Summer Term 2023

We've had a lovely start to the Summer Term, releasing the butterflies that we had looked after as caterpillars during the Spring Term. We have now moved onto earthworms, and they are making themselves at home in the classroom wormery. Already, both teachers and children have learned a lot about worms that they didn't know before.

Our theme this term is 'Lights, Camera, Action' and an outline of our planning is given below:

Show and Tell Rota - Summer

Some of the children may have moved groups this term. If you are unsure of your child's group then please ask us.

Show and Tell Rota - Spring

Parents Evening

Thank you for attending parents evening this week. It was lovely to speak to you all. I have added below a Sound Mat which shows the sounds we have been working on over the past few weeks. If your child isn't secure with the sounds then please practise reading them and using them in writing when you get chance. 

If you scroll down our Class Page to the sections on reading and handwriting you will see I have added the next list of High Frequency Words for those who wanted it. You will also see ideas to support you if you are practising reading and writing with your child. It doesn't always need to involve a pen and paper!

Lastly I have included a list of letter families which shows the handwriting font which we will begin to learn soon.

Spring Term 2023

Welcome back to school after our winter break.

What a busy start to the new term - a trip to the beach in Week 2! We had a glorious day, partly because the weather was very kind to us. Today we talked about our visit and the children agreed that we learnt a lot about rockpooling that we hadn't known before. We are much better placed now to look after this coastal habitat and explore it without hurting the creatures that live in it.

PE

Class 1 PE slots will be changing from next week, 24th October. 

Indoor PE will be on Tuesdays

Outdoor PE will be on Thursdays

Please send your child to school dressed in their PE kit on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Thank you 

Show and Tell

We will be starting Show and Tell sessions this week. A different group will present each week to give them enough time to talk and to answer questions. If your child does not wish to bring anything in they will be given the chance to speak about something if they wish. 

A timetable for the groups and further information is given in the link below.

Welcome to Class 1!

A big, warm welcome to Class 1.

Everybody has settled well back into the school routines and it has been really nice getting to know them and hearing all their news about what they did during the summer holidays.

The teachers in Class 1 are Mrs Le Breton and Mrs Rees. Mrs Rees is on a phased return to school during the Autumn Term so as her teaching hours increase Mrs Le Breton's hours will decrease. Also supporting the children in class are Mr Snell, Mrs Evans (Monday and Tuesday) and Mrs Dow (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday). Every other Friday the class will be taken by Mrs Stone.

Please bear with us over the next few weeks as we get to know you and to recognise who belongs to who at hometime. It is always helpful if you give a big wave when your child appears at the door!

Information for the start of term

Our theme this term is 'Cynefin'. This is a Welsh word for a place where a being feels it ought to live. It's where nature around you feels right and welcoming. So we will be learning all about the villages where we live. If you see us out and about investigating our local area, don't forget to give us a wave. We will tell you more about our planning on this page shortly.

PE will be on Tuesdays (indoor) and Wednesdays (outdoor). Please could you send your child to school wearing their PE kit on those days (trainers, shorts/joggers and the blue school polo shirt). Please also make sure long hair is tied up and any earrings are removed.

Please make sure your child has a bottle of water in school each day and a snack of fruit or vegetables. They should also have a coat every day in case we work/play outside. To avoid items going missing please label everything clearly.

We will be reading in school initially but in a few weeks time books from our reading scheme will come home for additional practise. Please continue to share other favourite books with your child to help build their enjoyment of stories and to follow their own interests.

Any homework tasks will be posted onto this webpage

Many thanks

Mrs Le Breton

Mrs Rees

Big Maths

The purpose of the Big Maths Learn Its is to learn 'off by heart' some key number facts or calculations. This will make the children's maths much easier as they progress through school as it will relieve the load on their memory when doing more involved maths problems. They need to be able to answer the calculation read out to them, but also seeing them written down.

You will see that for the Reception test they only have 20 seconds in which to answer, for Year 1 they have 30 seconds.

For this reason it would be a good idea if you could practise number formation with your child at home so that it becomes automatic. In contrast to our letters, all the numbers are formed starting at the top!

I always give additional time in class for the children to finish their test so that they can show off their maths skills and have the satisfaction of being able to get more calculations right.

Reading

I thought it might therefore be useful to give you a brief overview about how children develop their reading skills at this early stage. Where possible we teach children to learn letter sounds and words in a multi sensory way - that means we look at the sound, say it and make it (or write it), all in the same session

1. Learning Letter Sounds

Your child needs to see a letter and be able to say the sound it represents (a, b, c rather than 'ay' 'bee' 'see'). At the same time they should begin learning how to write those letters using the correct formation.

We teach the letters of the alphabet in the following order: s a t p i n m d g o c k e u r h b j v w x y z qu

This is so they can start to learn to blend sounds together to read simple words as soon as possible.

We then practise hearing where sounds are in words - at the beginning, in the middle or at the end.

2. Blending

When looking at words we teach children how to 'sound out' and blend sounds together to say the whole word.

3. Digraphs

As well as learning individual letter sounds, the children learn to read and write digraphs (when 2 letters make 1 sound) e.g. sh, ch, th and oo, ee, ai. Again they will learn to recognise these and use them when sounding out or blending sounds to read whole words.

4. High frequency words

At the same time as the above three steps we start to teach automatic recognition of words which appear frequently when we are reading and writing. Sometimes these words can be sounded out e.g. mum, dad, and, sometimes they are tricky words which can't be sounded out e.g. the, was, me. They are important to learn by sight, automatically, as they will help children to become fluent readers and will give confidence when reading. It's very hard for the child to process what they are reading if they are having to sound every word out.

5. Fluency and comprehension

Once the children are confident in their reading and reading more words we can begin to work on fluency, using punctuation and expression, talking about vocabulary and understanding what they are reading.

Handwriting

In Year 1 we start to teach cursive handwriting. We start initially with the 'flicks' in and out of letters and then move onto joining letters when the children are ready. We teach the letters in letter families - letters which share a similar pattern of writing. Below are the letter families