Year 1

Welcome to Year 1

For a copy of the Phonics Screening Test presentation (7th October 2024) please click here.

If you have any questions for the Year 1 class teachers please send an email to the address found below and include which member of staff it is for as the subject.

Email: year1@nppa.shirelandcat.net 

For a copy of the Meet the Teacher evening for 2024-25 please click here.

Phonics

At Newfield, we believe that high quality, discreet systematic synthetic phonics lessons are essential to the development of early reading and spelling. We base our phonics lessons on the Little Wandle Phonics programme but have adapted it to suit our needs at Newfield.  We assess the children’s phonic knowledge at least termly and this assessment is used to identify children who need a ‘catch up’ intervention. Home and guided reading books for Reception and Year One children will be phonic based texts, based upon the child’s phonic ability. Children will not access book banded books until Year Two. Children who have not passed the Phonics Screening Check in Year 2 will also take home phonics banded books to ensure they are continuing to improve on their phonics understanding.

For more information on phonics in Year 1, please click here.

Maths

All children will be exposed to Maths every day through a range of practical and real life activities. The children will continue to work on their number recognition and counting. This half term we will continue to work on counting, ordering and understanding the place value of numbers 1 to 100. We will spend some time revising and extending our addition and subtraction.

Science

In Science the children will be given the opportunity to explore and find out. They will carry out investigations and learn how to use simple scientific equipment.

Our topics this year include, animals, our senses, plants, seasons and materials.

PE

By the end of the year the children in Year 1 will have PE twice a week. We still asking children to come to school in their PE kit on the days they have PE.

To begin with we will have 1 lesson a week, like the children did in Reception. We will learn how to keep safe when we work indoors and outdoors and the children will learn lots of different skills to play team games. In dance they will choreograph routines and move and respond to different types of music.

Please make sure they have appropriate items for their kit and for the weather conditions.

PE will be on Wednesday and Friday.

Extra Information

Please make sure all items of clothing are labelled with your child’s name.

Children can bring a bottle with their name on it to drink from throughout the day but we ask that this is only filled with water and not juice or squash. They can refill their bottle in school but we are advising children to take their bottle home every night so it can be cleaned.

At break time your child will be offered fruit as a snack but if they would like they can bring in their own piece of fruit or healthy alternative.

Please be aware that we are a nut free school. We have children in school with severe allergies so we kindly ask that parents check ingredients of food items that are brought into school.

Reading and Reading Books

All children in Year 1 take part in daily phonics lessons to support their developing reading abilities. Children in Year 1 read at least once a week to an adult in school.

We welcome comments from parent(s)/ carers about reading that takes place at home. Please try to let us know any challenges, parts you have enjoyed or things you have talked about together.

We are encouraging books taken home to be read and reread. This will help the children gain fluency. Please keep talking about what is being read and encourage children to comprehend the story or information in the book. We are asking that books are not brought to school to be replaced daily. We are moving to changing reading books once a week to ensure the children have the opportunity for repeated reading and lots of discussion.

We have a reading reward system in place at school. The children can earn certificates and stickers for the number of entries in their reading records. Our first award is for 20 reads.

Contact

We kindly ask that if there are any questions, concerns or other messages that these be sent to our email: year1@nppa.shirelandcat.net. We will attempt to answer messages as soon as we can, thank you.

Half termly Curriculum Newsletters will provide you with more detail about the topics and learning that your child will be doing each half term.

Home Learning

Should your child need to work at home ,please access the documents below for work that your children can complete at home.

• Year 1 Home Learning Ideas
• Year-1-home-learning-pack
• Year-1-practical-ideas