Reception 2026

We are delighted that you will be joining our school community in September.

Please watch this space (and your letter box) for updated information about your child starting Reception with us in September 2026

Reception In Action

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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 communication system, Parentmail, so please keep an eye out for this.

Classes for September 2026:

We have been allocated 58 Reception children which will mean two classes of twenty-nine (pending the allocation of any children in the late rounds.) 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 the summer term to confirm your child’s class, class teacher and teaching assistant.

The Early Years team consists of:

Term dates for 2026-2027:

Term dates 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 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.

You can contact Wendy now to reserve your child’s place: info@happyhols-playscheme.co.uk

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. These are provided by HAT catering and need to be ordered online via School Grid. Further details will be provided closer to September to get all new families set-up with a School Grid account.

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 half term (£30 per year).

Please ensure you inform the school and the catering provider of any allergies.

Pupil Premium (formerly known as Free School Meals):

Please indicate on your child's 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.

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/ named raincoat depending on the weather

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!)

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 Wednesday 17^th June from 1:30pm – 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 session 1

On Monday 6^th July 2026 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-K and their one parent / carer are invited to attend in the morning: 10am – 11:30am. This is “Group A”.

*Children with surnames L-Z are invited to attend in the afternoon: 1:30pm-3:00pm   This is “Group B”.

Independent play/transition session 2

On Wednesday 15^th July, we would like invite all children back for an independent stay and play session (without parents). Parents are welcome to leave the school site and have a cup of coffee in a café locally whilst your children are with us. As last time, children will be invited in 2 groups;

*Children with surnames beginning with letters A-K are invited to attend in the morning: 10am – 11:30am. This is “Group A”.

*Children with surnames L-Z are invited to attend in the afternoon: 1:30pm-3:00pm.   This is “Group B”.

Nursery and home visits:

We would like to visit all children in their nursery / childcare setting in June and July and to speak to their key worker about each child. We would also like to complete home visits for each child so we can get to know a little more about them and your family before your child starts. You will be offered a home visit time when two of our Early Years team will visit you and your child in your home. These visits will be organised based on location. If you are unable to make the slot you are offered, there will also be an opportunity to drop into school for a discussion with your child’s class teacher.

September 2026 part-time arrangements:

*Children with surnames A-K – Group A

*Children with surnames L– Z – Group B

Preparing your child to start Reception

There is some useful information on the DFE website here about the key things all children should be able to do when they start school. Please also find a booklet of key information below: