Year 1

Welcome to our year group news! 😊

1M Saint Thérèse of Lisieux Class

                

 

Class Dojo   

All parents are encouraged to sign up to Class Dojo to keep up to date with class events. There is also a message system for you to contact the Teacher directly in your chosen language. 

 

Our Curriculum

Welcome to Saint Therese of Lisieux Class! 🌹

In Year 1 our aim is to ensure that the children experience a smooth transition from the Early Years Foundation Stage to Key Stage One. The Year 1 curriculum builds upon and extends the experiences that children have had in Reception. Learning through play will continue to be a valued part of the school day. The children will gradually be eased into more structured learning as the autumn term goes on, so that they remain motivated, enthused and eager learners.

 

We teach National Curriculum subjects: English, maths, science, design and technology, history, geography, art and design, music, PE, computing, RHE, PSHE and RE. 

 

 

In English we use core books such as Cave Baby and Astro Girl as key texts which help the children to develop their grammar, speaking and listening skills and to continue to develop their sentence writing skills as they make the transition from Reception.

                                           

In Maths we use concrete- pictorial- abstract experiences that reinforce children’s learning and take them beyond the classroom so that they can apply their understanding within a real-life context. This involves a lot of ‘hands on’ or practical maths to help the children to reinforce their learning.

                            

 

RE is also a core subject and is taught twice a week. In Year 1, the children explore how God reveals himself through creation, Scripture and Jesus. Learning focuses on understanding God as a loving Father and recognising how people come to know God through prayer, the Bible and the life of Jesus. Through the year, the children grow in understanding of who God is, how Christians come to know Him, and how faith is lived out through prayer, belonging and care for others.

 

PE

In Year 1 our PE lessons are on Tuesdays. Children should wear their PE kits all day. Please refer to the school uniform policy here on the website.

 

Phonics 

We use the government validated systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP) called 'Little Wandle: Letters & Sounds Revised' for phonics.  The programme is designed to teach children to read from Reception to Year 2, using the skill of decoding and blending sounds together to form words. You can find further information about Little Wandle on their website

https://www.littlewandle.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

 

In Year 1 we work hard to ensure that the children are prepared for their phonics screening check in the summer term. We organise parent workshops to share phonics information so that they can support their child with their phonics at home.  

 

Reading 

The children are in small groups for reading and they have an opportunity to read with an adult three times a week. The children read a decodable book that has been matched to that child through an assessment. Our three reading sessions include a decoding session, a prosody session and a comprehension session. The children then take these decodable books home to share with their parents. They also take a reading for pleasure book home each week which we encourage our parents to read to their child and discuss the contents. We encourage parental involvement during our parent reading mornings.

                                                             

 

Homework 

Homework is given out in book bags on a Friday and needs to be handed in the following Tuesday. Children are expected to learn their spellings, which are linked to their phonics learning that week, and are challenged to write them in full sentences. Reading Records are sent out at the beginning of the school year with the expectation that children read at least 4 x per week, we ask parents to sign the reading record and return every Tuesday.

 

In Year 1 this year we will be very busy with lots of exciting things happening, including outside of the classroom. Here’s a quick overview of what we are going to be doing:

• Local area fieldwork to link with our geography topic of ‘Where Do We Live?’
• Trip to the local park for our science topic of ‘Seasonal Changes’
• Tower of London trip which is linked to our history topic of ‘Mighty Monarchs and the Two Elizabeths’
• London Transport Museum trip which is linked to our history topic of ‘Changes over Time-Transport through Time and our design and technology topic of ‘Making Vehicles’.
• Trips to Saint Ignatius Church throughout the year.