Welcome to Hedgehogs
Hello, I am Mrs Hanlon and I am extremely excited to be the teacher of Hedgehogs Class. We are lucky to have the wonderful Mrs Clarke, Miss Cooper and Mrs Cross who support us in our learning too. Our aim is for Hedgehogs class to be a fun, happy and safe place to learn as well as making your child’s first or second year at school action packed and full of laughter, learning and memories.
We have the same three rules throughout the school which makes it easy for us to follow them. They are: Keep safe, Use your values and Be the best that you can be. We learn and practice these rules every day.
In Hedgehogs class we always start the day with some interactive learning activities that help us to build on previous learning. We then join together on the carpet to discuss the date and weather and take part in some fitness fun. Our first group sessions of the day is phonics, before moving on to English and exploring different texts. Snack time refuels our bodies before we explore mathematical concepts and take part in a variety of practical activities. We take part in Guided Reading each week to support the development of our reading skills.
After lunch, our Reception Hedgehogs explore art, design, music or the world around us. During the afternoon our Year 1 Hedgehogs take part in foundations subjects such as History, Geography and RE and DT. We all love learning together and find our weekly PE and Science lessons exciting. In Hedgehogs class we enjoy developing our communication and language skills both in small groups, with our friends as well as in front of the class during circle times, show and tell or sharing our class bear Spencer’s adventures! We enjoy winding down at the end of each day with a class story, which we choose by completing a ‘Book Vote’ each morning.
In phonics, we explore every aspect of a sound: what it sounds like of course (phoneme), what it looks like written down (grapheme), how to identify it in a word we hear (segmenting) and how we can fit it together with other sounds to form a word (blending). We begin with single letters, and then eventually move on to two letter sounds (digraphs), three letter sounds (trigraphs) and beyond! These form the building blocks to a healthy reading ability. Reading every day is really important. Just a few minutes on a regular basis can make such a difference to a child in every subject. A solid foundation in basic mathematical concepts is also essential: we begin with learning about how numbers are represented, we explore the composition of each
number and then we compare. Other mathematical skills are easier to explore if a child has a good knowledge in these core areas.
In Hedgehogs class, one of the most important things we learn is that mistakes are our friends. We work hard to teach the children that making mistakes is not only normal and human, but they help us to learn. Getting something wrong, is just as important as getting something right!
During your child’s year at school they have lots of exciting things to look forward to. We have our nativity at Christmas and plenty of WOW celebration days to take part in throughout the year. We will explore stories, experiment through investigations, learn how to use technology and much, much more!
PE days are very exciting in Hedgehogs class, we look forward to our lessons on Tuesdays and Thursday. We also use the trim trail, using it as an opportunity to strengthen our muscles. To balance out the active times we also take part in mindfulness sessions to calm our bodies and to focus our minds. This could be through yoga, music or reflective stories that take us on a journey.