Communication and Language
Throughout the Autumn term, we will be supporting children in gaining confidence to talk and listen to friends both old and new. We will be encouraging them to share ideas and thoughts about their play. We will focus on our school and class rules and learn how we work together to stay safe and happy at school. We will be working hard on our listening through whole class and small group activities, stories and during play. We will begin our phonics learning and will be encouraging children to talk with clear pronunciation, in full sentences and using newly obtained vocabulary.

Writing
To begin our writing journey, we will be working with children to ensure they can sit correctly at the table, holding their pencil with increasing strength to begin mark making and writing taught letters in the correct formation. Children will have the opportunity to write initial sounds (the first sound within a word) and will start to orally blend, listening carefully to identify these sounds. Children will be taught that writing can be used to communicate. This allows children to see that there is a purpose to the sounds and writing they are learning. We will also be supporting children in successful name writing, using capital letters at the start and correct formation throughout. Each week we will be introducing the children to a new ‘text driver’, a book stimulus to start our learning each week. These books will be linked to our overarching topic. In Autumn 1 our topics are Marvellous Me and Autumn and in Autumn 2 our topic is Terrific Tales where we will be exploring a variety of traditional tales.

Physical development

Throughout physical development, we will focus on the children’s gross motor control. Whilst outside, the children will explore the bikes and scooters encouraging the children to develop special awareness and core strength. Through PE and outdoor play, the children will be encouraged to negotiate space and obstacles safely with consideration for themselves and others. The children will also use their communication and language skills or listening and talking skills to ensure they stay safe. We will also provide plenty of opportunities for our children to develop their fine motor skills in preparation for writing, this will be through activities such as threading, playdough, crafts, cutting and messy play. Children will also take part in our write dance programme which involves moving to exciting music. It is a dance approach to developing the physical skills needed for writing.

PSED
As children begin in Oaks class, we will support them in forming new relationships and developing those from previous settings. They will learn the names of their new teachers, other adults in school and classmates. We will focus on turn taking and forming positive relationships. We will encourage children to be independent as they organise their own belongings and access resources during child-initiated activity time. The children will experience having to be resilient and keep trying to succeed. They will begin to think what makes them unique and why this is important.

Maths
In maths, we start our learning by looking at matching, sorting and comparing. We will look at a variety of different objects and practise sorting them into matching pairs. The children will experience sorting objects in accordance with a given criteria and spotting the mistakes or errors in pre sorted groups of objects. We will practise our rote counting forwards and backwards to 10. Each day we vote for our favourite book to read. This allows us to practise our 1:1 counting and our comparison of numbers in a practical and fun way. We will be learning to recognise and continue simple 2 step patterns. We will be learning to recognise, represent and write the numbers to 5 and start exploring shapes particularly circles triangles squares and rectangles.

Understanding the world

Throughout our topic of Marvellous Me, the children will be encouraged to talk about their immediate family and community. Throughout marvellous me, the children will identify their own body parts and how they can use their nose, eyes, ears etc in connection with their senses.  We will also discuss the different jobs people do and how some people have jobs that involve helping others. We will have visits from members of our school community to talk about what their jobs entail and how they help others. During Autumn we will be going on ‘welly walks’ over to the green so the children can explore the natural world and describe what they see, smell, hear and feel whilst outside. Within this, the children will discuss the difference between our inside and outside environments and look at the changes that are happening during Autumn. In RE we will be looking at how Christians say thank you during Harvest. We will also be looking at the concept of thanking in the Jewish tradition Sukkot. As we move towards Christmas, we will be looking at how Christians celebrate Jesus’ birthday. We will also be discussion our own family Christmas traditions developing our understanding that traditions can differ between families.

Expressive arts and design
In Autumn term within their music lessons children will explore a variety of music. They will have opportunities to move to and talk about music, expressing their feelings and responses.  They will enjoy creating many different art-based pieces of work based on the text drivers used in our English work. As we near the end of the Autumn term the children will learn and perform songs in our KS1 Nativity play. Throughout their child-initiated learning children will experience creating work collaboratively whilst sharing ideas and resources.