Purple Mash

Dear Parents,

We are thrilled to inform you that your child has access to a fantastic range of online resources on Purple Mash.

Over the year, your child will be introduced to various activities on Purple Mash by their class teacher.

Through this they will learn to independently use the interactive whiteboard.

To explore these enriching materials, simply use your child's login, which you can find stuck inside their reading record. 

There are numerous engaging tasks linked to what we are covering in class. Scroll down to find out what we are learning this week.

Below there is also a parent guide from the Purple Mini Mash team - scroll down to the bottom of this page.

Happy exploring!

The Reception Team

PSED/RSHE Lesson 

In our RSHE/ PSED lesson (6.10.25) we discussed the NSPCC’s PANTS rules.

These are designed to teach pupils how to stay safe from sexual abuse, without giving explicit information or telling scary stories or even using the term “sexual abuse”. We will start the lesson by introducing the children to a character called Pantosaurus.

We  showed them this clip:

NSPCC Pantosaurus (2 mins)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SzbMEVYiyg&t=120s

This is a film featuring NSPCC’s  friendly mascot Pantosaurus.

His catchy song covers the main points of PANTS and  introduce the topic to the children.

In the lesson, children will learn about the ‘PANTS’ acrostic, which stands for:

• Privates are private.
• Always remember your body belongs to you.
• No means no.
• Talk about secrets that upset you.
• Speak up, someone can help.

The lesson is fully age-appropriate.

The Talk PANTS campaign helps teachers and parents of 4-11 year-olds keep their children safe from abuse.

Like the Green Cross Code, it takes a potentially tricky subject and gives teachers and parents the tools to talk about it in an engaging and age-appropriate way.

Cooking & Gardening

We are proud to offer all pupils the opportunity to take part in cooking sessions during the school day. These sessions take place in the School House kitchen and are led by the class teacher.

Fresh ingredients from our school garden are used wherever possible, helping children learn about food, nutrition, and sustainability.

To support this programme, we ask for a voluntary annual contribution of £13.00, which covers the cost of additional ingredients for the full school year (September 2025 – July 2026).

• To contribute, please log into your MCAS account
• The fee can be found in the Clubs section and added to your basket

Your support helps us continue offering this valuable hands-on learning experience. Thank you!

Healthy Snacks

To help keep energy levels up and minds focused, we encourage pupils to bring a healthy snack for break time.

Great options include:

• Fresh fruit or vegetables
• Plain rice cakes or crackers
• A small pot of dried fruit
• Cheese cubes or yoghurt (in a cool pack)

Please do not send sweets, chocolate, crisps, or fizzy drinks. Let’s work together to support healthy habits and happy learning!

Capturing 'Wow moments' at home

We value contributions from parents/carers of moments of achievement that have happened outside of school.   If you observe your child achieving something new or wonderful, then let one of the Reception team know by sending in a photo with a note or just singing their praises.  The wow moments are stuck in your child’s learning journey and support assessments throughout the year.  Feel free to send in as many as you would like, parents/carers usually complete a page of wow moments each half term. 

Reading Books, Key Words, Home Learning and Book Bags

At Fielding, we follow the Read Write Inc programme.

The type of ‘book’ your child receives will depend on their phonics knowledge.

• Some children will focus on learning the sounds of the alphabet.

• Some children will receive a sound blending book to help develop their blending skills.

• Some children will receive a book called ‘My Phonics Book’. A letter will be sent home with information of how this works.

• Some children will receive a reading book.

In addition to this, your child will choose their own picture book.

Your child is not expected to read this book. This book is to be shared with an adult for enjoyment and to help develop a child's comprehension skills.

All books will be changed once a week.

Please make sure your child brings their book bag to school every day.

Help your child to get into this routine.

Inside their book bag please make sure that you always have:

• picture book
• reading book
• reading record

Please look through the reading record, there is lots of useful information inside.

Please sign the reading record every week and write a comment about how your child is progressing with their reading.

Book Bags

Book bags will be going home on Monday 22^nd September.

Your child must bring their book bag to school every day.

Please make sure that you always have the following inside your child’s book bag:

• picture book
• reading book
• reading record

When you collect your child at the end of the day, please check that your child has their book bag with them.

Home Learning

Home Learning is linked to our phonics lessons; It is sent home on a Friday.

Please help your child to do the activity at home.

Please keep the home learning at home, do not send it back to school, it is for you to keep at home.

If you have any further questions, please talk to your class teacher.

English

Handwriting:

w/c: 12.1.26 - l /  i  / t

w/c: 19.1.26 - h/ b /p 

w/c: 26.1.26 - r/ n/ m

w/c: 2.2.26 - focus castle week

w/c: 9.2.26 - c / o / d

w/c: 23.2.26 - a/ g/ q

w/c: 2.3.26 - e/s

w/c: 9.3.26 - u/ y

w/c: 16.3.26 - v/ w/k

w/c: 23.3.26 - f/ j

w/c: 13.4.26 - x/ z

Week commencing:  20.4.26

This week we continue reading the story ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?’ by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle.

We will begin the week by reading the story and exploring each of the animals.

The story has a repetitive format that the children quickly learn.

In lessons we will look at the pattern of the text and discuss the repetition.

This helps the children to develop their retelling skills.

Children will draw and write about the animals in the story.

The children will discuss the question in the story ‘What do you see?’ and write about what they see:

‘I see a      ………….   looking at me.’

This gives the children the opportunity to write about things they like and innovate the text. This is where they change a detail in the text.

For example:

• I see a green pig looking at me.
• I see a pink monkey looking at me.
• I see a gold slug looking at me.

Children will enjoy choosing their own animals and have fun playing with the colours.

The children  will have the opportunity to illustrate their ideas and share their sentences and pictures with each other.

As a class, we will rewrite the story and retell the story using actions to help remember and sequence the story using a story map to visually support the children.

Towards the end of the two weeks the children will have the opportunity to make up their own version of the story and enjoy becoming authors and illustrators.

Supporting your child at home:

Ask your child to tell you about their favourite story, retelling the story will help to  develop their story language.

Encourage your child to write about their favourite story and/or  innovate the text , by changing small details of the story, thereby making it their own.

 Start by doing this orally and then move to writing about the story.

The Early Learning Goal for Expressive Arts and Design – Being Imaginative states that children should:

• Invent, adapt and recount narratives and stories with peers and
  their teacher.
• Perform songs, rhymes, poems and stories with others.

Literacy – Comprehension:

• Demonstrate understanding of what has been read to them by retelling stories and narratives using their own words and recently introduced vocabulary.

Communication & Language – Speaking:

• Participate in small group, class and one-to-one discussions, offering their own ideas, using recently introduced vocabulary.

Next week in English:

We are learning about dinosaurs.

Maths

Week commencing:  20.4.26

In maths we continue to focus on learning to take away and subtract, focusing on numbers within 5.

The Early Learning Goal states, that by the end of the year, children must be able to automatically recall some subtraction facts up to 5.

We will be subtracting practically and use the language of subtraction.

In lessons we will explain that when we subtract the total will get smaller because we are taking some away. This needs to be made explicit to the children and reinforced, children often find it harder to subtract than to add.

We will explain that subtraction is the opposite of addition, some children may begin to see the links between the two e.g. 2 + 1 = 3  and  3 – 1 = 2.

The children will be taught a range of strategies:

• subtracting using objects and fingers
• subtracting by crossing out
• subtracting by counting back on a number line
• subtracting mentally by using knowledge of other number facts

e.g. if 3+ 2 = 5  then  I know 5 – 3 = 2 or 5 – 2 = 3

Children will be encouraged to use the strategy they feel more confident with, this may change as they develop their subtraction skills.

The mathematical vocabulary for subtraction is:

• subtract
• take away
• minus
• less/ less than

We will use all of these words with the children and encourage them to develop their mathematical vocabulary.

We will be writing number sentences e.g. 5-3=2,  to show how we record a subtraction, however children in Reception do not need to be able to write a number sentence at this stage.

Some children will be ready to understand that when we write a subtraction number sentence, the first number must be bigger unlike in addition where the numbers can be written in any order.

For example:

Addition can be done in any order.

3 + 2 = 5

2 + 3 = 5

When we subtract, we must start with the larger number.

5 – 3 = 2

5 – 2 = 3

We cannot write:

3 - 5 =   or   2 – 5 =

Once the children are confident with subtracting we will work on developing their knowledge of subtraction facts and help them to recall some facts independently.

Subtraction facts:

5 – 0 = 5              4 – 0 = 4          3 – 0 = 3           2 – 0 = 2         1 – 0 = 1

5 – 1 = 4              4 – 1 = 3          3 – 1 = 2           2 – 1 = 1         1 – 1 = 0

5 – 2 = 3              4 – 2 = 2          3 – 2 = 1           2 – 2 = 0

5 – 3 = 2              4 – 3 = 1          3 – 3 = 0

5 – 4 = 1              4 – 4 = 0

5 – 5 = 0

The children will also be making up their own subtraction number stories, this will give them the opportunity to use the vocabulary as they are describing their stories.

For example:

First there were 7 frogs on a log.

Then 2 frogs jumped off.

Now there are 5 frogs.

7 – 5 = 2

In lessons we will also teach the children about:

• subtracting zero - the number does not change

1 – 0 = 1

2 – 0 = 2

3 – 0 = 3

4 – 0 = 4

5 – 0 = 5

• subtracting the same number from itself - the answer is always zero

1 – 1 = 0              

2 – 2 = 0

3 – 3 = 0

4 – 4 = 0

5 – 5 = 0

• subtracting 1 from a  number is the same as '1 less'

1 - 1 = 0

2 - 1 = 1

3 - 1 = 2

4 - 1 = 3

5 - 1 = 4

These are what we call 'quick wins'.

Teaching children these strategies helps them to learn some number facts very quickly.

Children enjoy using this knowledge with big numbers and will have fun playing with numbers and say things like:

 ‘100 – 0 = 100’  and  ‘1000 000 – 1000 000 = 0’

Supporting your child at home:

Practice subtracting with your child at home.

What strategy are they using? Do they have a preference?

Can your child record their subtracting in some way? E.g. by crossing out pictures they have drawn or by writing numbers.

Can your child recall some subtraction facts?

Are they making links between addition facts and subtraction facts to help them know the answer?

For example:

• If 3 + 2 = 5  then  I know 5 – 3 = 2 or 5 – 2 = 3
• If 3 + 1 = 4 then  I know 4 – 1 = 3 or 4 – 3 = 1
• If 2 + 1 = 3  then  I know 3 – 2 = 1 or 3 – 1 = 2

Next week in maths:

We will be learning about odd and even numbers.

Parent workshops 

Thank you to the parents who were able to attend the curriculum workshops during this term. We have linked the training materials below.