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 (October 2025 &  April 2026) 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 for capital letters:

w/c: 27.4.26 - I T H S

w/c: 4.5.26 - C O PU

w/c: 11.5.26 - V W X Z

w/c: 18.5.26 - A B D R

Week commencing:  18.5.26

This week in English we will be looking at other life-cycles, such as:

The life-cycle of a butterfly and read the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

The life-cycle of a plant and read the story The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle.

Children will have an opportunity to write about these stories and draw and label some life-cycles.

This week we will also introduce the children to the composer Camille Saint-Saëns and his piece of music called ‘Carnival of the Animals’.

We will read the Story Orchestra book and use some clips to help support children’s understanding of the music.

We will listen to the music – Carnival of the Animals.

We will ask the children to think about the music and talk through how each piece of music is very different from the next. Each piece representing a different animal and how the composer saw the animals.

There are 14 pieces of music:

1) Introduction and Royal March of the Lion

2) Hens and Roosters

3) Wild Donkeys and Swift Animals

4) Tortoises

5) The Elephant

6) Kangaroos

7) Aquarium

8) Characters with Long Ears

9) The Cuckoo in the Depths of the Woods

10) Aviary

11) Pianists

12) Fossils

13) The Swan

14) Finale

Questions linked to the piece of music:

• What instruments can you hear?
• How does this piece of music make you feel?
• How is it similar/ different to the last piece of music?
• How do you feel each animal would move?

We will discuss some key vocabulary:

• composer
• orchestra
• conductor
• carnival
• ‘piece of music’

In lessons we will draw and write about the music and the animals.

We will end the week with giving the children time to bring the music to life by asking them to listen to the music, move in time to the music as if they were the animals. The children will then perform to each other.

Supporting your child at home:

Listen to some music with your child.

Ask your child to talk about what they like about it and how it makes them feel.

Share what you like about a piece of music, any genre.

Ask your child to write about the music and draw a picture inspired by the music.

Next week in English:

Our lessons will focus on writing about ourselves.

Maths

Week commencing: 18.5.26

In maths we will be learning about sharing.

The children will probably already have some experience of sharing and will be quick to point out when items are not shared fairly.

We will play some games where objects need to be shared out between two.

During the activities, we will encourage the children to check that the items are shared equally and that everyone has the same amount. The children will also be given opportunities to recognise and make equal groups. For example can you put 3 crackers on each plate or plant 2 flowers into each pot.

The children will notice that sometimes there are items left over when they share or group objects. We will encourage the children to come up with their own suggestions for how to resolve this, for example by adding 1 or taking 1 away.

We will provide opportunities for the children to group objects in different contexts.

For example:

• Can you give each gingerbread man 3 buttons?
• Can you give each child 5 carrot sticks during snack time.
• Can you arrange these pebbles into groups of 2? What about groups of 3?

Some children will be able to see the link between odd and even numbers. We will explain that even numbers can be shared out equally between two but an odd number cannot.

Some children will move onto sharing between 3 groups or more and realise that an odd number can sometimes be shared equally but not always.

Sharing Vocabulary:

• share
• sharing
• equal
• same amount
• not equal
• fair
• unfair
• left over
• half

Supporting your child at home:

Provide opportunities for your child to share items equally.

They could share out the cards or dominoes before playing a game.

Prompt your child to notice that sometimes they can make equal groups and sometimes they have items left over.

Next week in maths:

We will be going over number facts with a focus on automatically recalling them.

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.