Welcome to Year 1B

St Francis Class - Miss Bannister

Summer 2024

Miss Bannister would like to welcome you back to our class page! 

Welcome back Year 1, I hope you have had a wonderful Easter holiday with your families and are excited for this new term back in school, our last term in Year 1!

Important Information:

Key Dates:

PE                              Monday (Outdoor)    Friday (Indoor)

Forest School             Tuesday (Outdoor) - children need own clothes and a spare pair of shoes in a bag each Tuesday. 

Home Learning and Book Bags

Book bags will be sent home with a new reading book and a reading for pleasure book every Wednesday. The Reading for Pleasure book is a book to share with the family and discuss together. It is a great opportunity to build a love of reading together. Please ensure book bags are brought in by the following Wednesday. Home learning projects will be set each half-term linked to pupils class learning. These should be completed throughout the half-term in learning log books. Home learning will be shared in class in the final week of the half-term, where the children will be able to celebrate their learning.

Water bottles

Water bottles should be brought into class on a Monday, these will be refill each morning. Pupils will have access to these throughout the day, they will be sent home a Friday for a wash and clean at home. 

Reading, Phonics and Spellings

Reading Eggs -  It is vital that your child reads regularly each night and has an opportunity to practice their comprehension skills in order to support their progress in reading. Children should be aiming to complete a step on their own reading map each week, this is identified by the lesson quiz and the end. Children may also use this platform to access an electronic library of books. There is a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction material for them to read for pleasure.

PE Days

Our PE days will be on a Monday and Friday.  Children should come into school wearing their PE kits on these days. 

Please ensure your child's name is in all items of clothing including their basic school uniform.

If your child's name is not on their items of clothing this makes it very difficult to locate lost items. 

If you are unsure of what your child needs for their PE kit please see our School uniform policy.

Curriculum Focus

Religion

This term we will be learning about Holidays and Holy days, specifically the feast of Pentecost. We will be learning about being sorry when we have made mistakes and how God helps us to make better choices. In our Sorry lessons we will discuss the sacrament of reconcilitation and that we have a choice – sometimes we choose well, and sometimes wrong but God will always forgive us if we ask for forgiveness. The final unit of this term is focused on Neighbours. The class will learn that everyone in the world is our neighbour and should be treated with dignity. We will discuss the things we can do to be kind to our neighbours and the world.  

Literacy 

In Literacy, we will continue to focus on letter formation, handwriting and sentence structure.  We will have lots of opportunities to practice using capital letters, finger spaces and full stops with independence. The children will practise these skills through a range of genres including retells, instructions and group work. We will be using texts to support our developing writing. These will include traditional tales and stories with predictable phrases.  

Maths 

This term, we will continue to practice our counting to 100 and beyond! We will challenge ourselves with multiplication and division and learn about fractions of both shapes and amounts. We will also be exploring position and direction in our geometry unit of learning. We will then move on to place value of numbers to 100, money and time. 

Science 

In Science, we will be learning all about animals including humans! We will be identifying different types of animals and how they are categorized, focus on words such as omnivore, herbivore, and carnivore! The children will have the opportunity to create their own animal habitat and discuss the importance of treating our planet better so that its a nice place for all animals to live.

Topic 

In Geography, we will be exploring the topic of 'The UK', learning about our capital cities and famous landmarks in the UK. The children will apply their knowledge of maps from Autumn terms unit on Our Local Area, but on larger scale of identifying the UK on different maps and discussing the different countries and capital cities of the UK. Children will expand their observation and reasoning skills through writing descriptive sentences and verbally explaining the different countries in the UK as well as the important geographic features in each country. At the end of the unit, the children will have a chance to create their own fact file on a country of their choice!  

In History we will be learning about 'The Victorians' looking at Queen Victoria and comparing her to Queen Elizabeth and our new King, King Charles. 

Home Learning 

Learning logs will be sent home on a Wednesday each week and must be returned to school by the following Wednesday. The children will then get the opportunity to share the work they have done with their peers and celebrate their home learning in class at the end of each half term. Weekly phonics learning will be sent home in books bag including sounds we have focused on this week and tricky words for children to practise at home. 

Reading 

Reading is an integral part of our school day. As well as a daily designated class reading time the children will access a wide range of texts throughout the day. They will have opportunities to read texts during shared teaching, as part of a small group and individually. Your child will read with an adult in school at least three times a week during a guided reading session.   

It is important that your child brings their reading book into school on Wednesdays so their books can be changed. Please encourage your child to read every day at home and make it a special time together.  

Please can you sign the reading record when you have read and discussed the book with your child. Children also need to complete the reading activities in the log book. The reading books will be changed every week. Remember little and often is the best way to develop a love for reading! 

Phonics 

We will be teaching phonics daily. The children will be learning new sounds and practising their blending and segmenting skills, which will support in their reading and writing. Towards the end of the second half term, the children will be given different spellings related to what the focus is in their group that week. The spellings will be sent home as part of their weekly homework and there will be a spelling test of these words the following week.  

For supporting any home learning relating to Phonics, Phonics Play is a fantastic website with lots of free games/resources.  

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/freeIndex.htm 

Reading Eggs 

www.reading eggs.co.uk 

Logins for Reading Eggs have been sent via ParentMail but there will be a slip of paper with your child's details for this website in their Learning Log books too.  

PSHE

Throughout the summer term we will be working through our module 'Created and loved by God'. Within this module we will cover four units, starting with religious understanding to support our learning of PSHE themes. We will then move onto the unit 'Me, My Body, My Health' before exploring the third unit 'Emotional Wellbeing'. We will finish the summer term looking at our final unit of 'Life Cycles'. For any further information please see the TenTen parent portal.