Summer term 2026

Communication and Language
This term, we will support children in developing confidence when talking and listening during carpet time. They will be encouraged to share their thoughts and ideas during play as well as understanding how to use questions effectively. We will focus on our school values and how these values can help us in our learning and our friendships. Listening skills will be developed through whole-class and small group activities, stories, and play. Children will continue their phonics journey, learning to speak clearly, use full sentences, and practise new vocabulary.

Reading and Phonics

This term, our phonics and reading work will focus on consolidating Phase 3 phonics. We will help children build confidence in recognising and using a wider range of sounds. We will continue practising blending to read a range of words, and will also apply these skills to longer words, multisyllabic words as children become more secure in their decoding. Alongside this, children will work on recognising tricky words by sight and developing early reading fluency. During reading sessions, children will be encouraged to answer questions about a text and show their understanding by discussing characters, events and key ideas, helping them grow as thoughtful, engaged readers.

Writing
Children will continue their writing journey by using the phonics sounds they have learned to segment and write words. We will be reminding children to think about their seating position, pencil grip and posture when writing to help build their core strength and fine motor skills. They will develop their writing skills with a focus on building sentences using colour coded pictures and words which is a precursor to the shape coding system used further up the school. They will be writing simple sentences which are phonetically plausible and which contain some correctly spelled tricky words. Children will have the opportunity to apply their new writing skills in various ways and using different utensils – chalk, brushes, pencils, whiteboards, clipboards and so on. Each week, learning will be inspired by a new text driver which is a carefully chosen book linked to our topic. In Summer 1 our themes will be dinosaurs and minibeasts and in Summer 2, our themes will be pirates and under the sea.

Physical Development
Our focus will be on understanding how to lead an active and healthy life using a variety of books and resources. Outdoors, children will use bikes and scooters to build spatial awareness and core strength; they will also have access to large construction resources. Through PE, children will be working on speed, agility and travelling skills, dance and how to co-operate to solve problems.  To strengthen fine motor control, children will take part in activities such as threading, playdough, crafts, cutting, and messy play. They will also enjoy taking part in dough disco and our Write Dance programme which is an energetic approach that combines music and movement to build the physical skills needed for writing.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED)
Children will be encouraged to develop their independence in trying new activities and choosing their own resources. There will be a continued focus on teamwork, turn taking and strengthening relationships with peers and adults within our school. Listening skills will also be a main focus with an emphasis on following instructions. Children will be encouraged to recognise different emotions, how these make them feel and which strategies they can use to manage their emotions.

Mathematics
Our maths learning will involve recognising and writing the numbers 11-20 and understanding the correspondence between the number of objects and the numeral as well as finding different ways to make each number. Children will begin to understand the idea of larger numbers being made up of tens and ones. They will compare items by length using the vocabulary of longer/shorter/taller and shortest/longest/same as. They will also explore measurement of weights and volumes using the appropriate mathematical vocabulary. Children will look at the manipulation of numbers through decomposition and sharing and grouping as well as some basic addition and subtraction.

Understanding the World
Linking to our dinosaurs unit, we consider the work of palaeontologists and will learn about Mary Anning. Children will learn more about looking after our world through recycling which will be linked to our under the sea topic. They will also explore maps, consider their local environment and the similarities and differences with other places. In RE, we will explore the concepts of special clothes, why and when we wear them and explore the similarities and differences between Christian, Jewish and Sikh clothing worn on special occasions. In Summer 2, our theme is precious and during this unit the children will consider why water is precious and find out more about the sacrament of baptism.

Expressive Arts and Design
In music lessons, children will join in with familiar songs and create their own dances in response to music. They will explore volume, pitch and call and response as well as having the opportunity to use percussion instruments. There will be a range of materials available for children to create with and they will experiment with collaging, painting, junk modelling and colour mixing.