Welcome to the Autumn Term in EYFS

September 2025

Dear Parents and Carers, 

I would like to welcome you and your children to the Reception Team.  This letter contains key information about school and the curriculum, as well as important dates for the year ahead.  If you have any further questions, please speak with myself or your child’s teacher.  

The Reception Team 

Routines and Times 

School begins at 8:50am with phonics teaching starting immediately after registration.  It is crucial that your child arrives at school on time so that they do not miss out on their own education or disrupt the learning of others.  Children arriving after the registers have closed are noted on our system as an ‘Unauthorised Absence’.  If your child is persistently late, this will be followed up by school staff.  If your child is unwell or going to be late, please telephone the Office.  The end of the school day is at 3:00 pm for Reception and Key Stage 1.   We would appreciate it if you could pick up children promptly. If you are going to be late, telephone the Office and we will arrange for your child to wait at reception. Children will only be allowed to leave with the named adults that their class teacher is expecting.  If your child is going home with a different adult, parents must let the class teacher know.  This can be done at the beginning of the day or with a phone call or email to the Office.  We cannot allow a child to leave with another adult unless we have parental consent.   

If your child is going to be picked up by a relative of friend on a regular basis, who staff are unlikely to know, it would be very helpful if you would bring us a photograph of this person / these people.  You can email this to the Office, for the attention of your child’s class teacher.   This helps staff to recognise people at pick up time.  If your child is going to be picked up by Kids Club, this won’t be necessary as we are familiar with Kids Club staff. 

Drop Off 

For the first few weeks we will ask you to hand your children to EYFS staff at the front entrance and they will line up in the Hall.  We do understand that some children will be upset on leaving their parents and that this is a miserable experience for parents too!  We have found that children are best supported with this where parents take a firm but cheerful approach.  It is more helpful for your child if you do not linger for ‘one last wave’ but leave quickly.  Children are very quick to pick up on parental anxiety and long goodbyes can cause more distress.   Generally, we find that children are very easily distracted once they are in school and tears only last for a few minutes. Staff do endeavour to call parents when children have settled.  Please be aware that our mornings are very busy and staff will call when they have a free moment. 

After the first few weeks, once the children are settled, we will move to lining up in the playground.  We will send you more information on this nearer the time. 

We understand that at the beginning of the day you may need to give a brief message to your child`s class teacher.  Staff are very busy at this point in the day and can only take brief, urgent messages.  We would prefer that you telephone the School Office with any longer messages and they will ensure that we are informed. 

Pick Up 

Whilst the children are doing half days, we will organise pick up from the front of the school.  If you would be kind enough to wait on the pavement outside the school gates, we will bring the children out, a class at a time.  We will invite the parents and carers of children in that class to collect their children.  We would ask that you leave quickly once you have your child as we need to ensure that the other classes can leave on time. 

From the week beginning 15th September children should be collected from their class.  To find the EYFS area please walk down the playground to the snakes and ladders board on the ground. There is a set of double doors on your right.  Please go straight through here to the Octagon.  RDK is first on the right, RSW second on the right and RMJ is straight ahead. Buggies and prams must not be brought into the school building as there is not enough space in the corridors and cloakrooms.  They must be left in the Octagon. 

We aim to make the Octagon a fun and engaging space and we realise that it is a temptation for both older and younger siblings!  At the end of the day the Octagon is not to be used as a play space.  We expect any accompanying siblings to wait with their parents and once children have been collected families should move out to the main playground as quickly as possible. 

When you collect your child from the classroom, they will be sitting on a chair. They will be told that they must remain seated until the person who is collecting them comes to them.  This is to ensure that all children leave with the correct adult.  Please help us to keep your child safe by reinforcing this message and please inform anyone else collecting your child of this protocol. 

What children need to bring to school: 

Please name everything: we accumulate a huge amount of lost property each year! 

We will provide the children with all stationery they need so there is no need for them to come to school with their own pencil cases. 

Children must not bring in toys, cards, games, phones…or anything else that could get lost, or that gets in the way of learning.  These items are generally very distracting for children and we would prefer that they are left at home. 

Lunches and snacks 

From the 10th  September, children will be staying at school for lunch.  All children in EYFS are entitled to a free school meal.  Children are welcome to have a school lunch or bring a packed lunch.  You do not need to inform us in advance, as we take this information with the register each morning.  Each year group will have a 20 minute slot to eat and children will be expected to remain at the table until their slot is ended and they will leave with the rest of the year group. 

We are part of the Fruit Scheme which provides a piece of fruit for each child every day and we also receive milk for children until they are five.  You are welcome to provide an alternative piece of fruit or vegetable for children to have at morning break.   Children are only permitted to eat whole fruit or vegetables at morning snack in EYFS. We do not allow crisps, biscuits, cereal or packaged fruit snacks. 

Children are encouraged to bring in a water bottle and these will be stored in the classroom so that children can have access to them.  It is particularly important that the water bottles are clearly named and that children recognise which one is theirs.  Water bottles should not contain squash or juice.  If this is found, staff will replace it with water. 

Uniform and P.E. Kit 

The school’s full guidelines on uniform can be found on the school website.  If you need any help with getting appropriate clothing for your child/children, please do not hesitate to get in contact with us.  Please can you ensure that all items of uniform are clearly named. 

PE kit needs to be in school all week and can be taken home at weekends for washing as necessary.  We would also suggest providing you child with spare pants and socks.  For health and safety reasons children are not allowed to wear any jewellery during PE sessions and must have long hair tied back. If your child wears earrings, these must be removed on P.E days.  Staff are not permitted to remove earrings for children.  PE, like any other subject, is part of the National Curriculum. Therefore, all pupils must take part in PE lessons, unless you let us know of a medical reason why they cannot.   

What to do when your child is ill 

We seek to balance good attendance whilst limiting the spread of infectious conditions.   In the case of sickness and diarrhoea, children need to be kept at home for 48 hours after the final episode.  Children sent to school within these 48 hours will be sent home again. 

If your child has a mild cold, we would expect them to attend school.  If you are unsure whether your child is fit enough for school, please telephone our Office team in the morning, as they are always happy to advise. 

If your child is ill at school, we will need to contact you.  It is therefore vital that your contact details are kept up to date.  We would ask that if your contact details change, that you inform the Office as soon as possible. 

Reading and Phonics: 

At Cottenham Primary School we follow the Read, Write Inc scheme for phonics.  There will be two information sessions on the following dates: 

Tuesday 16th September 2:00pm 

Tuesday 23rd  September 2:00pm 

Each session is different and will focus on a different aspect of the scheme.  You do not need to commit to both sessions, attending one will be helpful. If you are attending the session, please wait at the front of the school and I will collect everyone. 

Part of the philosophy of the scheme is that children only access reading books when they are fully confident with segmenting and blending phonics.  All children will be completing the introductory course prior to half term, therefore they will not have take – home reading books.  Instead there will be activities to support letter recognition and letter formation. After half term, children will begin to receive reading books when they are assessed as being ready for the `Red Ditty` level of the scheme. 

In the meantime we would like children to be read to by an adult every day.  As a school it is our aim to encourage a love of reading and sharing a book with an adult secures the foundations of this. In addition, children learn so much about language from sharing stories and rhymes with adults and this is evident in both their reading and writing later on.  Later in the term we will be introducing a reading journal. 

Your child will have a weekly library session in the LRC (Learning Resource Centre).  As part of this session, they will be encouraged to take a book home to share with an adult.  The books are checked out electronically and once they are returned, your child may choose a new one. We encourage children to change their book weekly.   

The Curriculum  

In Reception our curriculum is based on the ‘Development Matters’ document.  This is primarily delivered through play and activity based learning.  We have recently reviewed and redeveloped our EYFS curriculum and you will receive the following documents each half term: 

Curriculum Overview – Gives a brief description of what is being taught under each of the EYFS areas. 

Basic Skills Knowledge Organiser – Covers the key knowledge that children are expected to acquire this half term. 

Expressive Arts Knowledge Organiser – Covers key knowledge that will be taught in art and music. 

Talk for Writing Text– Children will be learning this version of the text in class. It would be helpful if you could review this with your child at home and read other versions of this story to them. 

These documents are also available in the EYFS area of the website.  www.cottenham.cambs.sch.uk – follow the links to ‘Children’, ‘Class Pages’ and then ‘Reception’.  You will be able to download class information, letters and follow links to helpful websites. 

Reception Baseline Assessments 

The Government requires all Primary schools to complete an electronic assessment of maths and literacy skills.  This will involve children completing some tasks with their teacher in the first few weeks of term.  The assessment does not produce any numerical results, but we will get an electronically generated report, a copy of which is available on request. 

More information on the Baseline Assessment can be found here: 

Reception baseline assessment: information for parents - GOV.UK 

All assessments are carried out in line with the school’s Data Protection Policy which can be found on the school website. 

Additional Support 

It is possible that at some point your child will require some extra support or help in class.  We aim to follow a `keep up` rather than `catch up` model, whereby our EYFS TAs carry out targeted support for children who struggle to grasp particular concepts.    Some children may require some more targeted, specialist support. Where this is the case Class Teachers will liaise with the inclusion team and parents. Your child may be removed from the classroom to attend specialist interventions.  Your child’s class teacher will always let you know if your child is receiving specialist support and our Inclusion Co-ordinator, Richard Moore, is available to speak with you if you have any concerns. Appointments with Mr Moore can be made through the Office. 

Dates: 

You can also find dates on the Calendar section of the school website