Welcome to Year 1

Spring 1 2025

Useful Documents 

Homework

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back to Year 1!

Welcome back after the half term holidays. 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.

Our topic for Spring 2 is 'Family Album'.

Homework

Your child’s homework grid will be sent home at the end 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 writing our own stories based on traditional tales to develop our use of capital letters, finger spaces and full stops. We will explore the text and use the Talk 4 Writing approach to retell, innovate then invent our own story based on the original. We will then move onto recounts where we will focus on our topic of Family and recounting an event in the children’s lives.

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 40 by: counting, writing, ordering and adding and subtracting them. Then we will move on to multiplication. We will learn the foundations of equal groupings, repeated addition, arrays and doubling.  After this, we will be moving on to division. We will be grouping items and sharing them equally. Finally, we will look at fractions. We will learn what a half and a quarter is and how they have equal parts. We will then make the link between division and fractions.

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. Then we learn about how some plants are eaten.

Geography

Our focus this term will be on the UK. We will learn about the four countries in the UK and their capital cities. We will then identify human features of these capital cities and our own area as well as identifying the physical features of different parts of the UK. We will then move onto identifying the seas that surround the UK. 

History

In History, we will be looking at our own families and photographs of when we were younger. We will be looking at how we have changed over time and what we can remember from when we were younger. We will then look at notable events from the children’s life time. We will timeline and order these events. We will complete the topic by looking at how we celebrate birthdays now and how they were celebrated in the past. 

Art 

In Art, we will be looking at the famous artist Leonardo Da Vinci. The children will be learning some facts about the artist, identifying the shapes, tones and features used in his work and then practice drawing different facial features. They will then experiment with water colours, including mixing them to create different hues of colour.

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