23/09/20
**Missing Uniform**
In the classroom we have:
TU age 7 cardigan.
George jumper age 5-6
Please let the office know if one of these items is yours. Thank you!
The first homework is 'live' and ready. Please let a member of the Year 1 team if you have any questions about this. We will also update the missing uniform section weekly at the top of this page so please keep checking if you are missing anything.
The children have been FANTASTIC and a real joy to teach. We have been blown away by their maths skills and have been following the White Rose Maths sequence. This seems to be working really well for the children as it builds on the previous learning and skills learned. We have also been counting to 100 everyday (any support with this at home would be appreciated).
We have just begun our normal phonics lessons and the children have picked it up amazingly well. We are following the RWI scheme which was used in Reception so it is not completely new to the children. We will be led by the children and move at a pace which suits the class. On a Wednesday, we will spend time concentrating on our tricky words after our 'Big Write'. The Year 1 team have been very pleased by the classes attitude and perseverance towards their 'Big Write' and there has been some fantastic work produced. We have been paying special attention to writing our letters the right way round and on the line. During registration, children have been practising their cursive letters and are picking this up really well. We have started on the 'curly caterpillar' letters such as 'o, e, a, g, d, s'. Again, we will be led by the children with this and move at pace which is appropriate for them.
In topic, the children got a letter from a Cathy who lives in Collingham who had lost her dog! The letter gave us details about the dog and the children made posters to help find Scruff. The children's posters must have worked as Cathy wrote another letter thanking the class for their help and that Scruff had been returned safely. This week, we have looked at the different animal groups and their characteristics. Children had to match animals to the correct group and explain their answer. We have also been learning about feelings. Year 1 had to draw a picture about what makes them happy, sad, excited and angry. The children enjoyed this task and came up with lots of brilliant ideas. It seems a lot of siblings can make Y1 a bit angry sometimes! Next week, we will learn how to manage extreme feelings.
21/09/20
Wow, we are so pleased with how well the children have settled into Year 1 and into their new routines. They have all been amazing! Please be very proud of your children, because we are.
Please see the 'Reading Book' and 'Homework' sections of this page for the latest information about these areas.
04/09/20
Hello parents/carers and children :)
This week we have been busy setting up the new Y1 classroom and making sure it has lots of fun and engaging activities for the class to complete. We will be uploading some pictures of the children in their new classroom next week so you can see what they are getting up to. Even though we are unable to have certain things in the classroom we still have all the same areas as last year but have just altered them using the current government guidelines. We have even added some sneaky additions which Y1 have not had before in the classroom, including lego!!
We will also be running the Year 1 classroom exactly the same as we have done in previous year groups. Children will have carpet inputs and then half the class will be working with an adult whilst the other half is accessing the provision in the classroom. The groups will then swap over the next day. We feel it is vital that children have the opportunity to learn through play and this gives the children chance to consolidate their learning. For the first term we try to mirror EYFS as much as possible so the children are used to the structure and routine. As the year progresses the classroom does become more formal in preparation for Year 2. One change we have made this year is that all children will have a pencil case with their own stationery as well as their own whiteboard and pen. This will help with not sharing equipment and we found at the end of last year that children liked having their own case as it made them feel grown up. Any equipment that is shared such as lego will be cleaned regularly throughout the day. The children also have allocated handwashing times which will be followed daily.
During the autumn term, we understand it will be important to both consolidate and build upon learning from the previous term and year and continue to aid the children in continuing to become confident, happy and well-rounded people. The Year 1 team will regularly meet to ensure that the learning pace is appropriate and if any adaptions need to be made. We were blown away by how well the class came back at the end of last year that we are very confident this will continue!
Any concerns or queries that you may have are hugely valued so please do not hesitate to contact any member of the school team. We understand that it is going to be difficult not having face to face contact with the Year 1 team and not being able to enter the classroom so we want to make sure we are as accessible as possible. We will be happy to arrange phone calls with parents to discuss any concerns and answer questions. We will also update the web page regularly with pictures and videos of the children. If you have any other ideas/suggestions please let a member of the team know!
Miss Thackray cannot wait to get started with this class as she has heard such wonderful things and Miss Hicks feels really lucky that she gets to spend an extra half term with you!
Mrs Naylor and Miss Thackray will be ready to greet you on Tuesday morning and show you where your new pegs and trays will be!
Have a lovely last weekend!
The Year 1 Team
Latest News
P.E. days for Autumn 1 will be Monday and Friday.
Monday - Multi skills with Miss Thackray (outdoor session - please have a tracksuit).
Friday - Dance with a dance coach and Miss Hicks (indoor session). The children will be learning some street dance moves and we are very excited to get started with this!
Upcoming Events
07.09.20 - Training day
08.09.20 - First day back at school
11.09.20 - First P.E. lesson in Year 1
The Year 1 Team
Your Year 1 team for the year will be:
Miss Thackray (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday)
Miss Hicks (Thursday and Friday for autumn 1 only)
Mrs Hesketh (Wed PM, Thursday and Friday from autumn 2)
Mrs Naylor will be the class teaching assistant every morning
Mrs Shaw will be the class teaching assistant on a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoon
Mr Seaton will working with the class everyday
If you any questions at all please do not hesitate to contact any member of the team.
Thank you,
All the Year 1 staff
Reading Books
**Update**
Reading books will be changed every Monday Friday in Year 1. On a Monday, we will send two books home to read during the week and just one book on a Friday. At the moment we are unable to send Reading Logs home. We will change your child's reading book if they return it on one of the days. It would be helpful if you could keep the Post-it note on the book to make it easier for us but we can always replace it if it comes off. We plan to move to an online system for reading records shortly.
We haven't finished our reading assessments with the children yet so the reading books may not be accurately matched. Please bear with us whilst we complete the assessments and can match the reading books to phonics that the children know. We hope that this will be the end of week 2.
As a school, we have also invested in a new reading scheme. The new scheme works on both phonics and colour bands. There are now no levels. Because we have matched our older books to the scheme, some books may have levels on them but we have matched them to a colour band based on the phonic sounds in the book. This means that there may be a variety of different 'levels' of books within one colour band. Initially, the books have been grouped according to the phonic sounds in them and we have ordered them to match the order that we teach phonics in Read Write Inc. We will explain more about this during our Parent Information Zoom session.
The children are expected to put their books in the reading book box to be changed when they come in on the morning of the appropriate days. Of course we will remind the children but we are unable to go into the children's book bags to retrieve the books ourselves. Please leave any comments you think would be helpful to the Year 1 team as these get checked every time books are changed.
Reading is very important for any age group but especially this year. We actively encourage children to read everyday and this does not always have to be a reading book. Some other ideas are newspaper articles, magazines, food labels, signs or maybe even reading to a younger sibling. I am sure you and your children can be a lot more creative than we are! We would love the children to develop a pleasure for reading and it is essential that children experience a variety of books and texts so they can find a style or genre which suits them. When Miss Thackray was younger and in Year 1 she developed a love for Roald Dahl books and would read them every day! When Miss Hicks was younger, she also loved Roald Dahl books but really enjoyed 'The Secret Seven' by Enid Blyton and loved to read about the adventures and mysteries Peter and Janet would solve! Who is going to be your favourite author in Year 1? We cannot wait to know.
The school reading books are brilliant to develop confidence, fluency, decoding skills and recognition of tricky and high frequency words. Another focus in Year 1 alongside the phonics is to develop comprehension skills. It is essential that you ask your child questions about the book when you are reading with them. We have linked some examples of questions at the bottom of the page. If you would like anymore information on this please do not hesitate to contact a member of the team.
Homework
**Update**
Homework will be set on a Thursday and to be completed for the following Wednesday. We have chosen Wednesday because this is when the children will do their 'Big Write' and part of the homework each week will be preparation for that write. The homework will be 'live' on a Thursday and can be accessed on the tab below labelled autumn 1.
The focus will be on reading, phonics, spelling, handwriting, maths basic skills and 'Big Write' preparation.
A 'homework pack' has been sent out and has also been added to this section of the webpage if you would like to access an electronic version/print another copy.
If you need any help or support with homework please do not hesitate to contact a member of the team (although we are sure you are all experts with home learning now!).
