Year 1

 Our themes for the year are Marvellous me, Terrific Toys, Amazing Animals, Exciting Explorers, Glorious Growing and Super Shanghai. We base our learning and writing around these topics, reading a range of texts to inspire the children’s learning.

At the start of the year, we aim to support children in the transition from the Early Years setting into Year 1 in a gradual, staged approach. This allows the children to adapt to new routines during the first half of the Autumn term. Initially, we are guided by the principles of The Early Years Foundation Stage approach to learning and then introduce the National Curriculum requirements.  In Year 1, the children are taught in a more formal structured way but are still encouraged to develop their independent and self-directed learning opportunities within our learning areas. These include a writing area, a maths area, a small world and construction area, a story corner, a creative area, a reflection area as well as the outdoor area. Play and multisensory learning is still a big part of our learning in year 1.

Developing early reading and writing skills is an important part of the Year 1 curriculum. In addition to English lessons, children have a daily Phonics session in which they are taught to recognise new phonetic sounds and to read and spell words through sounding out and blending.  In the Summer term all Year 1 children will participate in the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check. This is a national assessment of each child’s ability to decode and read words using their phonetic knowledge. The check consists of 40 real and pseudo words for the children to read. The children know these as ‘Alien Words’ e.g. brip, snorb.

Throughout the year, the children will experience of a wide range of activities across the curriculum. They also have the opportunity to take part in Church services at St Guthlac’s and perform as a class in Collective Worships. During the year we have a range of exciting visitors and curriculum enhancements such as Peterborough Museum who come and share toys from the past. The children always return to the classroom inspired and ready to present and share their learning in many creative ways.

                                                                                                        The Year 1 Classroom