Year 1

Welcome to Our Year 1 Class at St. James’

Welcome to Year 1, my name is Mrs Gofton and I am the Class Teacher. We have various Teaching Assistants in Year 1 who the children will already know from their time in St James. In Year 1, we aim to have fun whilst learning. Our main rule within class is that we always try our best.

Year 1 Noticeboard

Children will read with an adult in school throughout the week. Reading books and reading journals should be in school daily.
Spellings are handed out on a Friday and will be tested the following Friday. Should the children misplace their spellings, spares are readily available.
Homework will be given out every Friday and it is expected that they return their homework no later than the following Wednesday. Homework will consist of either Maths, English, Topic or Phonics work. It is encouraged that you sit and work with your child to complete their homework and should you have any issues please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
PE in Year 1 is on Wednesdays. Please make sure you have your full St James PE kit.
Please bring fresh water daily.
Please ensure your child brings their book in every day as we may read with them but we will especially read with them on a Wednesday.
We pray every day in school. Please help your child to become familiar with our prayers here Little Book of Prayers EYFS and KS1

Autumn Term in Year 1

We have been very busy so far this term settling in to our new classroom and our new routines. The children have been truly amazing and a credit to their families and our St James family.

In RE we will be concentrating on our topics at Families and Baptism.

In Science the children have been looking at seasons how weather changes and how plants and animals adapt to this. We hope to go on an Autumn walk in the park this term which is always lovely. The season changes into Autumn and the leaves look beautiful.

The children will be looking at some wonderful texts in English including SuperWorm, Funny Bones, Winnie the Witch and Halloween Poetry.

Later this term we will be reading The Gruffalo and making some tasty Gruffalo Crumble.

In Art, we will research the artist Vincent Van Gogh and use his Landscape work to create our own using his mark making techniques and looking at his work to understand how he created his masterpieces for us to recreate one of his famous paintings.

We also had our class Stay and Pray, where many parents and carers joined us to listen to God’s Word and Year 1 led us in prayer.

Tips on how to help your child’s learning during the Autumn Term:

Read with your child as often as possible ideally their school book or a book of their choice and talk about the book they are reading. Eg what they llike/dislike about the text how the characters is feeling, their opinion of the character, phonics being used within the text etc
In preparation for our Gruffalo topic read through recipes talking about how they need to be in the correct order and the words that are used (imperative verbs/bossy verbs eg Mix together, Stir the mixture, Get a spoon, Put it in the oven etc)
Read rhyming stories or poems identifying the rhyming words asking your child to think of another word that rhymes with the word Eg Cat – Bat – Flat
Count everyday objects using the words addition and subtraction (also plus, take away, one more, one less) as this is our topic in Maths this term as well as identifying numbers such as the number of a bus, numbers in a supermarket etc.

Spring Term in Year 1

We hope you've all had a lovely festive Christmas time with your family and friends. We are so excited to see everyone again.

We are very busy in Year 1 this term.

Our English work will be related to dinosaurs. We will be reading the book Lost and Found learning all about adjectives and retelling the story and Harry and his bucketful of dinosaurs and creating our own diary as though we are Harry,.

In Science, we will be learning all about Space, the planets, astronauts and their important roles in space as well as constellations and what they mean.

In History we will be learning all about Florence Nightingale and why she was such an influential woman in History and how her work has shaped nursing today.

In DT we will be making our smoothies, tasting them and evaluating them. We can't wait!

Our English focus in the second part of the Spring term will be Paddington Bear. We will create a story based on Paddington and how his clumsiness makes him a hero. We will recount his first day in London after we put his day in chronological order.

In Art, we will learn how to mix primary colours to create secondary colours using paint. We will have lots of fun exploring the styles and colours used by Kadinsky to create our own artwork using Kadinsky's artistic style.

Our History topic will focus around Toys from the Past and how toys have changed over the years to how they are now. We may even call on some of our parents and grandparents to see if they have any toys from the past that could be brought in or a photograph of you playing with a toy from the past.

Tips on how to help your child’s learning during the Spring Term:

encourage your child to read every night

encourage your child to practise their phonics

research Florence Nightingale and why she was so influential to modern day nursing

practise writing and reading numerals and words up to 20

ensure your child is forming their letters and numbers correctly