Reception In Action
For Parents and Carers of our new Reception children:
A very warm welcome to you and your child to Earls Barton Primary School; whether you already have older children at our school or this is your first child, we are very much looking forward to working in partnership with you during the years ahead.
We will update this page regularly with everything you need to know about your child starting school with us and events planned for the summer term to enable us to get to know your child.
We will also be sending a link to sign up to our school communicaiton system, Parentmail, so please keep an eye out for this.
Classes for September 2025:
We have been allocated 60 Reception children which will mean two classes of thirty. To ensure a fair balance of children, class groups and class teachers will not be finalised until July when we have completed all of our transition work with children, families and nurseries. We will write to you again in July to confirm your child’s class, class teacher and teaching assistant.
Term dates for 2025-2026:
Can be found here.
Please note that term-time holidays will not be authorised.
Wraparound Care:
We are delighted to be able to offer wraparound care in our school hall from Happy Hols which is open from 7:30am – 6pm daily.
Happy Hols are a very experienced wraparound care provider with an emphasis on high-quality play and is staffed by fully qualified playworkers and led by the manager Wendy Bell.
For more information please email Wendy at . Application packs can be collected from the school office.
School lunch and snack:
Children in Reception, Year One and Year Two are all entitled to a free school lunch every day. This can be a hot lunch or a provided packed sandwich lunch. We will share details of our new catering provider nearer the time as we are in the process of transferring to a new catering provider ready for September.
The easiest way is to order for a full term ahead of time. If you do not want to take-up the free lunch, you can provide your child with a healthy packed lunch from home.
Children in Reception are given a free piece of fruit every day. We also offer an afternoon snack for which there is a small charge of £5 per term (£15 per year).
Please ensure you inform the school and our catering provider catering of any allergies.
Pupil Premium (formerly known as Free School Meals):
Please indicate on the data collection sheet if your child is eligible for Pupil Premium (a sum of money given to schools by the government for children from certain low income families). If you are not sure if your child might be eligible for Pupil Premium, please speak to us in confidence about this as we can easily check your eligibility with just your National Insurance number. Alternatively you can check eligibility and apply at North Northamptonshire Council website.
What children will need: Reception
School uniform which can be purchased from any high street retailer or supermarket. The bottle green logoed jumper / sweatshirt / cardigan and white logoed polo t-shirt can be purchased from Stevenson’s school wear shop on Abington Square in Northampton town centre. Logoed book bags can also be purchased here. Plain items are also permitted and can be purchased from any high street supermarket.
Children should bring the following to school with them each day and all items should be clearly named please:
- Water bottle filled with water only (and can be refilled during the day) and named
- Packed lunch box (unless they are having hot dinners which are free for every child in Reception, Years One and Two)
- Bookbag (clearly named)
- A named sun hat
What to wear: Reception
Children should wear their full school uniform to school every day except the days when their class has PE. Reception children can wear their PE kit to school all day on their one PE day which we will confirm nearer the time.
Please ensure all items are named (especially book bags, coats, hats, cardigans and jumpers!)
September 2025: Building work
Our school is having an extension of five new classrooms which is currently being built to provide a link corridor between the former infant and junior buildings, with a partial handover scheduled for the end of summer holidays. The new Reception classrooms will be handed over to the school at the start of September. With our new EYFS classrooms being based within this building, during our transition events, children will visit our current EYFS classrooms as the construction work is ongoing.
Brand new classrooms!
Your children will be the first to learn in the newly-built Reception classrooms which will be ready in September. Your child’s first day of school will be in one of the brand new classrooms and we will hold a parent information evening early in September for you to have a chance to view your child’s learning environment. In view of this, the children’s first half day in school will be on Monday 8th September to ensure the new Early Years area is ready, safe and welcoming for the children.
Dates to remember:
Teddy bears’ picnic:
We would like to invite all of our new children with one parent / carer to join us for a teddy bears’ picnic on Thursday 26th June from 1:15pm – 2:30pm. On this day, please bring a picnic blanket, a picnic lunch / snacks, a drink and your child’s favourite teddy bear! School staff will join the picnic and it will be an informal chance for children to visit our school and share a story with a member of our Reception team. Weather-dependent, this will be on the Infants playground and / or in the Infants hall.
Stay and Play / transition day:
On Monday 7th July 2025 we would like to invite each of our new children and one parent / carer into school for a stay and play session. To ensure the teachers can get to know each child, we would like half the children to come to stay and play in the morning and half in the afternoon.
Children with surnames beginning with letters A-J and their one parent / carer are invited to attend in the morning: 9:30am – 11:30am. This is “Group A”.
Children with surnames K-Z are invited to attend in the afternoon: 1:15-3:15pm This is “Group B”.
Key information for your child’s start of school:
Week beginning |
Monday 1st |
Tuesday 2nd |
Wednesday 3rd |
Thursday 4th |
Friday 5th |
Monday 1st September 2025
|
INSET day (staff training) school closed to children |
INSET day (staff training) school closed to children |
Home visits Reception class teacher & TA to visit agreed addresses |
||
Mon 8th |
Tues 9th |
Wed 10th |
Thurs 11th |
Fri 12th |
|
Monday 8th September 2025 NEW CLASSROOMS READY FOR CHILDREN |
Group A attend 9:00am- 11:45am All children to have lunch at home Group B attend 12:45 – 3:30pm |
Morning plus lunch OR afternoon session: Group A attend 9:00am – 12:30pm (to include lunch) Group B (have lunch at home) attend 1:30pm– 3:30pm |
Morning only OR lunch with afternoon session: Group A attend 9:00am – 11:00 am (then go home for lunch) Group B attend 12:00 - 3:30pm (to include lunch) |
All children to attend 8:45am – 1:15pm (to include lunch) |
ALL DAY All children to attend 8:45am – 3:30pm (to include lunch) |
Monday 15th September 2025 |
All children full-time 8:45am – 3:30pm all week and from now on |
Children with surnames A - J - Group A
Children with surnames M – K– Group B