Year 1

Welcome to Year 1

Spring 1 2025

Useful Documents 

Homework

Dear Parents and Carers, 

We wish you a warm welcome back after the break. We hope you have had a restful and enjoyable time with your families. We look forward to the exciting term ahead of us. The children will be reminded 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. Punctuality and good attendance is key to supporting your child's education and ensures they do not miss vital learning.

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.

Our topic for Spring 1 is 'Growth and Green Fingers'.

Homework

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. 

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 as well.  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 Friday 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. 

English 

In English this half term, we will be looking at 'instructions'. We will be starting off by exploring various pieces of instructions including their features and the language used. We will be using the Talk for Writing approach to retell, innovate and invent our own set of instructions on how to plant various plants. We will be focusing on using capital letters, finger spaces, full stops as well as 'bossy' verbs when we write our sentences.

As we have the phonics screening test approaching this year we would we grateful if you could practise reading as much as possible with your child at home. 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 be practising our 2x, 5x and 10x times tables which all year 1 children should be able to recall confidently. Therefore, we ask that you practise these with your child as much as possible.  Our main focus will be ensuring the children have mastered numbers up to 20 by: counting, writing, ordering and adding and subtracting them. Then we will look at 2-D shapes and some basic 3-D shapes. We will cover the properties of basic 2-D shapes and some solid shapes. We will learn to group shapes according to different criteria. This will also lead to recognising, describing and continuing a pattern, as well as generalising pattern. We will then compare lengths and describe whether something is taller, longer, shorter or higher. Children will learn how to measure two items fairly for comparison using different objects and body parts, before moving on to measuring using a ruler.

Science

Our Science topic our topic is ‘Plants.’  We will be identifying and describing the structure of plants and trees. We will also be identifying and naming a variety of deciduous and evergreen trees. We will then learn about how some plants can be eaten and identify the parts of the plants that we can and cannot eat. 

Computing

Our unit this term is 'Maze Explorers'. We will be learning about algorithms, in order to do this we will start by looking at the functionality of direction keys, how to create and debug a set of instructions and how to program a bee-bot from one point to another specific point. 

DT 

Our focus this term will be on smoothies. We will be tasting and exploring different smoothies and fruit combinations. Then we will plan and design our own smoothies to make and evaluate.

Art

The artist we will be looking at is William Morris. We will be looking at Morris’s prints and repeated patterns using plants. This will inform our own drawings of flowers using light and dark tones. This will then lead to us making our own press prints with flower designs. We will conclude our topic by evaluating our work.

PSHE

The PSHE topic this term is ‘Families and Friends.’ We will discuss our feelings and what to do if we are worried about something. Then we will discuss the similarities and differences between ourselves and others and which communities we are part of. We will talk about who is special to us and looks after us. This will lead us to discuss how we care and treat others. After that, we will discuss what bullying is and what to do if someone is being bullied.

If you have any 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. We hope your child has an amazing first half term being the best that they can be.  As always, we all hope that you stay healthy, safe and happy!

From all the Year 1 team:

Mrs Begum - Class Teacher (Monday-Thursdays)

Mrs Smith - Class Teacher (Fridays)

Mrs Ali - PPA Teacher 

Mrs Haji - Teaching Assistant 

Mrs Patel - Special Support Assistant 

Mrs Deedat - Special Support Assistant