We are all very excited to welcome all our new families to Pontesbury CE Primary School in September. This page is just for you and hopefully you will find it really useful. There is lots of useful information, including videos of some of the staff that you will get to know really well. Over the next term, you will get more details of how our induction process will work, including dates and times of sessions that children will be invited into school.
Children in Reception are really lucky because they get to have two teachers! Miss Roberts works Monday-Wednesday, and Mrs Davies works Thursday-Friday.
We are sure you will have questions and we would love to hear from you so that we can start building that important teacher-parent relationship.
Should you have any queries please contact admin@ppce.co.uk
If you are interested in our Wraparound Club (before and after school childcare) please click on this link to view the School Day page.
And now meet the team…
Miss Roberts
Mrs Davies
Mr Lowrie-Herz
What can you expect during this term:
Here are some of the things you can expect during this term:
- An email from Miss Roberts & Mrs Davies with induction information ( three sessions for the children and a parent meeting)
- An email asking you to activate your Tapestry account. There is more information about this below.
- Welcome videos appearing on this page of the website. This will include an information video for parents and some for children.
What to expect in school:
We will be giving out copies of this special book at the induction sessions. You might want to look at it online too. It includes photographs of the important places and people you will get to know really well when you start school.
Please click to read our New School Booklet and please watch the video below which is especially made for our new intake to learn all about their new classroom.
Tapestry:
We use Tapestry to share information between school and home about your child’s learning and interests. This is a fantastic online app which allows us to share videos, pictures and assessments with you. Please watch the videos below to learn more about it and look out for the email inviting you to activate your account. Miss Roberts would love it if you could start adding information to your child’s About Me page, so she can get to know you. Miss Roberts will also be sharing videos with you all via the school website (on your special page) so you can get to know her too!
How to activate account:
How to add to your child’s ‘About Me’ page: Please click HERE
How to prepare your child for school:
There are lots of ways that you can help prepare your child for beginning school. The most important thing is to talk to your children, make time for conversations when you are out on walks, eating at the dinner table or playing together. Feed their curiosity!
Reading
It is so important to read to your child, this will help them to develop as a reader before they can even start to read and it is valuable time that you can spend together. We are a school that loves to read! We have a wonderful new library full of fabulous books and we can’t wait to get cosy and share them with you! What are your favourite stories? Please tell us all about them (you could email or put a video on Tapestry!).
If you would like to read more about the importance of reading aloud to young children, please have a look at this article. Please click HERE
Here are some of our favourite stories:
- We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, Michael Rosen
- The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
- Elmer, David McKee
- Owl Babies, Martin Waddell
- Pete the Cat, Eric Litwin
- Oi Frog, Kes Gray & Jim Field
- The Rainbow Fish, Marcus Pfister
- Traditional Tales e.g. The Three Little Pigs
Writing (mark making)
We do not expect children to come to school and know how to write. Please don’t panic! This is one of our favourite parts of our job. A lot of your children will be at the stage where they enjoy mark making: this might be drawing in the mud with a stick, ‘painting’ with water on a dry pavement, using chalks or holding a pencil and creating marks on paper. One of the most helpful things we can do to support children as early writers, is to help them develop a good pencil grip. It is great if children can write their own name, however, we certainly don’t expect it.
For more information, please click HERE.
Maths
Maths is all around us and you are probably talking about maths ideas all the time already. Here are some simple ways to develop your child’s maths skills:
- Spot numbers when you are out and about e.g. house numbers, number plates etc
- Count out loud when climbing stairs or sorting toys
- Encourage your child to help set the table and to count out the number of knives, forks and spoons needed, for example.
- Spot and name shapes around them.
- Learn the days of week. We love this song and it would be amazing if you could start to learn it too.
Independence Skills
Dressing – help encourage your child to dress and undress by themselves, this makes it so much easier when we get changed for PE. It is also helpful if children are able to zip and unzip their coats independently – it’s a tricky skill to master but it’s a very important one! Think hard about choosing uniform that your child will be able to manage: polo shirts are much easier to manage than button up shirts!
Toileting – your child will need to be able to wipe their own bottom, press the flush and wash their own hands. Staff are more than happy to talk children through and to offer reassurance. However, this a really important skill they need to acquire before coming to school. If your child has particular additional needs which may make this difficult, please contact us as soon as possible so we can start to get a plan in place to support your child.
Eating – please help your child learn how to use cutlery. We will help with cutting up food as needed but we expect children to feed themselves with a knife and fork. This will be especially important given the current pandemic.
Being responsible – we have very high expectations that our Reception children are not overly reliant on adults. Our children in school quickly learn how to take care of their own belongings and that this is their responsibility. You can really support their transition by building in these expectations at home from now! This could be as simple as asking them what they need to get ready before you go on a walk and waiting for them to do it.
Weduc – Reach More Parents App
We use the app to communicate on a daily basis and you can pay for visits, uniform etc through the app.
We also ask that you order your child’s school dinner with them each day (either on the morning or this can be done several days in advance) this ensures your child chooses something they like. We do request you do this with them because we frequently have children claiming not to like something their parents have ordered or saying they wanted something else.
