Year 1
Rights Respecting Articles in Child Friendly Language
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
- Nelson Mandela
At Penwortham, we are dedicated to making your child's transition into Year 1 as easy and happy as possible. In Year 1, children move away from child initiated, play-based learning and are taught from the National Curriculum. The timetable and structure of the day is different to Reception as discrete subjects such as Science, History and Geography are introduced. We have developed a transition program for your child to support their adjustment to Year 1.
In English, we are practicing writing simple sentences using capital letters, full stops and finger spaces correctly. We will be learning about how to add adjectives to make our sentences more interesting. We will be using various writing mediums such as retelling a story, non-chronological reports, poetry and writing instructions.
In Maths, we will be adding and subtracting numbers within twenty. There is a heavy focus on number bonds to 10 and counting forwards and backwards.
Each half term we will be alternating between Geography and History. In Science we will be practicing various scientific skills such as classifying, observing, experimenting and predicting. Each half term we will be alternating between DT and Art.
In Wellbeing, we are focusing on Being Me in my World, Celebrating Differences, Dreams and Goals, Healthy Me, Relationships and Changing Me. Each half term we will have an RE Day and an Online Safety Afternoon.
Meet the team
Miss Andrews - Year Lead
Miss Tester - Class Teacher
Miss Granger - Class Teacher
Support Staff - Miss Attiya, Miss Kasia and Miss Seher
Autumn Newsletters
Spring Newsletters
Summer Newsletters
What we do and when
Curriculum maps will be uploaded each half term.
Our learning
In Year 1 children move away from a free choice play based curriculum and are taught from the National Curriculum. To ease our children into the new academic year, we will have an extended transition period within Year 1 during the first half of the Autumn term. We have set up our classrooms to look and feel like the reception classrooms which will allow the children free choice alongside the teaching of the Year 1 curriculum.
We have linked the two whole school books to our English and wellbeing lessons. We have discussed where we enjoy reading and which are our favourite books. We have been learning the core values of our school and this week we focused on aspiration. We shared what our hopes for the school year are. Our main target this term will be to focus on writing sentences with capital letters and full stops.
At our art table we created a paint splat and just like the character Vashti in “The Dot” we used our creativity to design our own image from our paint splat. We then wrote about what we had created. Well done to the Year 1 children for the imaginative pictures and writing.
On our maths table we have been finding different ways to sort objects.
Last year...
In history this term we learnt about Woman and Flight. The children thoroughly enjoyed the school trip to the Science Museum. We learnt about how flight has changed through the ages. We even saw Amy Johnson’s plane that was called ‘Jason’!
Last term we enjoyed 'ARTS Week' and we linked this topic to create self-portraits in our own carnival costumes. These will be displayed at our Art Gallery. We enjoyed an art workshop about Interior Design whereby we learnt how to design a room for a client. The children came up with many creative ideas. During our Game Design workshop we learnt to discuss our ideas with friends. Roz was really impressed with all our ideas for games!
We have been taking part in the Wandsworth Singing Project and enjoying practising singing with our teacher Joe. We are really looking forward to performing our songs for our parents in July.
In RE, we have been learning about Islam. We were excited to have Imam Zahir come and talk to us about Islam. He explained the five pillars and what they mean to Muslims. We also enjoyed learning about how Muslims pray. Imam Zahir answered lots of our questions about Islam and his role. He explained how Islam is linked to other religions, such as Christianity and Judaism.
In DT, we focused on our cutting skills. We linked our brief to our Geography topic of the United Kingdom. We looked at seasonal fruit and fruit grown in the four different countries of the United Kingdom. We enjoyed making our own United Kingdom fruit skewer, using cutting and threading skills we had practised. Our fruit skewers tasted delicious!
In wellbeing lessons this term, we focussed on ‘Healthy Me’. We went on a walk in our local area to learn about Road Safety rules and how to cross the road safely.
In history the children have been fascinated by the Great Fire of London. We took part in a Great Fire of London workshop, where we acted out what happened in 1666. It was a lot of fun acting and dressing up!
Year 1 interviewed each other and discussed what they have learnt about the Great Fire of London. They answered our big question: ‘At some point a huge fire was going to happen. It was only a matter of time. Do you agree?’ Please scan the QR code to view our interviews.
In English, we started a new book called ‘Greta and the Giants’. Year 1 found a rubbish spill in the hall! We thought about how our rubbish can affect the environment and especially animals. We also read the story and sequenced pictures to help us learn the story.
In wellbeing lessons this term we have learnt about how to achieve our dreams and goals. We made medals and thought about how proud we are of our achievements this year.
In maths, we have been practising addition and subtraction to 10. We have been using counters and drawing part whole diagrams to help us. For our ‘learning Maths through stories’ we have been reading the book ‘Feast for 10’. We acted our as shopkeepers and customers. As shop keepers we had to set up our shop and decide how much the food would cost. As customers, we wrote a shopping list and we had to find the right amount of ingredients talked about in the book
We also learnt about how to write and follow step by step instructions. We enjoyed following instructions to make our own jam sandwiches!
In October, we celebrated Black History Month. Our inspirational person was Nadiya Hussain. We wrote inspirational slogans and took part in a Black History Month Campaign.
We tweeted Nadiya Hussain to share our learning with her.
In art we have been learning about John Haywood’s stained glass artwork. We have learnt which materials would be best to make our own stain glass window. We experimented with making new colours too. We enjoyed walking around the local area and spotting the many different stained glass designs around our school.
This half term in RE we focused on Hinduism. We learnt how Hindu’s worship and celebrate the festival of Diwali. We learnt about the story of Rama and Sita by sequencing the story and acting out key moments. Thank you to the children who prepared presentations and shared their religion with us.
How can you help at home?
Please read with your child 5 times a week. Children will take home a phonics reading book and a class book. Please record any reading at home in your child’s reading diary. Reading books will be changed on Mondays and Thursdays.
Useful websites:
- ICT Games - Fun and exciting maths and literacy games available.
- BBC Maths - A BBC website with all maths topics covered.
- Mad 4 Maths - Fun maths games for children and advice section for parents - good for higher ability KS1 children and times tables practice!
- Maths Zone
- BBC Literacy
Join our community
Do you have skills, knowledge and have lived experiences that could be beneficial to our pupils at Penwortham? For example, you may be a practising Buddhist or be of the Windrush generation. Your line of work may involve promoting sustainable living (for example) or you may have links to people who would be happy to run professional development sessions for members of Penwortham Primary School.
If so, please sign up to the Penwortham community!
Thank you