A warm welcome to Year 1!

Hello and welcome to our Year 1 blog where we keep you up to date with what the children are learning about in class. I hope you all had a wonderful summer and feel pleased to get back into some sort of routine. The first week back has been fantastic. The children have settled so beautifully already and it’s been lovely seeing all their smiling faces. They have enjoyed painting self-portraits, writing about their summer holidays, making their class animal and lots of other fun activities!

In Year 1, we start the year with COOL (Choose Our Own Learning) Time. In our COOL time, we set up play based learning opportunities similar to what your child has experienced in Year R. For the first half term, the majority of our learning is carried out through small groups in a similar way to Year R. We do this because we firmly believe children need that time to transition from Year R to Year 1 as the expectations are higher. When it is appropriate, we start to move towards more formal whole class teaching, where children are expected to work more independently. In order to meet statutory requirements teachers are entitled to PPA (Planning, Preparation and Assessment) each week. In Year 1 this is Wednesday afternoon when the children will take part in a carousel of activities we call ‘Enrichment’ including music, cooking, library and IT for example.

I thought I would also do a quick introduction to the Year 1 teachers as you will be seeing us often stood at the classroom doors either end of the school day, please do say hello, I promise we don’t bite. The first door you will get to as you walk round to the Year 1 area is Bumblebee Class. Teaching Bumblebees this year is the very lovely Mrs Firth on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and myself on a Thursday and Friday. The middle door is Otter Class where there is currently no class this year so we will be using the classroom for interventions throughout the year. The final Year 1 door is Hedgehogs where you will find our lovely Mrs Manoharan on a Monday and Tuesday and beautiful Miss Shepherd on a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We love to work as a team and we strive to be as consistent as possible across the year group.

Just a few reminders: 

• Please make sure all your child’s belongings are labelled. Things do go missing and I’m convinced there is a black hole somewhere in the school that sucks them in and they never come back.
• Please send your child’s water bottle and book bag into school every day.
• Our Year 1 PE day is on a Friday. Children are now coming into school in their school uniform and they will be changing at school.
• Reading books in school are changed once a week and this will be every Monday. The books will be collected in in the morning and a new one will be issued that same afternoon.

Dates:

17th and 19th September – 2.50pm Welcome Year 1 parents
2nd October – Harvest Festival (details to follow)
21st October – Parents Evening 3.30-6.30pm
22nd October – Parents Evening 5-7pm
25th October – INSET Day
28th October – 1st November – Half Term
27th November – Fleet Festivities
3rd December – Hedgehog Christmas Play AM
3rd December – Bumblebee Christmas Play PM
20th December – Last Day of Term

We are really excited for the year ahead and we have got lots of fun things planned for the children. We like to think of ourselves as a friendly and approachable team and if there is anything you have concerns about, please let us know and we will do our best to help.  

Have a lovely weekend, see you next week!

Mrs Ford and the Year 1 team.