Maple

Welcome to the Maple Class!

Dream Big, Dare to Fail!

Welcome to the Orchard Primary Academy Maple Class Page. We hope that you find the information on this page useful. If you have any further questions please speak to a member of Reception Staff.

Our Class name is:

'Maple'

The Maple Classroom can be found in the Early Years Building.

At Orchard Primary Academy, play is at the heart of everything we do within the Early Years Foundation Stage.

Play comes instinctively to children. Play is fun, immersive and crucial to child development. Children challenge themselves through play, explore how the world works, work through emotions and learn that other people have thoughts and feelings too.

Through play, children develop the characteristics to be able to thrive and become life long learners.

Important Information

Maple Class PE Day: Monday and Tuesday

On this day, children can come to school in their PE kits for the whole day.

Please ensure your children has the following PE kit -
- Plain white T- shirt or polo shirt

- Plain black shorts (on warm days)

- Plain black track-suit bottoms (on colder days)

- Trainers or pumps.

On PE day, children need to pack a spare jumper/ hoody for colder days or in case the weather becomes colder throughout the day.

White PE T-shirts with the Orchard Logo are available to order from: https://www.sptuniforms.co.uk/product-category/orchard-primary-academy/

Maple Library day is: Monday

The children will be able to select a book to bring home and share. Please ensure that this book comes back into school on the following Wednesday, to swap for another.

Each Friday, the children in Maple class will also receive a new home reading book. We suggest reading a few pages each night. Parents need to record home reading on our digital reading record - Boom Reader.

Click on the Boom Reader logo below to take you to the parents log in page.

Key Dates

Inset Days - School closed to pupils:

Monday, 1st September 2025
Tuesday, 2nd September 2025
Friday 19th December 2025
Friday, 1st May 2026
Monday, 20th July 2026

The following day is also a bank holiday where school will be closed to all pupils:

Monday, 4th May 2026

Staff

Mrs Birkett - Maple Class Teacher

Mrs Chunara - Class ETA

Parental Partnerships

At Orchard Primary Academy we value parental partnership. We understand that an effective partnership between school and home will have a positive impact on children’s learning.

We communicate with parents in various ways which include Arbor, Facebook and Tapestry.

Arbor is an app which allows us to send text messages, and letters to share information. You can also use this to pay for trips and dinners. We will use your email address to activate your account.

Tapestry

At Orchard Primary Academy, we use an online journal provider called ‘Tapestry’ to collect and store your child’s electronic ‘Learning Journey’.

Tapestry allows you to login with a secure username and password so that you can view photographs, videos and observations of your child’s learning.

You can like and comment on observations that we add for your child. You can also add your own observations. Please click the image below to access Tapestry:

This year we will be learning...

In Reception class, we will cover the EYFS foundation stage curriculum through an overarching theme. This will change each term and links to the enhancements to provision within the classroom. You can click the buttons below to view the topic overviews:

Autumn: Marvellous Me! & Let's Celebrate!

Marvellous Me Let's Celebrate

Spring: Polar Places & Roots, Shoots and Muddy Boots

Polar Places Roots, Shoots & Muddy Boots

Summer: Walk On The Wild Side & We All Go Travelling By

Walk On The Wild Side We All Go Traveling By

Oracy Focus

Talk is a powerful tool for learning and oracy - the ability to express oneself effectively - is a vital skill that should be nurtured from an early age. Strong language and communication skills shape a child’s confidence, critical thinking and academic success. This is especially important in the EYFS classroom, we value highly the role of early language development and aim to create a language-rich environment to support lifelong learning.

Throughout our curriculum we have woven key texts through our planned learning to ensure that we can support children to develop their communication skills, learn key vocabulary and story book language.

Nursery Rhyme Focus

At Orchard Primary Academy, we learn a range of Nursery Rhymes throughout our time in the Early Years. Nursery Rhymes are important as they help us to develop key skills. This includes:

Learning new words and extending our vocabulary
Learning early Maths skills such as counting aloud using finger movements and actions
Developing social skills such as turn taking
Learning different beats and rhythms
Develop positive relationships between children and adults.

This year we will be focusing upon learning these Nursery Rhymes

Click on the videos to listen to the rhymes and songs.

Read Write Inc Phonics

We use a teaching programme called Read Write Inc. (RWI) to teach our children to read and spell. In RWI lessons, the children are taught new sounds and these progress from set 1 - 3.

Children learn to read words by sound-blending using a frog called Fred. Fred says the sounds and children help him blend the sounds to read each word. We call this 'Fred Talk'. Children also learn to read red words on sight. Red words are words that cannot be segmented or blended.

Each Thursday, the Reception children will receive Phonics Home Learning in orange home learning books and QR codes to scan with a phone or tablet which will help your child practise their phonic learning at home.

This will focus on a particular letter/ grapheme that has been taught.