Welcome to

Beachy Head Lighthouse Class!

Our Teachers are

Mrs Johnston & Mrs Kearns

(Mrs Johnston teaches on a Monday and Tuesday and Mrs Kearns teaches on a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday)

Our Teaching Assistants are

Mrs Vickers, Mrs Feghali-Brown &

Mrs Pankhurst

Our Curriculum.

As a mixed Foundation Stage and Year One class, we will always ensure both year groups of children access the curriculum they require. Our mornings will focus on Maths and English, as well as Guided Reading and Phonics sessions. Foundation subjects, such as History, Geography and Art will be taught in the afternoon. Links will be made across both Year One and EYFS curriculums. On Fridays, our Foundation Stage children will join Lizard Lighthouse class next door for Friday Explorer sessions. Friday Explorers is an opportunity for children and adults to explore our local environment and breathe in the wonders of God's creation. Fridays will also provide the Foundation Stage children within Beachy Head class further opportunities to build relationships with their peers and be involved in activities with a focus on child-initiated learning.

Reading

All children will read with their class teacher and a Teaching Assistant each week during a guided reading or individual read session. Children will also experience twice daily story time sessions, helping to develop the children's love and enjoyment of reading.

We would ask you to read with your child as often as possible at home too- it really does make a huge difference to their progress. Children will bring books home from school, both a 'read to me' book from our reading spine selection for you to read to your child and a carefully chosen reading book for children to practice reading to you. This book will also be read during their reading sessions with their class teacher and Teaching Assistant, helping to build familiarity, confidence and fluency.

Reading books from home or from the local library is also great too! Talking with children about what they have read or asking questions about a story you have read to them is also invaluable and we are really grateful for your support in this area.

Light of the Week

All children will at some point receive the title 'Light of the Week' this celebrates something unique about each child and that they have demonstrated the qualities of a 'Welcoming light', 'Guiding light', 'Shining light' or 'Leading light'. Children will be presented with a certificate and their picture will be displayed on the wall in the classroom. Light of the Week is awarded every Friday.

PE

Our PE lessons will take place on a Tuesday and Thursday. Please ensure that your child comes to school in appropriate PE kits on those days. Our school PE kit is black shorts or joggers/leggings, a plain white t-shirt and trainers. We ask that other gym wear and football shirts are not worn.

Seesaw

Seesaw is a great resource. We use seesaw to share useful information with families as well as photos and videos of your child's super learning. It's also a great way for parents and teachers to communicate with each other. Please send us a message if you have any questions, worries or queries or even if you'd just love to share something your child/family have been up to and we will get back to you as soon as we can. 

House Teams

Every child has a house team. They will remain in the same house team throughout their time in our school.  Our four house teams are Dragons (Green), Griffins (Yellow), Pegasus (Blue) and Phoenix (Red). House teams are a whole school system for promoting good behaviour as children can receive house points from any adult in school and add it to their class tally. Tallies are collected each week and added to a running total until, at the end of a term, a winner is announced! The winning house will usually get to wear their own clothes one day during the following term. On Sport's Day and other house team challenge days, children can wear their house colours to represent their team.

Snack

Children in Foundation Stage and Key Stage One will be provided with a fruit snack every morning.

Children are to bring a water bottle in from home. These can be refilled whenever necessary.

Useful Information...

Phonics Information 

Children have daily phonics sessions following the ‘Unlocking Letters and Sounds’ programme. Children learn through synthetic phonics, the teaching of writing in which particular graphemes (letters) and their associated phonemes (sounds) are decoded through segmentation to spell words. Children have daily sessions progressing through the phases within the ‘Unlocking Letters and Sounds’ progression document.

Foundation Stage
We begin teaching phonics in the first few weeks of term 1 in Reception and children make rapid progress in their reading journey. Children begin to learn the main sounds heard in the English Language and how they can be represented, as well as learning ‘Common Exception’ words for Phases 2, 3 and 4. They use these sounds to read and write simple words, captions and sentences. Children leave Reception being able to apply the phonemes taught within Phase 2, 3 and 4.

Year 1

In Year 1 through Phase 5a, b and c, children learn any alternative spellings and pronunciations for the graphemes and additional Common Exception Words. By the end of Year 1 children will have mastered using phonics to decode and blend when reading and segment when spelling. In Year 1 all children are screened using the national Phonics Screening Check.