Year 1 2024 - 2025

Welcome to Year 1

Spring Term 2025

Meet the Year 1 team:

1B - Mr Briscoe, Miss McCobb, Miss Enlish and Miss Appleton

1W - Mrs Wolfenden and Miss Netscher

What are we learning about this term?

We are ready for a busy, exciting term. We have a range of great stories and topics for the children to explore in our lessons and our continuous provision activities. 

Religious Education

Our focus will be on stories about Jesus, such as ‘The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple’ and ‘Zacchaeus Meeting Jesus’. We will be listening to these stories and exploring what they mean to us. Through creative activities such as arts and crafts we will explore some of the themes from these stories. We will then reflect how we can live out this learning in our daily lives. 

English

The first book we will read this term is Here We Are by Oliver Jeffers. This beautifully illustrated book is full of ‘notes for living on planet Earth’. We will be using this text to explore and explain all about our planet and its inhabitants as tour guides for an alien! We will explore our school and local area writing notes, making films, and presenting lots of facts about our wonderful home Earth.

We will then look at the fabulous book by Oliver Jeffers called ‘The Great Paper Caper’. The children will enjoy revealing the mystery in this fun book with a great character. We will make comparisons between these two books by the same wonderful Author. 

Phonics

Children will continue to follow the Read, Write, Inc scheme for phonics. We will continue to track the children closely and will assess them each half term.

Maths

The children will learn to add and subtract one-digit and two-digit numbers to 20, including zero. They will also begin to solve one-step problems involving multiplication and division, by calculating the answer using concrete objects, pictorial representations, and arrays with the support of the teacher. We will continue to learn the names of common 2D and 3D shapes and about their properties. We will use our knowledge of shape, length, and height to help construct a rocket for our visiting alien (see English)!

Science

This term we will be learning about everyday materials. We will learn to identify and name a variety of everyday materials including wood, metal, plastic, fabric, glass paper and rock. The children will be shown how to distinguish between an object and the material from which it is made. They will also be learning to describe the simple physical properties of the materials listed above. 

PE

In outdoor PE we will focus on different ways to travel including running, jumping and dodging. All of our sessions are games based and a lot of fun! In our indoor PE sessions, we will learn a variety of yoga poses. Each session will be based on an exciting theme such as snowy weather, dinosaurs or a story character. 

Geography

Our topic this half term is Capital Cities and Countries in the UK. The children will be learning to locate and identify characteristics of the four countries and capital cities of the United Kingdom and its surrounding seas.

The children will be introduced on how to use an atlas to name and locate on a map the four countries and capital cities of the United Kingdom. 

We will talk about a human environment, such as the local area or a UK city, naming some features. We will use world maps to identify the UK in its position in the world. We will use Google Earth and giant maxi maps to enhance our learning, taking a tour of our wonderful world!

Art                          

This term the focus will be painting to create patterns, textures and shapes. The children will learn all about primary and secondary colours and techniques such as pressing, rolling, and rubbing. 

History

Our topic explores the wonderful world of transport. We will learn all about buses, trains and cars and how they have changed over time. We will continue to develop our understanding of simple chronology. 

Design and technology

Our cooking and nutrition topic is all about sandwich fillings. We will learn about what makes a healthy and varied diet and develop our skills in cutting, slicing and grating. To finish our topic we will design, make and then taste a delicious, healthy sandwich.

Computing

This term computing will focus on moving a robot! The children will have great fun experimenting with bee-bot robots learning to input commands such as turn and move. They will learn vocabulary such as command and sequence, algorithm, and debug. 

You, Me, Everyone

Our topics this term will focus on recognising special people in our lives, treating others well and saying sorry. The children will learn through class discussions, partner work and role play. They will also learn about how they are special and kept safe within their own family. 

Music

In the second half term we will learn about musical vocabulary through our theme ‘Under the Sea’! The children will become familiar with the terms pulse, tempo, timbre, pitch, and rhythm. They will learn to respond to dynamic changes in a piece of music. 

Important!

Daily Reading – It’s really important that you read every night for at least 10 minutes. Children will bring home their book bags with a reading for pleasure book on a Monday on this should be returned on a Thursday. This is a book that could be read to your child at bedtime or something they could share with you by telling you the story through the pictures. Book bags will also go home on a Thursday with 2 phonics books. These should be returned no later than the following Monday. The books will be matched to your child’s reading level and will help them consolidate the sounds and tricky (red) words learnt that week. It will help your child to read these books more than once to help improve reading speed and expression.

*Please can you sign your child’s reading record to show they have read when book bags are returned on a Monday and Wednesday*

Things to remember:

• Children should come to school in their PE kits on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. We aim to do outdoor lessons on Tuesdays and indoor on Wednesdays.
• We aim to go outside every day for breaktimes plus our PE lessons and other activities. Please make sure your child brings a waterproof coat every day.
• Please send a fresh bottle of water labelled with the child’s name (not juice, squash or energy drinks) in each day.
• The children are offered a fruit snack every morning break time.
• Please ensure that all jumpers, hats, coats etc are clearly labelled with your child’s name.
• Children are not to bring in items from home (such as pencil cases, footballs, small toys etc).
• If you need to speak with your child's teacher, please approach us on the playground and we can arrange a time. We would ask that you kindly wait until we have seen all of the children safely to their parent or carer before speaking to your teacher and we will be happy to chat. Alternatively, you may wish to ring the school office.
• Please remember to return book bags and books frequently.