Year One 2024 - 2025
September 2024
Dear parents & carers,
WELCOME TO YEAR ONE!!!
Ms. Sargent and I are absolutely delighted to be teaching your beautiful children this year!! They have settled in excellently and are eager and willing to learn!! Praise God!!
We have sent your child home with a reading pack containing a phonics reading book and a ‘bookbag’ book to enjoy alongside it. Reading is a NON-NEGOTIABLE. We use these books for our daily English lessons and the children will have them for as long as it takes for us to complete the work assigned to these books during the week. Please take the time to read with your child every day as this will be the key to their success in reading and writing. Also read other books/stories to them for enjoyment from maybe the library or the internet etc. When you read with them ask them questions about the story because their understanding of what is happening is crucial to their development and progression. It’s not about just being able to read the words. It’s about reading with understanding. Make their reading experience enriching by making it as fun as possible. Be creative! You may want to make something together based upon the story and bring it in to show us!! Every time you read with your child please sign and write a comment in their reading record. This will be the evidence of how often your child is reading at home. I will be checking reading records regularly. Like I said it is a non-negotiable.
Your child’s written homework will be to write a few sentences based upon vocabulary in some of our other subjects and Maths homework will be to learn their 2, 5 and 10 times tables by heart. Once they know the 2 times tables they can come to me for a reward before they learn the other times tables. I have also included logins and passwords for two excellent Maths websites that the children can log into. This will make their learning so much fun as there are a lot of games and online worksheets to complete. However, homework is non-compulsory. Your children work very hard at school and the last thing I want is for this to be a laborious chore for them. Learning should be fun, not a chore!
Here is a little information about the school day.
- PE is on Wednesdays and Fridays. Please could you ensure that your child is wearing his/her P.E. kit on those days.
- Reading Packs are to be brought to school EVERY DAY!
- Please look after the books we send home and don’t lose them. They are very expensive and we use them daily in our lessons.
- Ensure that your child is on the school playground for 8.55am when the bell goes. We need to quickly register them in time to begin ‘Storytime’ at 9.10am before our ‘Read, Write, Inc,’ English lesson begins.
- If your child is having school meals and you pre-order, could you discuss with your child which meal option, he/she would like when you are making your choices. Very often parents choose for their children and they don’t like what has been chosen for them. Your children work very hard all morning and look forward to eating something they like at lunchtime!
- A BIG THANK YOU to all of you who have sent your child into school with a water bottle. If you haven’t yet sent one in PLEASE could you do so. It means that they have access to their own drink at breaktimes and are not constantly coming into the classroom.
I hope I have not bombarded you with too much information!! I will be updating you with new information as we go along. If you would like to ask us anything please do!! Our door is always open!!!
We are really looking forward to the year ahead! Please step on board and journey with us as we help your children to achieve their personal best!!
Kindest regards,
Maria Hackman – Year 1 teacher
Clare Sargent – Year 1 teaching assistant
Useful Websites
These websites will help us with our work throughout the year.