Year 1

*WELCOME TO YEAR 1*

We are all looking forward to sharing this year with you; having fun playing, exploring and learning together, helping you to be the best YOU that you can possibly be.

*Seesaw*

Share our learning journey with us, this year, through our digital online portfolio; Seesaw. It is a great way to see what the children have been experiencing in school. 

*Our Six Key Learning Skills*

This year we are working to reintroduce and remind the children of our Six Key Learning Skills, our core values that we want to underpin the children's learning journey in school. These are resilience, respect, independence, confidence, co-operation and enthusiasm. This half term we are focusing on confidence.

It would be great if you could reinforce this at home.

*Phonics Screening*

In June the children will undertake the Phonics Screening Check. It is a statutory reading check designed to assess if the children have reached the age appropriate standard of decoding by the end of Year 1. The check consists of 40 words; 20 nonsense words and 20 real words. The words gradually get more difficult; from simple sounds to more complex sounds and longer words. Phonics is part of our everyday teaching and learning and the children will have worked on similar activities throughout the school year so this will be familiar to them. To support your child at home please practise their sound recognition with them using their little yellow Speed Sounds book which they brought home with them in the Autumn term. We know many children keep them in their book bag to take out at home and school to practise. If you scroll down and click our Phonics icon, you will be able to view and use some activities to support at home. Some of these activities will also be shared on Seesaw.

*Curriculum*

In the subject icons below, you will find links to videos, games, activities and resources that may be useful for supporting your learning at home. This includes Phonics, Reading, Writing, Maths and Let's Explore. Let's Explore is what we call our wider curriculum provision. Children have inputs and adult directed tasks over the week that link to our topics. When not working in adult directed group tasks, the children are engaged in continuous and enhanced provision. This is a more play based and exploratory curriculum where children can lead their own learning, according to their interests. Much like Reception the children have a home corner and opportunities for role play, they have areas for small world play, construction, art and much more. Activities are often built into the different areas around the classroom that again link to our topic learning.

Further down the page you will find more information regarding our wider curriculum.

Please remember to wear PE kit to school on Wednesdays.

Year 1 Team

Miss Chappell

Mrs Galloway

Mrs Saunders

Miss Emmerson

Mrs Edgar

Miss Joliffe

Mrs Gill

*Our New Curriculum*

As of October 2021,we have begun to use 'Cornerstones' curriculum throughout the school so that we can ensure a solid progressions of skills and knowledge acquisition in the foundation subjects, Science and English particularly.

What is the Cornerstones Curriculum? 

The Cornerstones Curriculum is a creative and thematic approach to learning that is mapped to the 2014 primary national curriculum to ensure comprehensive coverage of national expectations. It is based on a child-centred pedagogy called The Four Cornerstones and is delivered through Imaginative Learning Projects (ILPs) and Knowledge Rich Projects (KRPs), which provide a rich menu of exciting and motivating learning activities that make creative links between all aspects of children’s learning. We believe children learn better when they are encouraged to use their imagination and apply their learning to engaging contexts. Our curriculum provides many learning challenges throughout the academic year that require children to solve problems, apply themselves creatively and express their knowledge and understanding effectively. Cornerstones also provide a rigorous skills and knowledge framework that outlines the end of year expectations in all subjects. These skills and knowledge are tied to activities and are age-related .