Welcome to year 1!

                                                                                                June 2023

Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome back after the holidays.  Our last half term in year 1 is packed with lots of fun and exciting things! Our topic of ‘Oh I do like to be beside the seaside’ will be continued throughout this term. Please see the attached topic web for a breakdown of what we will be focusing on in each subject.

Science targets

This term we will be continuing with our science unit ‘humans and animals’. During the unit these are the targets we will be trying to achieve:

Phonics

Just a reminder that the phonics screening test will take place this term for year 1 children. It is planned to take place in the week beginning the 12^th June. Please ensure children are in school where possible. Any extra phonics work done at home would be beneficial and could make a huge difference. Thank you to the many parents who have already done lots of phonics work at home.

Reading

In order to meet the expected standard for a Y1 reader, your child would need to be fluently reading and understanding the book colours stated below by the end of each term.

Genre

This half term we will be going back to looking at a specific genre. Our genre this half term is traditional tales. We will be linking our literacy work to this genre and be adapting and writing our own traditional tales.

Memory

This half terms memory activity is to improve concentration and is called ‘Guess the change’. This can be played with two or more players. One person leaves the room and returns with one thing different. For example, it could be without their glasses, with a hat on or with their jumper off. The other player or players have to guess what is different. This game requires your child to concentrate and use their observation skills.

Online safety

Health, wellbeing and life style. Children will think of the rules around their own use of technology in and beyond the home, explaining why these rules help to keep them safe. They will link rules to their wellbeing and hopefully gain awareness of how rules may change with simple changes in 

context. (where they are, what they are doing and who they might be with) You may wish to discuss this with children are real life situations arise.

P.E

P.E will continue to take place on a Monday and Fridays. Please remember that pierced ears need to be taped up or earrings taken out on these days. This is a health and safety requirement.

Homework

There will only be 4 weeks of homework this half term due to transition.

Passport statements

This half term children will be working on any statements they have not yet achieved on their current passport.

As this is the last newsletter of this year I would just like to take the time to thank you for your support throughout the year, and if you would like to discuss anything or have any further questions, then I am available before and after school on most days.

Thank you,

Miss T Ward

Class Teacher

 The children celebrated the coronation of King Charles by dressing up as prince and princesses, making crowns and flags, street party food for lunch, afternoon tea snack and singing the coronation anthem for the parents. They also helped the local community by doing some litter picking!  

 In science we have been testing our senses. Here is us testing our smell!

Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome back after the holidays.  I hope you have had a lovely Easter break! Our new topic is ‘Oh I do like to be beside the seaside’ which is a long topic and will run up until the summer holidays. Please see the attached topic web for a breakdown of what we will be focusing on in each subject.

Science targets

These targets will run right through to the summer holidays.

Spellings

Thank you for continuing to work with your child to learn their spellings. It really does reinforce the different sounds that we have been covering in letters and sounds during the week and will help towards the phonics screening check.

Genre

This half term we will be going back to looking at a specific author. Our authors this half term is Ronda and David Armitage, authors of the famous ‘light house keepers….’ series. 

Reading

In order to meet the expected standard for a Y1 reader, your child would need to be fluently reading and understanding the book colours stated below by the end of each term.

Memory

This half term you may wish to look back through previous topic knowledge organisers and cover parts up to check memory.

Online safety

This half term we will be focussing on copyright and ownership. Children will recognise that objects and work can belong to them. We will demonstrate how and why they own digital work that they have created and discuss the things online that don’t belong to us. We will make children aware that if we take things that we don’t have the permission to use then it can be classed as stealing. You may wish to discuss this further at home when situations arise in real life.

Homework timetable

Passport statements

This half term I will be looking for:

• To show care towards animals.

Children will be taking their phonics screening test during the summer term; any help and practice that you can do with your child at home will be beneficial to them. If you would like any further information or support regarding the test please don’t hesitate to ask.

Thank you,

Miss T Ward

Class Teacher

 We have been on a great trip to learn all about castles and our local castle. Children got to see the different parts of the castle that they had learnt about in real life and the different parts of the bailey. Children also learnt about the important people who lived in the keep - Lord Hamelin and Lady Isabelle. 

 Look at our wonderful costumes! Today we have enjoyed sharing our favourite books with our year 5 partner class. We also looked through the extreme read photos sent in over the holidays and created our own book reviews. 

 Today we dressed in our stripes to show our support for Rare Diseases Day! The Zebra is a symbol of the day as it is a rare animal and it is celebrated on one of the rarest days of the year. 

                                                                                                February 2023

Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome back after the holidays! Our new topic is ‘King of the castle’ where we will look at the history of castles, who would have lived there and what castle life would have been like. Please see the attached topic web for a breakdown of what we will be focusing on in each subject.

Genre

This half term we will again be looking at a specific genre rather than an author.  We will look at a range of different fairy tales and using these to pick out features, adapt and write our own.

Reading

In order to meet the expected standard for a Y1 reader, your child would need to be fluently reading and understanding the book colours stated below by the end of each term.

Phonics

In the Summer term children will be expected to do a phonics screening test which is an official test set by the government. Any work at home on alien words will be a massive support to your child in preparation for this, there are lots of alien word example and games online.  If you need any help or support with this, please come and see me. We will also be concentrating on this for our morning activity this half term as well as doing another mock screening test.

Memory

This half terms memory activity is:

Going to the Zoo- Using zoo animal toys, sing we’re going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo. Place a toy animal on the table and ask the child to say what it is. Cover it. Ask what animal is at the Zoo. Repeat, adding another animal, ask what 2 animals are at the zoo. Uncover and see if you are correct. Keep adding animals until they find it difficult.

Online safety

This half term, children will be discussing managing online information. We will be think about if we can believe everything we read online as well as how to find things online using a search engine and which websites look more reliable from the search. You may wish to practise these skills at home and discuss with children which sites look more reliable and why.

P.E

P.E will continue to take place on a Monday and Friday. Thank you to everyone for ensuring that health and safety is adhered to and that pierced ears are taped up and long hair is tied up.

Homework timetable

We have a parents evening this half term so I look forward to meeting with you. If you have any further questions or concerns, then please feel free to contact me.

Thank you,

Miss T Ward

Class Teacher

 We have been putting our vehicles to the test to see if they meet the design brief! They had to keep their penguin eggs safe from harm. The children have been learning about the moving parts. 

 We have been exploring with Beebots. In this unit we work on our programming skills, learning about algorithms and bugs. 

Dear Parents/Carers,

 I hope that you have all had a fantastic Christmas break. As we return back to school our new topic is ‘Winter Wonderland’ which will fit with the world around us at this time. Please see the attached topic web for a breakdown of what we will be focusing on in each subject. I have also sent home the knowledge organiser and the quiz linked to this for children to prepare for our new topic! See Dojo for the link.

Science Targets

Our Science topic this half term is ‘Seasonal changes - Winter.’ These are the targets that children will be working on.

Spellings

Thank you to everyone that has supported their child with spellings last half term. Spellings will continue as normal this half term, spellings can be found on teams. Children will also continue to get bonus words linked to specific SPAG assessment.

Genre

This half term we will be looking at a specific genre rather than an author. The genre for this half term will be poetry. We will look at a range of different poets and styles of poetry and will use what we learn in our own writing.

We are also continuing to work on joined handwriting. If you would like any information or advice on how to assist your child at home, please do feel free to come and see me.

Reading

In order to meet the expected standard for a Y1 reader, your child would need to be fluently reading and understanding the book colours stated below by the end of each term.

Memory

Improving children’s memory really helps with retention of what is being taught at school. This half terms idea is an active memory game. Create a bank of actions (these can be on cards or just ideas. Take it in turns to add an action to a sequence. Keep adding action and see how many you can reach before someone forgets the pattern.

Online safety

This half term we will be discussing online relationships and reputation. Children will talk about who they use the internet to talk to e.g. family/ FaceTime and what is appropriate to share online. This can sometimes be a good discussion which leads to discussing chatting to people in games, we will think about what to do in real life situations. We will also think about when children should ask permission to do things online, this may be something you wish to discuss and set your rules for at home.

Homework

P.E

P.E will continue to take place on a Monday and Friday. Hair needs to be tied up and earrings took out or taped up. Thank you to everyone for keeping up with this.

Passport statements

Statements I will be looking at this half term are:

• Understand what is right and wrong
• Always try my best

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to catch me before or after school or via dojo.

Thank you,

Miss T Ward

Class Teacher

 A few pictures from the Nativity in the church, our Christmas dinner day and the Christmas party. The cheeky elves came and hid presents for us to find!

 We started anti-bullying week by wearing odd socks to show diversity and that it is good to be different. We also looked at the meaning of STOP (several times on purpose), START (start telling and reporting trouble) and VIP (verbal, indirect and physical).  Children worked on giving compliments and discussing who they could reach out to if they or someone they saw was being bullied. 

                                                                                                November 2022

Dear Parents/Carers,

This is always a fantastic time of year in school with the run up to Christmas! This half term we will be doing some festive activities as well as our main topic ‘light explosions!’ I have created a topic web so that you can see what this topic will be covering.

Science

This half term our targets are linked to our topic of ‘Materials’

Writing

If you do want to help with your child’s writing at home, we are really focusing on joining our handwriting this half term. Our writing policy suggests that children should be joining their handwriting by Christmas in year 1.  Please feel free to ask if you need further support or advice.

Spellings

Thank you to everyone that has supported their child with spellings last half term. It really does make a difference in writing and gives children a huge boost when they get them all correct! This half term spellings will be linked to a phonics sound that they have been working on. I will occasionally start to throw in some bonus words during the test this half term, these will be for assessment purposes and will be covered in phonics.

Author

The author that we will be focusing on this half term is David McKee; he has written many popular books such as Mr Ben and the Elmer series. We will be building on our own story telling skills.

Reading

In order to meet the expected standard for a Y1 reader, your child would need to be fluently reading and understanding the book colours stated below by the end of each term.

Memory game

The suggested memory activity this half term is clapping rhythms. Make up a pattern of claps and children are to repeat that rhythm. Continue to add to this to make longer patterns to remember. Children could also make their own rhythms and build up to longer rhythms.

Safer internet

This half term we will be covering online bullying and the importance of being kind to others on the internet just as you would in real life. We will also talk about different behaviours that can cause upset e.g. ignoring, leaving people out. This will also link to our PSHE unit focused on bullying and who to tell, different types of bullying and how to report it.

Homework

Thank you for supporting your child with their homework. This terms homework is as follows;

  Passport statements for PSHE

• To solve a problem without arguing.
• To not sulk or become angry when they don’t like something.
• To always follow class rules.

P.E

P.E will continue to take place on a Monday and Friday. A reminder that long hair should be tied up and earrings should either be taken out on PE days or taped up for health and safety reasons.

If you would like to discuss anything or have any further questions, then I am available before and after school on most days or via Dojo.

 Thank you,

Miss T Ward

Class Teacher

 This half term children have been learning how to play tuned instruments. We had great fun with the boomwhackers!

 In literacy, children have been creating their own instructions to make slime and shortbread. We thought out ordering, numbers and bossy verbs. We also couldn't resist making monsters out of your slime linked to the Loch Ness monster!

                                                                                                September 2022

Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome back to a new school year and to year 1, I hope you have all had a fantastic summer break! Our topic this term is ‘Barnaby Bear’s Highland Adventure!’ and as many lessons as possible will be linked to this topic. I have created a topic web so that you can see what this topic will be covering.

Science Targets

English

If you want to help with your child’s writing at home we are focusing on using finger spaces, capital letters and full stops correctly this half term. We will then move onto using ‘and’ to join ideas and a huge focus will be on joined handwriting. Every child is also placed in a phonics group to suit their ability in order for them to progress at their level. They will be learning new sounds and spelling patterns each week, ask them to share these with you, but please feel free to ask if you need further support or advice.

Spellings

Children will get 5 spellings a week; if they correctly spell all 5 then they will be rewarded with a team point. The spellings they receive will initially be the year 1 words and then will be linked to the phonics sound that they have been working on and they will be tested on a Friday. Any help you can give your children at home is greatly appreciated and makes a big difference in their writing. Occasionally children will receive bonus words linked to spelling patterns looked at in class and will be used towards their assessment. If children are regularly achieving below 3 then we will send some extra activities home to practice.

Reading

In order to meet the expected standard for a Y1 reader, your child would need to be fluently reading and understanding the book colours stated below by the end of each term.

Memory

We have noticed a link between children’s memories and being able to follow instructions and retain things that have been taught. To try and help your child’s working memory you may want to try this game.

Magic cup game –

Place three identical, plastic cups in a line on the table, rim down. Place a pom pom or small rubber ball under one cup, allowing your child to see which cup the pom pom/ball is under. Shuffle the cups around by sliding them across the table, switching their positions quickly back and forth and all around. Once you have stopped moving the cups ask your child to identify which cup the ball is now under.

Internet safety

This half term we will be looking at privacy and security both online and when using an electronic device. This will include why it is important to have a strong password and keeping it safe. We will also look at self-image and identity linked to filming in ICT. You may wish to discuss different situations as they arise in real life, that we may need to ask someone’s permission before taking a photo/ video of them.

Homework

Children will have the first few weeks to settle into their new surroundings before homework is given. Homework will be given out on a Friday and should be returned to school by Wednesday. Your child may need support reading the task but as the year progresses they should become more confident at having ago by themselves. You are welcome to work with them and let them know if an answer is incorrect, supporting them to correct it.

P.E

P.E will take place on a Monday and a Friday. Children will need to come to school in their PE kit on these days. As it gets colder children may need gloves and a hat for outdoor PE.

Reading/ book bags

Book bags should be brought in on a Monday and left in school until Friday. Children will be sent 2 paper books each week for the first 2 weeks. If you could then return the first 2 books that have already been read at the start of week 3 we will then be able to swap them and should get into a cycle of having 2 books at home and 2 books returned to school each week.

Passport statements

The PSHE areas that we are working on from our passports are:

• Always follow class rules
• Always try my best.

A few further bits of information:

• Just a reminder that children with pierced ears should have their earrings removed or taped up before school on PE days.
• Please avoid booking to go away during June as this is usually when the phonics screening check that we have to do in year 1 takes place. I will speak to you more about this during the first parents evening.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to catch me before or after school or via Dojo.

Thank you,

Miss T Ward

Class Teacher