Year 1

Welcome to Year 1

Summer 2 2024

Welcome back everyone! I hope you have had a restful and enjoyable holiday.  We are now starting the final half-term of the year. Where has the time gone?! I am sure this half-term will be as successful and enjoyable as all the rest. 

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 'Robots'.   We will begin by reminding ourselves of the structure and features of recounts that we learnt back in the Spring term, when we wrote a non-fiction recount about a family event.  This time we are going to focus on a fictional recount about - yes you guessed it - Robots! We will use our prior knowledge to use sequencing words and place events in the correct order. We will be able to use vocabulary suitable for a fictional piece of writing; remembering to use adjectives for description of character and setting. We will also make-sure that we are using conjunctions in our sentences to link our ideas. We will orally plan and rehearse our ideas prior to writing the finished piece.  We will then move onto poetry. We will focus on poems with robot themes. Our objective here is to learn and recite poems off by heart.  We will apply our phonic knowledge for reading, and split two and three syllable words into their separate syllables to support blending for reading. We we be able to explain clearly our understanding of what is read to us. We well discuss our opinions and ideas about a poem; being able to support these with examples from the text and reasons. We will finally be able to recite a poem off by heart to our peers in school.  

 * 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 money. We will begin by looking at coins to help us identify them trough shape, marking, size and colour. After this we will explore notes in a similar fashion, by looking at the colours of the notes and their markings to help identify them.  We will then be introducing new concepts of measurement, focusing on volume and capacity; we will be drawing upon previous knowledge of fractions. We will then move on to measuring mass, using vocabulary such as 'heavy/heavier' and 'light/lighter'. We then find mass using non-standard units.  We will end the year by looking at Geometry exploring the important elements of position, movement and turns. We will begin by describing the position of one object relative to another, using terms such as: 'top' , 'middle' and 'bottom'; 'around', 'close', 'near' and 'far';  and 'on top of', 'in front of' and 'above'.  We will end with turns: navigating whole turns, half turns, quarter turns and the notion of clockwise and anticlockwise. 

Science:

The science topic this half-term is 'Biology- Animals including Humans'.  We will begin by focusing on identifying common features and comparing similarities and differences and changes over time. We will then move on to looking at the human body and recognising and labelling the different parts and then saying which part of the body is associated with the 5 senses.  We will look at each sense and discover how we use our senses in different ways to explore the world around us and use them to classify things and objects into different groups. We will then talk about body parts in relation to maths, eg., 'My arm is x straws long', 'my hand is larger than yours'. In P.E we will also demonstrate how we follow instructions involving parts of our body.   

History: 

This half-term, we will be exploring how significant people in history have shaped our world today. Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole were both nurses at the time of the Crimean War. We will be able to say where events happen on a timeline and spot similarities and differences between ways of life in different time periods, plus between the two women. We will use simple historical concepts such as now/then and same/different in relation to a significant other. We will demonstrate what we know and understand about the past in different ways whilst understanding historical concepts and using them to make simple connections and draw contrasts. We will be using different sources and stories to show how we understand events and how these shape our lives today. We will learn how the two women changed practices in hospitals and treating the sick, highlighting the need for cleaner environments and a healthy living.   

Computing:

This half-term in computing we are focusing on exploring where technology is used in our  local community. We will discuss which types of technology we have in our homes and in local businesses. We will learn about the technological devices in use in our daily lives and how some of these facilitate communication of a variety of formats. We will understand what is meant by technology and will identify a variety of examples both in and out of school. We will then look at online safety and how we interact with others with different forms of technologies; thinking also about considering others and always being respectful and polite when communicating.  We will compare the speed and ease of technology to non-technological actions, eg., email, buying an app or painting on screen.   

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