Welcome to Year 1!

We hope you find this information useful and enjoy having a look at some of the exciting activities and opportunities that take place in Year One!

On entry into year one, the children are assessed on their current phonics level and are grouped accordingly. Phonics is taught daily following the ‘Read, Write Inc’ programme. Reading books that follow the sounds taught in school will be given to your child to read at home. We will listen to your child read these books in school and they are changed weekly or when your child can read them confidently and fluently. Flash cards will also be used to help your child read and learn the common exception words.

In class, we read a variety of books linked to our topic and links are made to these texts in our continuous provision.

Maths

In maths we follow the ‘Maths Mastery’ approach. Your child will have the opportunity to learn using practical activities, through pictorial representation and finally through abstract presentation. Children will then apply these skills in written tasks. We encourage the children to think critically and to work independently. Opportunities to apply the skills learnt in. maths are offered as part of our continuous provision.

Areas of learning covered in Autumn are:

• Counting, sorting and representing numbers to 10
• Counting forwards and backwards to 10
• Comparing objects to 10 and the use of =, < and >
• Ordering numbers to 10
• Introducing parts and wholes and models to represent these
• Number bonds to 10
• Addition and subtraction
• 2d and 3d shapes
• Tens and ones
• Reading and writing numbers, comparing numbers and ordering numbers (all to 20)

Science

In science, our first topic is ‘Materials’, in this unit we will discover more about everyday material including wood, plastic, glass, metal, water and rock. We will describe their properties and compare and group them based on these properties. We will then find out about the work of  ‘Charles Macintosh’ and how this has implications for science today and in the future.

In Autumn 2, our topic is ‘Seasonal Change’ and ‘Plants’. This is a topic that we will visit throughout the year so we can observe changes first hand.

 As part of each unit of work we use a variety of different enquiry and scientific skills.

History

We begin our History journey with a local history unit – ‘How has our place changed?’ We will learn about significant historical places in our locality and how our locality has changed.

Geography

In Geography, we will be answering the question – ‘What is my school and its surrounding area like?’ As part of this we will label and create a variety of maps and consider similarities and differences between different maps.

Outdoor Education

Every Wednesday we head over to the ‘Forest’ to complete a variety of activities. We start the Autumn Term by building dens. First indoors and then in the outdoor area. We will be learning about lean to dens and will be building them to house a variety of different mini characters. By the end of the unit we should be expert mini lean to den builders! Why not have a go at home!

Computing

In computing we will be looking at algorithms and how how they are used on digital devices. We will also look at how IT is used at home and in school; finding and using different apps.

P.E

Our focus for P.E in the Autumn term is dance. This year we are hoping to perform our class dance to the whole school! We will also complete units of work in gyymnastics and multi skills.

R.E

Our focus in the Autumn Term is on christianity. This is the first time that Religious Education has been taught to the children as a discrete subject so we also find out more about what religion is (in simple terms) Our topics are,  ‘What can we learn about Harvest?’ and ‘Why are gifts given at Christmas?’