Dosbarth Poppit Sands
Reception

Autumn Term 2026

This term, our learning in Reception will be guided by the theme ‘Discover, Explore, Change’ and our enquiry question, ‘What can we discover about ourselves and our world?’ As the children begin their Reception journey, much of our focus will be on helping them to feel happy, safe and confident in their new environment. We will spend time getting to know one another, building friendships and developing a strong sense of belonging to our class and school community. We want our children to become curious learners who are confident to explore, ask questions, share their ideas and have a go at new things.

Learning will be very practical and play-based, with lots of opportunities to discover and explore both indoors and outdoors. We will investigate our school and its different areas, including the forest, allotment, field and yard, and begin to think about the people and places that make our school community special. As autumn arrives, we will look closely at the changes happening around us, collecting and investigating natural treasures and using our senses to describe what we notice.

In Language, Literacy and Communication, we will begin our Little Wandle phonics journey, learning new sounds, developing our oral blending skills and beginning to blend sounds together to read simple words. Stories will be at the heart of much of our learning, providing opportunities to talk, retell, sequence, predict and develop new vocabulary. Children will also have lots of opportunities to develop their early writing through mark-making, name writing, drawing, labelling and purposeful writing within their play. Welsh will be woven throughout our day through songs, greetings, stories, counting and everyday classroom language.

Our Maths and Numeracy learning will also be hands-on. We will explore numbers and quantities through games, songs, stories, practical activities and our continuous provision. Children will develop their counting, number recognition and formation, while also exploring ideas such as more and fewer, size, length, sorting and pattern. Autumn will provide us with plenty of natural maths resources too; from sorting leaves and ordering pumpkins to counting conkers and creating patterns with natural objects!

Alongside our academic learning, there will be a strong emphasis on health, wellbeing and independence. We will explore feelings, friendships, kindness and

what it means to be part of a class family. Children will learn about their rights, help to create our class charter and develop confidence in classroom routines and looking after themselves and their belongings. Through playing and learning together, we will encourage children to listen to one another, take turns, work as a team and celebrate each other's successes.

Most importantly, we want this first term to nurture a love of learning. Through stories, creativity, investigation, outdoor learning, technology, music, movement and plenty of purposeful play, we hope to encourage the children to notice, wonder, question and discover. We are looking forward to a busy and exciting term of learning together!