Year 1ST

Happy New Year and welcome back to Year 1!

It’s so lovely to welcome the children back to school after the holidays. 

In English this term we are using Talk 4 Writing to help retell poems, stories and information texts. We have learnt a poem called Autumn Fall and currently learning the story of The Three Little Pigs. We will be looking at The Disgusting Sandwich story to help us with our instruction writing skills, the focus will be on how to make a healthy tasty sandwich to eat which links with our PSHE theme of healthy lifestyles. We will be learning these texts off by heart and rehearsing them using actions. Our focus this term is letter formation, finger spaces, capital letters and full stops. We are also working on putting our phonics sessions into practice by using our sounds to spell words phonetically. 

During Maths this term we are working on numbers to 20 before moving onto addition and subtraction within 20. We will be looking at the value of each number and where the numbers are placed on a number line. We will be practising counting, reading and writing numbers as words. Also, we will be counting forwards and backwards to 20, looking at one more and one less whilst representing numbers in different ways using various equipment. We will continue embedding a mastery approach to our Maths learning, this includes one lesson a week that is focused on improving and securing our knowledge of number facts that will help children’s recall so they can work out their answers quicker.   

Our new history topic this term is Changemakers. We will be learning about various important, historical people who have a made significant change to positively impact our society. We will look at each individual, their lives, what they have done and how this has brought about positive change.  

In Science we will be learning all about Animals including Humans. We will be learning about the different animal groups, including the different group names: reptile, mammal, birds, fish and amphibians. We will be observing animals closely, sorting and grouping them based on what they eat and their characteristics. We will be learning and understanding the difference between herbivore, omnivore and a carnivore. When including humans, we will be identifying and naming parts of the outer body that can be seen e.g. arms, legs, hands, head, ears, feet, eyes, mouth, nose, stomach. 

P.E takes place every Thursday with Mrs Burton. Please ensure that your child has their P.E kit in school. The P.E kit is a plain white t-shirt, black shorts or leggings and a pair of black trainers which can be worn as part of their school uniform. It is very important your child has the correct kit to ensure safety on the equipment. 

Homework is sent out every Thursday. Please return your homework books to school every Monday. The homework will be in the form of a menu. Children only need to complete one task each week. This term they will be getting 10 spellings to practise, 5 tricky words and 5 that contain the phonics sounds we’ve been learning.  

Please also ensure that your child is reading for at least 10 minutes every day. Please ensure you sign their reading records otherwise we cannot change their book and your child brings their book bag into school every Monday and Thursday so we can change their book and return them on the same day. 

Water bottles – please ensure your child has a water bottle in school every day, especially as the weather continues to get hotter. 

Fruit – Fruit and milk is provided every day for morning snack. However, children can bring in their own piece of fruit to eat during this time if they wish.  

We use ClassDojo as a form of communication and there will be weekly posts about what your children have been doing. If your child is ill or will not be coming in for any reason, please contact the school office as well as messaging on ClassDojo. You can use ClassDojo to ask any questions or raise concerns but please feel free to speak to either Miss Thomas or Miss Bizzari in person. We are always happy to support you in any way we can and are available before and after school. 

We’re looking forward to continuing our fantastic year with your children. 

The Year 1 team