running track to help raise monies for the charity.

Parents Stay and Play- Phonics

Today, parents were welcomed into school to participate in a phonics session. Children demonstrated their skills when segmenting and blending words aloud and showed how quickly they could recall phonic sounds.

The classroom had a carousel of activities that parents could enjoy alongside their children including magnetic word spelling; flash cards, letter formation sheets and sharing our Little Wandle reading books.

Essex Safer Roads

In preparation for our visit from Safer Essex Roads, today the children participated in a traffic survey. We wore high visibility jackets and carefully walked to the boundary of the school gates with our surveys in hand. The children have been learning about tallies and how this can represent number. We knew that for each vehicle that went by this would represent one tally mark on our chart. Using this information we reviewed which vehicle we saw the most and the least of. We have been learning about ‘Stop, Look and Listen’ when crossing the road and keeping an eye out for any ‘sneaky driveways’.

A warm welcome to Broomgrove Infant School!

Over the coming weeks we will be uploading letters, documents relating to the curriculum your child's learning follows, dates of any up and coming events, photographs of your child(rens) learning- so keep your eyes peeled! 

Thank you for allowing us to accompany your child(ren) on their learning journey here at Broomgrove Infant School.

Autumn Term Topics

Autumn 1:                                          Autumn 2:

School/Packed Lunches

Just a reminder that if your child would prefer to bring in a packed lunch from home please ensure it is named. Please remember that we are a healthy school, which means that we promote healthy food choices and snacks. We will provide your child with a piece of fruit each day. 

Your child is welcome to bring in a named refillable water bottle. Ideally, your child should have a book bag so that it slots easily into their trays, so that letters and work can be sent safely home. 

Drop off/Pick up

Please be assured that we will do everything we can to support and settle your child to enter their classroom as independently as possible. Weather depending there may be activities set up outside your child's classroom to support their transition back into school. We appreciate this is going to be all very new for your child but we will do everything possible to make this a positive experience. 

On your arrival to school on Tuesday, please enter the school site via the large playground gate and make your way round to your child's classroom door and wait to be welcomed by their class teacher. A gentle reminder that Mrs Worth and Mrs Hawkridge/Miss Garnsworthy have needed to swap physical classrooms and can now be found in the parallel classrooms to the ones your child originally visited.   

P.E

On your child's P.E day (Fridays) we are going to ask for your child to come into school already wearing their PE kits. Children will then be asked to bring in their uniforms in a named bag so that they can get changed following our session. Please refer to the 'Autumn Term' letter which can be found below for health and safety procedures relating to hair and jewellery.

Tapestry

Over the course of the first week of school, we will aim to get all parents set up on their child(rens) Tapestry accounts. If you do not receive a link to activate your child's account, please check your 'junk' folder as the link occasionally can be found here. If you continue to have problems please do contact your child's class teacher.

Thank you for your patience and support. 

EYFS Team

Reception 2022-2023

Our visit to Essex University

What an AMAZING day we have had. We walked through the fields over to the university listening to our adults and following instructions to keep ourselves safe. 

We went to the furthest lake before having a snack in the shade.

We then met up with Mick, a gardener from Essex University who had hidden our bird boxes and mini beast houses for us. They will remain at Essex University should you like the children to show you where they are! We did our mini beast hunt and looked for all the creatures on our lists ticking them off as we saw them.

We walked across the cricket fields to the pavilion to use the toilets before we had lunch. We washed our hands and then settled under the tree to eat our lunch. After lunch we made our way back to school.

Thank you so much to the adults who volunteered their time in order to enable us to provide the children with this experience. We are extremely grateful to you all!

Forest School

Throughout the Summer term, our Reception children have had the opportunity to take part in forest school sessions, which are led by Ros Day-Williams who is an experienced Level 3 FS leader and has been running Forest School for Broomgrove Infants for many years. These sessions are a great opportunity for our children to gain confidence, exploring, playing, and trying new things outside.

During their sessions, they children have loved exploring the wildlife area, pond dipping to find tadpoles, learning how to start a camp fire, toasting marshmallows and so much more!

Our Outside Learning Classroom 

Throughout the school year we have been developing our outside learning space thorough creating weaving walls; developing the garden and vegetable patch; or building a water wall for children to explore. This week we have made, alongside the children, a music wall using our old mud kitchen tools and equipment. We used various tools to attach the different resources into place and considered what tools we might like use to use in order to create the sound. 

We had a wonderful time and have really enjoyed creating some musical performances for our friends in the sun!

Sports Day (P.E)

Over the past couple of weeks we have been preparing for our whole school sports day. We have practised how to throw a javelin; run in straight lines when competing in short distance races, as well as developing our coordination and balance skills as part of the egg and spoon race. 

Following this we have been getting ourselves undressed out of our PE kits and dressed back into our school uniforms. This has been a little more of a challenge as fastening buttons and shoe laces is a little fiddly.

Numberblock Day!

Today the children kick started this terms topic of the 'Numberblocks'. Children were invited to come into school dressed as their favourite character from the popular children’s animation ‘The Numberblocks.’ This resource is highly recommended by the ‘National Centre for Excellence for Teaching Mathematics.’ Numberblocks, first broadcast in January 2017, is a pre-school BBC television series aimed at introducing children to early number. A snappy animation and loveable characters combine with engaging  storylines to gently introduce concepts of number to support early mathematical  understanding.

Stay and Play Session

The children really enjoyed welcoming some of their adults into their classrooms this week. They showed off their Maths skills during a Maths Meeting and impressed the adults with their knowledge of number recognition, counting sets of objects, 2D shapes, the days of the week and so much more!

Afterwards, the children enjoyed sharing a story with their adults before home time!

School Library

The children have thoroughly enjoyed visiting the new school library. We explored the different types of books we have in school including non fiction, fiction, poetry, newsletters, big read texts and much much more. Children each chose a book to take home to share with their grown ups as part of their reading for pleasure.

Miss Garnsworthy and Mrs Hawkridge's Class 2022

The children have settled into their new school routines really well. We are adjusting to school life and thoroughly enjoying meeting new friends. 

Mrs Worth's class 2022

The children have settled into their new school routines really well. We are adjusting to school life and thoroughly enjoying meeting new friends. 

Reception 2021-2022

Today we celebrated World Book Day by coming to school dressed as a word! We enjoyed a whole school assembly fashion show and lots of excited activities throughout the day!

NSPCC Number Day 2022

Today we celebrated Number Day in Reception by coming into school dressed as something mathematical. We had shapes both two and three dimensional, horizontal and vertical lines, numbers, patterns, characters and so much more.....

Kimmy's Zoo

This morning the children welcomed a variety of African animals into school. We were introduced to Charlie the Bearded dragon, Rapunzel the millipede, Willow and Winston and William the Meerkats, Shere Khan the python, and Mrs Tiggy-Winkle the pygmy hedgehog. 

We learned about their home country, the foods they eat; where they prefer to live; how old they were; what sounds they make and why; how big they were and how large they grow to, why their skin/fur is the colour that it is or if they have any specific characteristics.

It was so good that even the school Governors wanted to join in!

Harvest Festival

The children enjoyed dressing up as part of their harvest celebrations. This week we have been learning about harvest. The whole of reception have been busily learning 'Big, Red Combine Harvester' and 'Dingle, Dangle Scarecrow' to sing to the rest of the school as part of the harvest assembly. The children were very proud of themselves as were all the staff and their school friends.

Exploration and Investigation

Today we had the science box out and used the magnets to explore the classroom looking for things made of metal. The children investigated various pieces of furniture and toys, using the magnets. This prompted a lot of discussion around different materials and their uses.  

Today the children took part in morning yoga. We had to listen to the instructions being given by the yogi and control our poses when asked. The children concentrated on holding each pose using their arms for balance. 

Morning work

This is us

As part of transitioning into school life here at Broomgrove, we used our school values (FAMILY) to look at the differences and similarities between each other. Children have enjoyed making their self portraits using various resources and tools. The children used mirrors to see what they looked like and selected the most appropriate colours and resources to create the desired effect. 

I wonder if you can recognise anyone?

A warm welcome to Broomgrove Infant School!

Over the coming weeks we will be uploading letters, documents relating to the curriculum your child's learning follows, dates of any up and coming events, photographs of your child(rens) learning- so keep your eyes peeled! 

Thank you for allowing us to accompany your child(ren) on their learning journey here at Broomgrove Infant School.

School/Packed Lunches

Just a reminder that if your child would prefer to bring in a packed lunch from home please ensure it is named. Please remember that we are a healthy school, which means that we promote healthy food choices and snacks. We will provide your child with a piece of fruit each day. 

Your child is welcome to bring in a named refillable water bottle. Ideally, your child should have a book bag so that it slots easily into their trays, so that letters and work can be sent safely home. 

Drop off/Pick up

Please be assured that we will do everything we can to support and settle your child to enter their classroom as independently as possible. Weather depending there may be activities set up outside your child's classroom to support their transition back into school. We appreciate this is going to be all very new for your child but we will do everything possible to make this a positive experience. 

On your arrival to school on Thursday, please enter the school site via the large playground gate and make your way round to your child's classroom door and wait to be welcomed by their class teacher.

P.E

On your child's P.E day (TBC) we are going to ask for your child to come into school already wearing their PE kits. Children will then be able to wear this for the whole school day. Please refer to the 'Autumn Term' letter which can be found below for health and safety procedures relating to hair and jewellery.

Tapestry

Over the course of the first week of school, we will aim to get all parents set up on their child(rens) Tapestry accounts. If you do not receive a link to activate your child's account, please check your 'junk' folder as the link occasionally can be found here. If you continue to have problems please do contact your child's class teacher.

Thank you for your patience and support. 

EYFS Team

NHS 73rd Birthday

The children enjoyed dressing up in rainbow colours to celebrate the 73rd birthday of the NHS. The children came dressed in bright colours and each donated some money towards a charity. 

"Look Mrs Worth! I'm a rainbow of colours"

"It's the birthday of all the doctors, hospitals, and nurses. They're 73 years old."

Pirate Day!

As part of today's Pirate day the children were invited to come into school dressed as a pirate. We started the day by going on a treasure hunt where we found some chocolate coins hidden in the undergrowth. We made telescopes, hooks, treasure maps, eye patches and flags. Outside we made a ship out of cardboard boxes and other resources we found in the outside learning space. We enjoyed a cup of blackcurrant rum and a pirate biscuit!

Today children were invited to come into school wearing their P.E kits with the addition of something spotty to their uniforms. The children enjoyed completing the activities prepared on the table including colour by numbers picture of Pudsey the Bear, and morning Pudsey the Bear yoga.

As a class we spoke about what Children in Need is and why we help to raise money for the various charities associated with Children in Need.  The children were pleased the money was going to help other children who are less fortunate than themselves. Well done Mrs Worth's class- you managed to raise a lot of money!

To celebrate the children's great success over the past eight weeks we decided to have a party to celebrate. We wore our party clothes, decorated our classroom, had our face painted, played pass the parcel, as well as plenty of other exciting activities!

Thank you for working alongside us to make the children's first half term so exciting and such a positive experience for them. Enjoy the break and we look forward to welcoming you back for Autumn 2. 

Today we went on our first Welly walk down to the wildlife area. When asked we found our wellies and put them on and lined up at the door. We stayed in line and walked down to the wildlife area as a class with Mr Crookes, Mrs Wiltshire, Mrs Holmes and Mrs Worth.

We listened carefully to the safety rules including not to go near the pond unless with an adult, and when the bells ring we must stop and listen to the instructions. We found lots of minibeasts under logs, feathers and acorns. We climbed trees, and explored the woodland area paths. 

When we returned to class we took off our wellies, putting them back on the trolley, washed our hands and had a snack.

....It was brilliant!

We thought it would be useful to share some ideas as to how to support your child to learn to recognise their tricky words. Children have been introduced to 'tricky words', which are usually referred to as Common Exception Words (CEW), and that children need to practise these at home. Children at this stage only need to be learning to recognise them. This can be done by playing games such as

• Snap
• Bingo
• Four corners
• Hide and seek
• Highlighting words in a newspaper article
• Splat the tricky word
• Writing words in chalk on the floor
• Digging up hidden words in mud/glitter/flour

These are just some ideas to support your child to secure these words by sight. We have uploaded, to the class Microsoft Teams page, a video demonstrating how we support learning these with an adult in school. Although it is a reading exercise primarily, this isn't to say that you can't support this by writing them also. 

 Children will be expected to apply their tricky words knowledge as the year progresses in their independent writing. Tricky words will be checked each week by an adult in your child's class. When they are securely recognising each set they will then be given the subsequent set to take home and learn.  If you have any questions please speak to your child's class teacher.

We have been asked to remind parents about the precautions we should continue to take when allowing our children to use various apps and the internet. Online safety is critical at all times but none more so than now.

During the lockdown teaching and sharing resources has had to be done remotely meaning that there are an increased number of children accessing the internet and various online resources. Unfortunately, this also means that there are a small number of people in society who will want to abuse this. PLEASE supervise your child whilst using the internet. As much as we endeavour to signpost children and families to recognised 'safe' activities and apps we can not guarantee their safety.

Children have participated in e-safety/online lessons where we have discussed seeking an adult if something happens or if they see something they don't like. This needs to be reinforced.

I am not meaning to frighten you but it is something we as a school, have a statutory duty to protect. We have a vast selection of resources which you can use to support this available at the bottom of this page should you wish.

Free e-book library

World Book Online have just made their collection of over 3,000 ebooks and audiobooks available for free for children to access at home. They have books suitable for all ages.

(TBN: they are in American English rather than British English)

https://worldbook.kitaboo.com/reader/worldbook/index.html?usertoken=Mjk5MzQ6MTpJUjA5MjAxNjoyOmNsaWVudDE2OTc6MTY5NzoyMjE2Mjg4OjE6MTU4NDM4MDExMzA2Mjp1cw==

Explaining the Coronavirus to your child

We appreciate these are unprecedented and challenging times for adults, let alone children. Below is a pdf presentation of a child friendly explanation of the Coronavirus if you would like to use it to help discussions at home.