Welcome to Year 1

We are lucky to have lots of adults supporting the children as they make their transition into Year 1.

Mrs Ryall and Mrs Paxton are the class teachers. We are supported all day by Mrs Matthews.  Miss Preston and Mrs O'Mahoney support Year 1 in the morning and Mrs Griffin in the afternoon.  We are very lucky to have access to the outdoor quad, where Mrs Matthews and Mrs Griffin take groups of children to develop their learning in a more practical, hands on way. On a Wednesday afternoon Miss Cole teaches Mrs Ryall's class and Mr Kieran teaches Mrs Paxton's class. Miss Cole teaches Mrs Ryall's class all day on a Friday too.

Some of the Year 1 children access our Nurture Group, Smarties. This takes place every morning with the children returning to their own classes in the afternoon.

Reading Books

Children can change their books every day if they need to. We are encouraging the children to become more independent and to change their own books. Please help your child by reminding them in the morning if they need to change their book - thank you.

PE this term

This half term the children will all need an indoor PE kit in school. This is a pair of blue or black shorts and a white t-shirt. They will also need a swimming kit, swimming costume and towel, for a Tuesday. 

Mrs Ryall's Class: Mondays- Real PE

                           Tuesdays- Swimming

Mrs Paxton's Class: Monday - Real PE

                            Tuesdays- Swimming

Our Day

Phonics and Spelling

In Year 1 phonics is taught daily. Our children are supported to sound and blend unfamiliar printed words quickly and accurately using the phonic knowledge and skills that they have already learnt in Reception. Common exception words are practiced weekly, with some children accessing extra support daily if necessary.

We use the programme of ‘Letters and Sounds’ to review and consolidate Phase 2 and 3 phonemes and graphemes, with some moving on towards Phase 4 and Phase 5 when they are ready.

Reading

1-1 reading is the focus for the Autumn Term. 

Writing

We teach 4 key stages as defined in the National Curriculum. To write sentences by:

• saying out loud what they are going to write about

• composing a sentence orally before writing it

• sequencing sentences to form short narratives

• re-reading what they have written to check that it makes sense

Such an outcome is supported by an adult when appropriate. Dictated sentences are also used for children to write simple sentences from memory, including GPCs and common exception words taught so far. We also begin to introduce more of the Alan Peat Sentence types.

Writing is part of our daily routine and they have access to a wide range of resources to support their writing. In phonics children are encouraged to apply their new phoneme into either words, or sentences. Dedicated literacy session based around a text provides opportunities to write to inform or entertain. This includes narratives, descriptions, letters and instructions. Through these sessions we learn new skills and begin to use them appropriately and with some independence. These skills are then regularly used in Mantle of the Expert tasks. We also use texts, pictures and video clips as inspiration for writing.

Maths

We follow the White Rose Hub Maths planning.

In Year 1 we focus on using concrete strategies such as Numicom, Tens Frames and Base 10. The children will learn to use pictorial representations for problems. Both the concrete and pictorial strategies build towards the children using more abstract approaches.

We will be ensuring that the children are secure with the place value of 10, before teaching the 4 mathematical operations.

Autumn Mantle 2019

During the Autumn term we will have a science focus to our class Mantle. Our team are 'wild life photographers' who have been commissioned by the BBC to travel to Antarctica to photograph penguins. The expert team will use their scientific skills and knowledge to find out facts and information about these creatures.