Year 1
Autumn 1, 2025
Welcome to Year 1! We hope you had a lovely summer break! We have lots of exciting learning planned for the next half term and we can't wait to get started.
Start time – 8:40am Pick-up time- 3:15pm
A fruit snack is provided every day for our Year 1 children. Alternatively, children may bring their own fruit (no bananas). Please ensure that your child brings a named water bottle to school each day and that sun cream is applied before coming to school. Also, please ensure all items of uniform are clearly labelled.
If you have any questions, concerns or worries, please contact me at year1@cpa.dsat.education and I will do my best to respond as soon as I can.
Please follow the link below to view information from the Year 1 Beginning of Year Welcome Meeting.
We will deliver a program to all year groups at school called myHappymind. myHappymind is all based around helping children to understand how their brain works and to support them in developing positive skills and habits to be their very best selves!
Please click on the link below to access an overview of what the program entails.
myHappymind Parent information
At the end of every myHappy mind session, we finish with our Let Your Light Shine prayer, which you can find below.
Here is what we will be learning this half term:
Curriculum focus: History - How have toys changed over time?
Our theme this half term will focus on developing our historical knowledge, skills, and vocabulary. Through our study, we will learn how toys have changed over time. We will identify, sort, and compare features of old and new toys and describe the changes we can see over time. We will develop our understanding of past and present by describing changes over time in relation to ourselves, identifying similarities and differences between our lives and previous generations.
English – Reading
As a school we follow the Read, Write, Inc programme to deliver our phonics teaching.
Please access the links below to learn how and why we teach phonics in our school.
What is Read, Write Inc Phonics?
We also have lots of information on our school's phonics page, which you can access here.
English – Get Writing
Our writing this half term will be based on further developing sentence structure and how to build a successful sentence. We will focus on the use of capital letters, finger spaces, and full stops, as well as ensuring sentences make sense to our reader.
Core Text:
Our story of focus for this half term is 'Zog'. We will be learning new vocabulary within both of these stories.
Spelling
We use our Read Write Inc. phonics knowledge to help us to spell when we are writing. Some words do not follow our spelling rules and we just have to learn them. The link below shows the words which appear frequently in our reading and writing. Year 1 are working towards being able to read and write these words by the end of the year 1.
Maths
This half term we will be developing our knowledge of numbers within 10.
We will focus on knowing and remembering our Key Instant Recall Facts (KIRFs). More information about our school KIRFs can be found here Our Maths Page.
Please click on the link below for Year 1 KIRFs (Key Instant Recall Facts). We are currently working on Autumn 1. By the end of this half term, children should know one more and one less on numbers up to 20.
If you have any questions about these areas of Maths, please do not hesitate to come and speak to us.
Please click the link below for a 'One more, One less' resource to support children with their instant recall facts.
R.E. – Christianity - Creation - Does God want Christians to look after the world?
In RE, we will study Christianity and explore the question 'Does God want Christians to look after the world?' We will learn to re-tell the Christian Creation story and to explore how this influences how Christians behave towards nature and the environment.
Science – Human Body and Senses
In our learning, we will learn to identify, name, draw, and label basic parts of the human body and say which part of the body is associated with each sense.
Seasonal Changes -
● This is the first of six outdoor lessons across the year.
● We will notice and record the weather conditions.
● We will sort leaves according to colour, texture and shape.
● We will learn that differences in leaves can be used to help identify plants.
We will answer the lesson question: ‘Are all leaves the same?’
Art – Drawing - L.S. Lowry
In our lessons, we will learn:
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How we use line and tone to show the shape of something.
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That line shows the outline of things, and tones show their lightness or darkness.
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Draw in the style of L.S. Lowry.
Computing – Online Safety
In our computing lessons this half term, we will learn:
• To log in safely.
• To learn how to find saved work in the Online Work area and find teacher comments.
• To learn how to search Purple Mash to find resources.
• To become familiar with the icons and types of resources available in the Topics section.
• To start to add pictures and text to work.
• To explore the Tools and Games section of Purple Mash.
• To learn how to open, save and print.
• To understand the importance of logging out.
P.E. – Fundamentals
In PE, we will learn to:
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To explore balance, stability and landing safely.
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To explore how the body moves differently when running at different speeds.
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To explore changing direction and dodging.
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To explore jumping, hopping and skipping actions.
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To explore co-ordination and combination jumps.
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To explore combination jumping and skipping in an individual rope.
P.S.H.E. - Relationships - Family
This half term we will be learning to:
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Understand all families are made of special groups of people.
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That friends do not always agree with each other, but resolve their differences with respect.
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Understand there is a difference between close friends, friends, acquaintances and strangers.
Music - My Musical Heartbeat
Our music theme is 'My Musical Heartbeat'. We will learn that every piece of music has a heartbeat - a musical heartbeat. In music, we call it the 'pulse' or the 'beat' of the music.
We will explore the question: How Can We Make Friends When We Sing Together?
Singing and listening will be at the heart of each lesson. We will play, improvise, and compose using a selection of these notes: C, D, E, F, G.
NUMBOTs – Every day 10 minutes
NumBots is an on-line programme to boost addition and subtraction skills. It is available on a range of devices, you can play online at Numbots Game or download the Numbots app. Playing little and often will significantly improve your child’s recall and understanding of number bonds and addition and subtraction facts. These are critical foundations in maths so we are excited by the impact Numbots will have. In order to get the best out of NumBots children should regularly play for short bursts of time over the week. Children will receive a golden ticket for accessing their Numbots for 15minutes or more each week.
If you have misplaced your log in details or are having trouble accessing the website, please email me to let me know.
READING – Every day 10 minutes
Please continue to enjoy your reading each day. Reading is fun and a great way to spend time together with your family, as well as developing our imaginations. Encourage your child to talk about what they have read and ask them a question or two about the book. This will help consolidate their comprehension work in school. Adults, please remember to record what your child reads at home in their reading record. We will count all entries in the reading diaries and award golden tickets to those who have read 20 times or more in a month.
Please send your child's reading book and reading record to school each day. We love to hear the children read in school and this will support us to promote reading throughout the day.
Our book change day is Thursday.
OXFORD OWL – One book a week
Oxford Owl is an e-book library to boost reading skills. Once your book has been read, there is a short, fun quiz to complete afterwards. Children will receive a golden ticket for every book they complete. Click on the link below to access Oxford Owl.
Oxford Owl for School and Home.
If you have misplaced your login details or are having trouble accessing the website, please email me to let me know.
As always, thank you for your continued support with your child’s learning.
Mrs Slack - Teacher
Mrs Jones and Mrs Westwood - LSA's