Hello! We are looking forward to welcoming you and your families to Year 1. Our team are as follows.

1C – Miss Casey and Mrs Brown

1R - Miss Roberts and Mrs Drummond

1S - Miss Swift and Mrs Fatima

Contact Details:

1C: [email protected] 

1R: [email protected] 

1S: [email protected] 

To report absences, please call the school office on: 0121 675 9098

P.E. day:

1C, 1R and 1S - Tuesday

All children should come into school wearing their PE kit but leave a pair of pumps in school. P.E. days may change later in the year and we will keep you informed of this as the year goes on. 

Library

Year 1 will visit the library on a Wednesday and a Thursday. Please ensure that your child has their borrowed book in their bag ready to return.

Homework: Maths will be given on Friday and should be returned by Thursday. This will be a piece of work set on Sumdog. English will be given on Friday and should be returned by a Thursday. This will be phonics practice, but we would welcome videos or work in response on Seesaw.

Here in Year 1, we are huge advocates for learning through play and providing a rich, engaging experience for our children. Continuous provision allows the learning to be child -led, follow their own interests, and show us their magic. As teachers it allows us the opportunity to learn so much more about our classes and the year group as a whole. The children are comfortable in their environment, which is important after the transition of moving buildings, and have the autonomy over their own learning. Even though the learning/play is child initiated, this does not mean that they are left unaided. High expectations whilst choosing their learning is crucial. This takes a lot of modelling, sharing of good practice, praise and discussion. The Year 1 resources, environment and expectation always reflect what the learning should look like.

We recognise that some skills and knowledge require discrete teaching – these include phonics, handwriting, English skills, maths and wider curriculum inputs. All these subjects, however, can be enhanced and skills can be rehearsed within continuous provision to ensure that the children know more and remember more.

Our current approach for discrete learning is to teach whole class followed by small group work, or, depending on the task, whole class learning. This learning is then followed by continuous provision where there will be enhancements in the environment to bring out this knowledge. All staff are trained to encourage, support and extend and challenge the children through questioning.

Our hope is that by the time the children leave us at the end of Year 1, the environment we are providing will enable them to learn skills that will challenge their thinking and help them embed concepts as independent learners.

Visits and Visitors

Throughout Year 1 we hope to provide a range of educational visits and visitors to further enhance your child’s learning. This will start with a visit to our local area to support our Geography curriculum. We will provide further details in due course.

English

Phonics
During autumn term Year 1, we will build upon the phonics that the children have learnt in reception. The children will continue to learn new phonemes, digraphs and trigraphs and be exposed to these in a range of contexts.

Reading
We are a Power of Reading school and therefore use a range of high-quality texts and strategies to facilitate our English lessons. In autumn term the children will be listening to a range of classic and contemporary fantasy picture books. Our first book is an exciting fantasy adventure– we like to reveal the book slowly, so the titles will remain a mystery for now! Our aim for the children to able to link books to their own experiences. We are confident that the children will find these texts highly engaging, and you will hear more about them throughout the year. Children will be bringing a reading book home to share with you. Please read with your child and add your comments onto the reading diary page on Seesaw.

Writing

In year 1, children will engage with a wide range of writing opportunities. Writing outcomes will be stories, writing in role and practising writing non- fiction sentences. Children will learn to generate and construct sentences using capital letters, full stops and finger spaces. They will use their phonics knowledge to help them spell words.

Maths
During autumn term, our focus will be primarily on number and place value. The children will learn to:

• count, read and write numbers to 20
• read and write numbers from 1 to 20 in numerals and words
• given a number, identify 1 more and 1 less
• identify and represent numbers using objects and pictorial representations. For example, Numicon, base 10, counters and snap cubes
• understand mathematical statements involving addition (+), subtraction (−) and equals (=) symbols
• represent and use number bonds and related subtraction facts within 10

Throughout Year 1 we hope to provide a range of educational visits and visitors to further enhance your child’s learning. We will provide further information in due course.

Our Authors of the moment for next half term will be Oliver Jeffers and Rachel Bright.

See below for the knowledge organisers for this half term's work.