Year 1
Summer 1, 2025
Welcome back! We hope you had a lovely 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.
Please follow the link below to view information from the Key Stage 1 Reading Information Meeting.
Please follow the link below to view information from the Phonics Screening Check (PSC) Meeting.
We are continuing to 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 - Who were Sir George Cayley and Robert Blackburn?
Our theme this half term will focus on developing our historical knowledge, skills, and vocabulary. Through our study, we will learn who the Wright brothers were and why they were significant in history. We will extend our learning by looking at who Sir George Cayley and Robert Blackburn were and what they invented.
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 & Somebody Swallowed Stanley
Some of 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. We will further develop our learning by extending our writing passages into longer paragraphs.
Some of our writing this half term will be based on the book Somebody Swallowed Stanley by Sarah Roberts.
This is a wonderful book that follows the cycle of a mysteriously individual jellyfish-like creature named Stanley as he travels through the ocean. As he meets other sea creatures, differences between him and them start to become apparent, like his two handles and colourful stripes. Various creatures swallow Stanley as he tenaciously continues on his journey until he is found by a human, on the shore, who chooses to put Stanley to much better use. A fun and brightly illustrated picture book with a clear message that plastic does not belong in the sea.
We will engage in a variety of writing opportunities, including writing a non-fiction fact file about sea animals.
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 50 to 100 and beyond, addition and subtraction beyond 20 and money.
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 Summer 1. By the end of this half term, children should tell the time to the nearest hour and half past the hour.
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 Time Game to support children with their instant recall facts.
R.E. – Judaism - Shabbat - Is Shabbat important to Jewish children?
In RE, we will study Judaism and explore the question 'Is Shabbat important to Jewish children?' We will learn to learning to empathise with Jewish children by understanding what they do during Shabbat and why it is important to them.
Science – Identifying plants and their parts
In our learning we will learn:
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What wild and garden plants can we find around our school?
Wild and garden plants can be found around the school and locality, including flowering plants, and these can be identified and named.
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What parts of a plant grow above the ground?
The names of the parts of a flowering plant that grow above the ground are the stem, leaf, and flower.
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What part of a plant grows under the ground?
Roots grow under the ground and different plants have different roots.
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Why are trees plants?
Trees are plants which have roots, stems, leaves and most have flowers. There are differences between deciduous and evergreen trees.
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What are the similarities and differences between plants that have flowers?
There are similarities and differences between flowering plants.
Seasonal Changes
In our learning we will learn to:
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observe birds that visit our bird feeder
Art – Sculpture - Sir Christopher Wren
In our lessons, our learning will learn what a sculpture is and who Sir Christopher Wren was. We will develop our learning by looking at different types of Tudor houses. We will design our own Tudor house and have a go at making it. Finally, we will evaluate our final masterpiece, saying what we like about our sculpture.
Computing – Animated Story Books
In our computing lessons this half term, we will learn:
• To introduce e-books and the 2Create a Story tool
• To add animation to a story
• To add sound to a story, including voice recording and music the children have composed
• To work on a more complex story, including adding backgrounds and copying and pasting pages
• To share e-books on a class display board
P.E. – Athletics
In PE, our focus is Athletics. In our learning, we will explore focus on developing fundamental skills in running, jumping, and throwing. We will understand when to vary our pace and direction while running, jump for height and distance, and throw for accuracy, as well as developing our skills of teamwork and cooperation.
Our PE day is Tuesday. Please ensure that your child brings their correct (named) P.E. kit to school on that day to change into after lunch. For health and safety reasons, please can children remove jewellery on PE day or provide plasters to cover earrings if this is not possible and ensure long hair is tied back away from the face.
P.S.H.E. - Engage/ Economic Education
Engage - We will learn what engage means and what types of things we can engage in. We will understand that when we engage in something and feel happy, we can do the activity better. We will develop our learning to know that we can set goals; sometimes these can be to do with learning, and other times they are to do with a hobby. We will learn that setting goals and achieving them can make Team H-A-P happy too, and that just because we can't do something straight away, it doesn't mean we won't be able to in the future.
Economic Education - This unit encourages children to think about where money comes from and how it can be used. We will discuss the idea of spending and saving money and begin to understand why it is important to keep belongings, including money, safe. We will also learn about the different things on offer when we go shopping and how we need to identify the difference between the things we want and the things we need.
Music - Having fun with improvisation
Our music theme is having fun with improvisation. We will learn that improvising is fun! It’s an exciting activity where everyone is creating something new. It can be a melody or a rhythm. When we improvise, we can do it on our own or in groups.
We will:
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Find and keep a steady beat
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Keep a steady beat when improvising
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Listen carefully and copy back the actions
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Play or clap simple rhythmic patterns using long and short sounds
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Clap three-beat rhythms, creating long and short sounds. Respond to the questions, thinking about the music
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Respond to different high and low pitches. Improvise using one, two or three notes, using C, D and E
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Enjoy some ‘Did You Know?’ facts about the song
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 log in 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 Barnes - LSA's