Richmond is lucky enough to have both nursery and reception classes on site. 

Details on admission to the school can be found on the admissions page of the website and further details on our Reception and Nursery classes can be found through the Children / Nursery tabs at the top of the page.  

If you would like a virtual tour of Nursery or Reception, please see the videos below...

If you are interested in your child joining Richmond's Nursery, please use this website to look around and learn about the school. 

Welcome to Reception

If you would like further information about our reception classes / intake, please email; admissions@richmond-pri.southend.sch.uk   

Welcome to Nursery 

If you would like further information about our nursery, please email; nursery@richmond-pri.southend.sch.uk    

Further information on activities and events for Nursery and Reception can be found under each phases tab in the Children's section of the website.

Phonics in the Early Years

Phonics is taught as a way of decoding written letters and spoken sounds in the early stages of learning to read.

At Richmond we teach systematic synthetic phonics from Nursery to Lower Key Stage two, or for as long as it is necessary. We follow a systematic teaching programme for delivery to ensure pupils learn how to effectively decode print to enable them to read. Through daily teaching of phonics and the skills of grapheme-phoneme correspondence, pupils are taught phonics, progressing through individual sounds and blends through five steps. The sets for teaching ensure that pupils have the skills to read many common words early in their phonics learning through segmenting and blending of taught sounds. To enhance the delivery and recall of individual letter sounds and letter formations, we utilise the Read Write Inc formation cards.

Through our kinaesthetic, interactive approach to teaching phonics we aim to develop the children’s phonological awareness, ability to segment and blend words and read tricky words by sight, to become fluent readers and have good foundations in spelling.

Within each phonics sessions, children experience a range of visual and practical activities that allows then to practice and apply their phonetic knowledge. This includes through dictation of sounds, words and sentences as well as through practical games, the use of word and sound flash cards and opportunities to read and write at the appropriate level.