Year 1

Welcome to Year 1

Summer 1 2024

Welcome back everyone! I hope you have had a restful and enjoyable holiday.  It is now the beginning of the summer term and we have achieved so much already.  I am looking forward to the new half term and all the new topics we are going to achieve and I hope you are too?! 

As part of our school expectations, we will continue to remind pupils of our school values of Respect, Good Manners, Patience, Perseverance and Honesty and they will continue to earn Dojo points for good behaviour, attitudes and effort. Your child’s homework grid will be sent home at the beginning of the term and will focus on reading, phonics and handwriting plus support for Maths. Punctuality and good attendance is key to supporting your child's education and ensures they do not miss vital learning.

Homework:

Please encourage your child to complete their homework each week.  Homework is given out on a Friday and is expected to be completed and returned no later than the following Wednesday.  We do encourage adults to support with homework so as to develop your child's understanding of skills and strategies to fulfil the task.  

It is important that your child learns to practice their phonic sounds as this will support their blending skills for reading and with spelling.  It is crucial that you read with your child as much as possible at home to support their phonics and also their understanding of different texts. I must impress on you the importance of your child reading regularly as this supports their development in  their oracy and writing skills also.  It is vital that they learn their weekly vocabulary as this is linked to the book they will be reading in class the following week.

P.E.

P.E. will take place on Monday afternoons. Please ensure your child comes to school in their full P.E kit - Yellow P.E shirt with the school's logo, black joggers or shorts or leggings, black pumps and their school green sweatshirt. Also make sure that your child has their earrings removed or covered by plasters from home on this day. In P.E. we have introduced Orienteering, which links to other subjects in the curriculum. Pupils develop map skills and set out to find signs around the school which have questions and activities to fulfil in a subject area. This a new and fun way for your children to develop their skills throughout the curriculum. 

English:

In English this half term, our theme is 'The Great Outdoors'.  We will begin to read stories with familiar settings; making predictions on what has be read so far and identifying and discussing the main events in a story; focusing the innovation of character(s) and familiar settings.  We will be able to make basic inferences about what is being said and done between characters. We will be using familiar plots for structuring an innovated story with a clear beginning, middle and end. To support our writing, we will be using props and drama to deepen our understanding of storytelling. After that, we will be focusing on n; on-fictional texts creating an information booklets. Through shared reading sessions, we will explore a range of information texts and booklets about a particular topic e.g. the great outdoors, camping, bike riding, visiting places etc. We will be able to read aloud books closely matched to the improving of our phonic knowledge. Children will be able to recall specific information in texts and discuss the meaning and purpose. Finally we will be writing a simple poem based on traditional rhymes. We will read and listen to a variety of traditional poems, recognising language patterns and repetition, plus reciting rhymes and poems by heart.  

 * Phonics will continue throughout the day and there are some links in the website star for you to support your child at home.

Maths:

We will begin the half term focusing on multiplication facts. We will learn the foundations of equal groupings, repeated addition, arrays and doubling. We will then be able to apply that knowledge to solve word problems. We will next focus on division; learning about taking a limited number of items and placing a predetermined number into groups to determine how may groups there will be and solving how many will go into each group by sharing equally. Moving on we then focus on fractions where we will be learning about making halves and quarters before moving on to making the connection between fractions and division using our prior knowledge of sharing equally. We will eventually return to concepts previously taught in addition to increasing the complexity of number comparisons' and number patterns. Pupils will be begin by counting in tens and ones, followed by using number bonds to partition numbers. After this, pupils will be expected to compare numbers to 100s and find number patterns looking at 100-charts. We finally be learning about the concepts of time; telling time to the hour and half hour; using terms such as 'next', 'before' and 'after'; estimating durations of time and comparing time. We will be exploring analogue clocks and telling time to the hour and half hour. We will finally estimate lengths of time and compare measures of time. 

Science:

As part of this half-terms' topic of 'The Great Outdoors' we will be distinguishing between an object and the material from which it is made. We will be identifying and naming a variety of everyday materials, including wood, plastic, glass, metal, water, and rock. This will entail describing the simple physical properties of a variety of everyday materials; comparing and grouping together a variety of everyday materials on the basis of their simple physical properties. We will be using our observational skills and ideas to suggest answers to questions. We begin to gather and record data to help with our enquiry skills. This topic we will explore the similarities and differences in relation to places, objects, materials and living things. We will learn about the features of their own immediate environment and how environments might vary from one another .

Geography:

Our Geography topic this half-term we will be learning about place knowledge, focusing on human and physical features of the local area.  We will identifying seasonal and daily weather patterns in the United Kingdom. We will be using basic geographical vocabulary to refer to key physical and human features. We will develop our geographical and fieldwork techniques such as observation and identification to study the geography of the school and its grounds; using locational and directional language to describe features and routes e.g. left/right, forwards and backwards. We will be looking at aerial photos and plan perspectives to recognise landmarks and basic human and physical features. As part of our mapping skills we will devise a simple map, using and constructing basic symbols in a key.

Music:

This half-term, the music topic is 'Using Your Imagination'.  We will be listening to a variety of songs such as, 'Pure Imagination' from Willy Wonka and 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' from Mary Poppins. We will be developing our skills in using our voices expressively and creatively by singing and speaking chants and rhymes. We shall be playing tuned and untuned instruments musically; experimenting, creating, selecting and combining sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music. We find the pulse in a song and know this is the heartbeat of the music; copy and clap rhythms in different context. 

If you have any questions or concerns, do not hesitate to discuss these with us at the beginning or end of the school day or arrange an appointment through the school office.

Myself and the other members of the Year 1 team are really looking forward to another exciting and fun half term! 

 As always, we all hope that you stay healthy, safe and happy!

From all the staff in Year 1. 

Miss Woodhouse - Class Teacher

Mrs Haji- Teaching Assistant

Mrs Maqsood- Special Support Assistant

Mrs Ali - PPA Teacher

Mrs Rohel- Volunteer Student