Welcome to Year 1

Spring term 24

Parent Notices

PE

Autumn term PE will take place on Tuesdays and Wednesday. Please ensure your child comes into school wearing their full PE kit. Please also ensure your child's earrings are removed specifically for PE days. Earrings worn, which can not be to be removed by the child, will result in a missed PE session.

Reading at Home

Reading books will be changed on a Monday each week. When reading with your child, it is important to ask your child questions about what they have read to further develop their understanding of the text.

Reading At Home Raffle

The biggest impact parents can have on learning at school is reading with your children as regularly as possible at home. Home school books, books from the library, magazines, cereal boxes all count as home reading. To encourage the children to read as much as possible at home, EYFS and KS1 are continuing with a weekly reading raffle. We would like all Lawford children to read at least 4 times per week at home and for this to be recorded in their home planners. There is no need for lengthy comments after each read, just a simple: Book title, page number and adult’s name would work brilliantly each day. Every child who has read at least 4 times, and it is noted in their planners, will receive a raffle token on a Monday (to ensure weekend reads are included too). Each Monday, in each class, one raffle token will be pulled out of a hat and that child will win a reading prize.

Homework

Every weeks, the children will be set a handwriting task on Friday.  Teachers will give feedback on each child's progress.   We have also decided to introduce a new homework dojo for brilliant pieces of work. Children will not necessarily receive a dojo for each piece of homework submitted, but they will for brilliant effort and for going above and beyond. 

In addition to the handwritng homework, we would also like to encourage the Year 1 children to complete their Numbots tasks weekly.

Our Learning for the Summer Term:

Science- Growing Plants

In this term we will be learning about plants, and will learn to name the basic parts of a plant, including seeds. We will have the opportunity to plant their own seeds and to make observations of how they grow over time. We will also learn to identify, name and describe a variety of garden and wild plants as well as evergreen and deciduous trees. Through observations and experimentation the children will use all of their knowledge gained throughout the topic to identify, compare and classify plants.

Geography- Our enquiry question is- 'What is the Weather like in the UK?'

This topic will involve fieldwork on the school grounds where the children will observe and describe daily weather patterns. They will be able to explain what the weather is like during each season in the UK and suggest appropriate clothing and activities for each season.

Key concepts to explore:

Identity, fairness, change, care, power and conflict

Autumn Term-

Our Enquiry Question this term is...

‘How have schools changed since the Victorian times?’

To answer this question, we will be using lots of different skills.

The key concepts underpinning our learning will be:

Identity- understanding the experiences of other individuals as well as ourselves.

Change – identifying how different aspects of life have changed over time.

Fairness – looking at the different rules we have to live by in schools and how this compares to the Victorian times.

Care – how we can care for our school environment.

We will explore our local area to see where we live and where we live. We will explore toys old and new in our Science lessons and find out about the childhoods of our parents and grandparents in history lessons. We will look further back in history to the Victorian era to compare the contrast to our modern day school.

As part of our Talk for Writing unit we have been exploring the text 'Little Rabbit Foo Foo.'

Summer Term

Our key question this term is... Who do we share the world with?

We will begin by exploring and learning to identify and name a variety of common animals including, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals through cross curricular learning, investigations and questioning.

We will be using a variety of both fiction and non-fiction books based on animals and their habitats, including such titles as, 'Handa's Surprise,' 'Dear Green Peace,' 'Superworm,' and 'The Greatest Pet Shop.'

We will then look at how we can take care for our world by following David Attenborough and his research on the impact of humans on the natural world. We will discover how we can live in harmony with other species and preserve animal habitats for future generations.

The key concepts that we will explore are 

 Community, Responsibility and Change

Practising our skills of logging in, selecting the correct programme and mouse control.

We have heard strange noises coming from the Forest School area so we went to investigate. We couldn't believe what we found... an enormous egg!

We decided to look for further clues to help us work out what type of egg it was. We think it might belong to a dragon!

We had an amazing day learning about stepping back in time at Mountfitchet Castle. We learnt what different jobs took place in and around the castle, how people kept warm, made clothes, armour and weapons, and kept animals for food.