Our usual practise is to invite you to a new parents session where you would meet the staff, led by the Head Teacher, Miss Froggatt.  So here is a message from her to you.

‘Firstly welcome to the wonderful Manea Team who can’t wait to be working with your children and showing them all the amazing things they will be doing when they start school. We are sorry not be meeting with you face to face and going through the usual transition events we put in place for both you and your children but we will do our best to make your child’s start to school the best that it can be and we certainly have the right team working with your children to do that.’

Mrs Stevens, Mrs Attrill and Miss Denton are all Early Years lead practitioners and work with lots of other Early Years teachers and Teaching Assistants across the county to support them as the provision we have at Manea for children in Year R is outstanding and we are very proud of it.

A message from Mrs Stevens

Your child will have a team around them throughout their reception year.  Mrs Stevens is the Foundation Stage Leader and will be the main adult responsible for your child through the year    The early years team will all spend time with your child and gather information on how they like to learn, areas they need to focus on and areas that we can develop further.  This in turn helps the children make the best progress they can.  We will have parent consultations during the year to share successes and targets for next steps, however please do not hesitate to contact us with any celebrations or questions that you may have.  Mrs Stevens can be contacted on pineclass@manea.cambs.sch.uk

A typical day

Welcome session with register starts the day. It is important to be punctual as learning starts straight away.  Children are encouraged to make their own safety checklist to ensure that the environment is safe for learning. Whole class sessions also take place a couple of times throughout the day for phonics, maths and other subjects.  We then have continuous provision – where the children access the activities that are provided to meet their next steps, guided activities led by an adult and their own independent exploration.  We link to a main focus text and the children can come up with their own investigations – they then share them in learning walks and learning talks to ensure that their activities are always focussed.

PE kits

Please ensure that your child has their PE kit in school each week.  This consists of black/navy shorts and a white top without buttons. They are usually brought in at the start of the half term and come home at the end of the half term.  No jewellery is to be worn for these sessions.  We will inform you specific days once we start the year and this may be impacted due to COVID restrictions but we will keep you updated.  One handy hint is that we start outdoor PE sessions in the summer term - therefore do not buy the trainers until then as the children will have grown!

Reading books

We prepare your child for their reading books throughout the first half term when they are introduced to the characters and the procedure involved in reading.  Your child will then bring home a reading book after the first half term.  They will have a reading scheme books, a book box book for you to share and also a reading diary.  This is for you to write in how their reading went – what they enjoyed and any questions you may have.

Home link books

These are provided each week with a brief overview of the learning that has taken place.  This allows you to speak to your child about what they have been doing and prompt any discussions that you wish to have.  Please write any comments on them that you feel would be helpful in order to support their development.

Home/school agreement

We will discuss the home/school agreement with you during your visit to school in September - please then sign it to show your intention to support your child with their learning at home.

As part of our ‘getting to know you’ sessions we ask the children to bring with them an all about me box.  This is something that you can work on throughout the summer holidays – use a small shoe box, decorate it and put in it  some of the things that you child enjoys doing – these will remain in school throughout the first half term so please do not put their favourite toy in there – a picture or drawing of it will do.  We will then spend time where you child can share their contents with their friends and we can then tailor their learning to their interests.

Please see the videos below of our all about me boxes.  See what you can find out about us!

If you require any further information about lunches or uniform, please contact the school office.  If you have any questions for Mrs Stevens, please email pineclass@manea.cambs.sch.uk