Welcome to Reception at Hillside Primary School!

 

We are a lovely class of 30 bright and bubbly children, our teacher is Miss Cotterill and our teaching assistant is Mrs Toye. In Reception, we absolutely love learning through play, and always have lots of fun and exciting activities in our classroom to help us learn. Reception is a wonderful year group, where we learn to read and write.

 

We love to learn and are always developing our knowledge and skills across the EYFS Areas of Learning:

  • Communication and Language
  • Physical Development
  • Personal, Social and Emotional Development
  • Literacy
  • Mathematics
  • Understanding the World
  • Expressive Arts and Design.

2026 has been an exciting new year for us, as it has marked the first year of our ‘Magic Story Box’ approach to our topics. Each half-term, we explore a fascinating new book through drama and oracy activities. We go on magical adventures using our imaginations, becoming characters such as food doctors, detectives, cartologists, toys, travel agents and animal experts! So far this year, the books we have explored are ‘Naughty Bus’ and ‘Little Red and the Very Hungry Lion’. We absolutely LOVE our Magic Story Box adventures!

 

We also follow the Drawing Club approach to Literacy – each week, we design a character, setting or adventure linked to our Magic Story Box exploration, and write a code to bring to life what we have drawn. In our Phonics lessons, we use Twinkl Phonics to help us develop our early reading and writing skills. In addition, we enjoy practical maths lessons, using physical resources to support our developing understanding. We use an engaging PSED approach called ‘Think Equal’ where we learn lots about ourselves and others. We also take part in fascinating RE lessons and develop our understanding of the world around us.

 

We also love our Welly Wednesdays, where we go on outdoor adventures in our woodland area. It is fun being outside at play times and lunch as we love going on to the agility trail, playing on our huge school field, and exploring our EYFS play area. We are all super athletes too and we love exercising our bodies in our PE lessons with Dan. In our Music lessons with Mr Hall, we get to showcase our amazing singing voices and experiment with lots of different instruments.

 

We are kind to each other and play nicely, following our school rules to be kind, stay safe and show respect.