Welcome back to the Summer term!  

We hope you had a lovely Easter holidays and are looking forward to the term ahead. 

Our learning this term 

Over the Summer term we will be continuing to learn a variety of exciting things and continue our Year One journey. We have a very busy term ahead of us! 

Over the Summer term, our theme is called ‘Many Worlds, One Planet’ which is a geography-based theme. In Year One, we will focus on the United Kingdom and learn lots. We will look at natural and man-made features. It really is fascinating!

Our science work this term continues with our topic ‘Who am I?’ which we started before Easter. We continue to learn about the body and our senses.  After this, our topic is ‘Celebrations’ where we explore materials and their properties. We also learn lots about light.

In our English lessons we will be looking at a range of writing genres including fiction and non-fiction. The children will continue to focus on learning to spell a range of words containing sounds they have been taught and also high frequency words for Year One. They will be learning to form the letters of the alphabet in lower case and capitals. They will also be learning to punctuate sentences using capital letters, full stops, exclamation marks and question marks. We will be using a range of stories and texts as a basis for the writing, which we will enjoy reading together as a class for inspiration.

In Maths this term, we will be focusing on place value involving numbers to 100, multiplication, division and fractions. To help the children in their learning, they will be using different practical resources and practise representing numbers in different ways. We will also spend time learning about money and time. We will continue to practise addition and subtraction involving numbers to 20 each lesson. 

Reading  

Reading is such an important part of children’s learning. In Year One there is an expectation that children will read at home, with an adult, daily. Please ensure that you note what has been read in your child’s reading diaries and send these to school every day. A member of the team will check reading diaries regularly and praise the children for reading at home. We also have a ‘Reader of the week’ award.  

An adult from the Year One team will endeavour to read with your child regularly in school on an individual basis. They will take part in guided reading at least once a week.

Phonics 

There is a substantial body of evidence which demonstrates that systematic synthetic phonics is the most effective method for teaching all children to read. Phonics teaches children how to recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes, identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make, and blend these sounds together to make a word. Children can then use this knowledge to decode new words that they see. We use ‘Twinkl Phonics’ to plan our phonics across Year One and supplement it with other resources also. 

During Year One children will be learning Phase 5 phonics. This means that they will be learning to read and write longer words, and will begin to learn the different ways phonemes can be spelt. For example, they will learn that 'ai' can also be written as 'ay' and 'a_e'. Towards the end of the year they will begin to move into Phase 6 phonics. 

Children in Year One will take part in the Phonics Screening Check in June which is a statutory check from the government. The check comprises of 40 words - 20 of which are real words, and 20 are non-words. 

You can help your child to practise the skills involved in this check by helping them to segment (sound out) and blend those sounds to read each word. If you have any questions please do come and ask Mrs Dalton/ Mrs Curtis. There will be a parents' information session closer to the time. 

PE 

On PE days children are to come ready in their PE kits, Year One's PE day is on Wednesdays. We will also be walking, jogging and running every day to complete a daily mile. 

Homework 

Our main homework, in Year One, is daily reading (as mentioned above). 

The Friday Messenger contains an optional weekly homework task.  

We will send home weekly phonics homework.  

If you would like your child to take part in further learning out of school, the websites below may be helpful.  

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/5-7-years/words-and-spelling 

https://ictgames.com/littleBirdSpelling/ 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zjxhfg8/year/zjpqqp3 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zgkw2hv/year/zjpqqp3 

 

We may send ‘Homework packs’ in school holidays which are optional. 

 

General Information 

Please ensure that every item of your child’s clothing is named - this makes it so much easier to keep uniform safe and find it if it does go missing.  

There will always be a member of the Year One team to greet the children/ parents in the morning. We may have a few minutes to chat at this time. If this is not the case however, we will always make time for you, please call the office/ arrange a time to speak further with us in the morning.  

We look forward to a busy term, thank you for your continued support!  

The Year One Team