Teacher Contact Information 

Your teachers are: Mrs Horton and Miss Parker

You can email them at:

Mrs Horton (Horse Chestnut)

sophiehorton@stratton.cornwall.sch.uk    

Miss Parker (Sweet Chestnut)

cherylparker@stratton.cornwall.sch.uk

 Weekly Update 12/12/2025 

This week we have continued our learning about Christmas. We have been working hard, practising our Christmas songs! This week, we have added actions to our songs and made special headbands to wear for our video performance.

We will film the children performing their Christmas songs during the last week of term and will send these home to you via Tapestry. If you would like to help your child to practise the songs at home, we are learning; Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, When Santa Got Stuck Up The Chimney, and Jingle Bells.

Class Christmas Party – Food:

For our Class Christmas Party, on Friday 19^th December, we will be asking for a small food donation from each child for our party food lunch. We will remind you what you have signed to bring in closer to the time. We will collect in all of the food on the day and it will be shared between the children in a buffet lunch in the classroom.

Please remember we must have a list of ingredients for any food item. If not, we will be unable to serve it.

Christmas Celebrations:

Next Wednesday is Christmas Diner day. The children are allowed to wear a Christmas jumper over their normal school uniform on this day.

Next Friday is Christmas Party Day. The children can wear party/Christmas clothes on this day. They will have a party food lunch in class with your food donations. We will play lots of festive party games.

Phonics/Reading:

This week, all of the children were assessed in order to inform groupings for the new year. We will let you know if your child has moved groups when we return after the Christmas holidays. The children have continued to make great progress since their interim assessment, we are really proud of them! Thank you so much for your continued support at home.

In the new year, the children in Reception will start to mix with children in Years 1 and 2 for their phonics lessons. The children will be taking their bookbags with them to their phonics lessons and will need to have their book bags containing their phonics books and reading log in school every day.

Maths:

This week we have been learning about circles and triangles. We have been identifying and sorting the shapes. The children have learnt that a circle has 1 curved side and that a triangle had 3 straight sides and 3 corners. During one lesson, the children took part in a shape hunt around the classroom, looking for circles and triangles in the environment.

For your maths home learning this week, challenge your children to a shape hunt at home. How many circles and triangles can they find?

Make sure you upload any photos of your child completing this challenge onto Tapestry for us to see.

Have a festive weekend!

Mrs Horton and Miss Parker

Dates for the Dairy

Wednesday 17^th December – Christmas Lunch/Christmas Jumper Day

Friday 19^th December – Last Day of Term/Christmas Party Day

Monday 22^nd December - Friday 2^nd January – Christmas Holidays

Monday 5^th January – First Day of the New Term

With your child, please carry out a variety of the following tasks at least 5 times a week, recording in their reading log each time.

• Practise recognising letter sounds using flashcards daily – this is essential practise to get your child reading.

• Engage in 'Fred Talk Games'. These are games that support your child to orally blend sounds into words. For example, "Fred says, tap your h-ea-d... your head!" Please see the PDF document in the 'Read Write Inc. Phonics' section below for further 'Fred Talk Games' that you can play at home. 

• If your child is consistently recognising most of the single letter sounds from their flashcards, make simple words out of the flashcards for them to practise reading. For example, sat, tap, dog, bed. Encourage your child to point to each letter as they say the sounds. Once they have said each sound, they need to blend them together to say the whole word. For example, s – a –t, sat. They may need you to demonstrate this initially before they have a try.

• Share your child’s lilac book. This book has no words. Your child needs to look closely at the picture and talk about what they think is happening to tell a story. This develops their oracy comprehension and inference skills.

• Based on your child’s most recent phonics assessment, the may also bring home a 'blending book' or a 'ditty sheet' to read at home.

Please keep all of the above in your child’s book bag. They need to bring their book bag to school every day.

Homework tasks need to be recorded in your child's reading log at least 5 times a week so that we know that your child is practising their reading at home. Reading logs are checked every Friday to see how your child is getting on at home. Please make sure that you date and initial each time you record in your child's reading log to show that your child has read their lilac book/blending book/flash cards.

Please speak to any member of the Reception team if you have any questions.

Thank you for your continued support in helping your child learn to read.

The YR Team