Year One 2020 - 2021

Welcome to Year One

Miss McIver and Miss Rowe

Dear Parents and Carers,

PE days – Tuesday and Friday – please come in PE kit

Please send your child’s reading pack in everyday.

Birthdays – please just send a cake in a box for us to distribute with no party bags.

Welcome back to everyone in Year One. It is lovely that we are now all able to come back together as a class into school. I know it has been a difficult few months but am looking forward to working with you and your child in the coming year. We have planned lots of great activities for them to carry out to help them settle back into the school routines and to discuss how we are feeling through games, pictures, stories and discussions. We are excited to continue with the development of your child in their learning and to practise our skills in all curriculum areas.

The children in Year One will develop their learning through a range of activities and also have opportunities to develop key skills through free learning in our Year One garden. They will be set regular challenges to meet the objectives within lessons. This is to enhance their skills and build upon their independence whilst transitioning into Key Stage One.

In Year One we thrive upon the great behaviour of children and their eagerness to develop in learning, their caring attitudes to each other and ways in which we can all help each other to be a big class family. Each day we celebrate two children who have been a star of the day and at the end of each week we have a star of the week and superstar learner. These are great ways to celebrate the efforts and achievements of your child.

Our school is made up of four houses which are the names of four great saints who are an inspiration to us and helped many people in their lives. Your child will be placed in a house and will earn house points for good work, behaviour, and being caring towards others. Each week as a school we count up the number of house points and celebrate the winning house. At the end of each term the winning house has a surprise celebration. The four houses are:

Don Bosco (red)
Joseph (yellow)
Martin (green)
Therese (blue

Reading everyday is really important for your child to help them to develop their reading and phonics skills. We have the reading challenge which goes throughout the school to encourage you and your child to read each day and at the end of each half term a golden ticket is given. Please sign your name in your child’s record as they will be checked each week.

Children in year one will take their Phonics screening test in mid-June and we are grateful for the support you will give your child to help the to practise and achieve to the best of their potential. It is important for your child to practise their sounds at home, and to recognise sounds in words and sentences. The children will be asked to read a series of real and alien words to test their ability to decode, using segmenting and blending with sounds they know and are learning. As they develop in their reading they will no longer need to decode each word and this will help their reading to flow. Here are some links to useful sites to help your child to practise these skills:

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

http://www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/3-5years/letters-and-sounds

http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/

In our Maths and English we will follow the year one curriculum objectives. It would be really helpful for you to practise counting with your child forwards and backwards up to 20/30 in 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s. Also for you to practise writing as much as you can at home using different genres. Encourage your child to write sentences about a story, lists, instructions, etc. This will help them in using their phonics to write words and sentences. Help them to re-read what has been written to check if it makes sense.

As a Catholic school we have a great emphasis on how we develop the faith of children through our religion lessons. Here the children will learn through discussions, passages from the Bible and activities how they can place Jesus at the heart of all we do and to show love to one another. Our first topic is learning all about our families and how God loves and cares for everyone.

The school Praise and Worship sessions help children to develop their faith and to reflect upon a Gospel passage and worship songs. These help us to be closer to God and to ask the Holy Spirit to continue to guide and bless us in all that we do

In our Science we will be beginning by looking at our senses and our bodies and how we use our senses in the different environments. We will hopefully get to go out and utilise our forest school on our senses hunts and walks.

Our topic for this half term is Changes within our living memory. We will be making lots of comparisons between what the world is like today and what it was like in the past. It will be helpful if you can talk to your child about changes which have happened and if you have pictures to share from you growing up or their grandparents to look at the differences.

We are looking forward to continuing an excellent working partnership with parents and encourage you to discuss any concerns with us. For the present time, you will be able to bring your child into the playground but not into the school building. The children in year one will enter and leave through gate number two. If you do wish to speak with us please allow us to dismiss the other children safely.

As we look forward to the new term we remember our Mission Statement and we place ‘The Gospel and the love of Christ at the heart of all we do’.

We thank you for all your support and look forward to a great year in year one.

Miss McIver and Miss Rowe

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

We will enter and leave through gate number two. The start time for year one is 8.55am and it is really important that you are on time due to the staggered starts of the classes. The children will then stand on the line before going into school.
At this time to help children to remain safe we will be washing our hands throughout the day. You can help by reminding them to wash their hands counting to 20 or singing happy birthday twice.
We finish at 3pm and we will come out the same way which we go in. Please pick your child up promptly and ask at this time that it is just one parent who collects your child to help with social distancing. If someone else is collecting your child please inform us in the morning or call the school office and give a password to safeguard your child.
If you would like your child to have milk please make a payment through Parent Pay each half term.
Our PE days are Tuesdays and Fridays. At this time, we ask that your child comes dressed in PE clothes with their school jumper on top with trainers or appropriate sports shoes.
We will celebrate birthdays in our class. We ask that you please send in a cake still in its box for us to distribute. Please do not send in party bags.

Curriculum Overview

Over the Year we will be delivering the following curriculum in Year One:

Year 2019 - 2020 – Year One Overview

	Topic Including History, Geography, Art and Design	Computing	R.E	Music	P.E	Science
Autumn 1	Great Fire of London	We are treasure hunters	Families – God’s love and care for every family	Vocal training Singing songs and chants December – Learning Christmas songs and dances	Agility, Balance and Co-ordination Games	Human Body Senses – Me, myself and I
Autumn 2	Great Fire of London	We are TV chefs	Belonging – Baptism – an invitation to belong to God’s family Waiting – Advent -		Agility, Balance and Co-ordination Attacking	Animals Amphibians, mammals, insects and fish Classifying and sorting
Spring 1	Our School Area Weather	We are painters	Special People – People in the parish family Meals – Mass – Jesus Special Meal	Listening to a range of music styles and understanding them – Range of composers – rhythms, pitch and tempo Using live music and a range of genres	Gymnastics Ball skills	Everyday materials – let’s build
Spring 2	Our School Area Weather	We are collectors	Change Lent – a time for change		Gymnastics Ball skills	Everyday materials – marvellous materials
Summer 1	Changes in Living Memory Carnival of the animals	We are story tellers	Being sorry – God helps us to choose well Sacrament of Reconciliation Holidays and holydays Pentecost – feast of the holy spirit	Musical instruments – using tuned and un-tuned playing music using notation	Dance Ball skills	Seasonal Changes – Wonderful weather
Summer 2	Changes in Living Memory Carnival of the animals	We are celebrating	Neighbours – Neighbours share God’s world		Dance Ball skills bat and ball skills	Plants – what’s growing in our gardens