Quick Links

Useful Links

Featherby

Featherby
Close
Close

Year 1

 

Hello and welcome to Year 1!  We have three classes: Blue, Purple and Turquoise.

In Blue class you will find Miss Waters, Purple class Miss Cogger and Turquoise with Miss Stevenson.  Other adults in Year 1 include Mrs Gill, Mrs Stannard, Miss Williamson and Mrs Riley.  We are all available before and after school and are happy to speak to you if you have any concerns or questions.

In Year 1 we strive to encourage the children to be independent, resilient and resourceful learners who thrive in the environment around them. We love to hear all of the wonderful things the children do at home, so please come and tell us or send the children in with a picture. Learning is truly secured if taken into the home!

Teaching children to be resilient and independent is especially important in Year 1 where children begin their journey into the national curriculum.

Our learning is thematic, meaning each term we focus on one theme through our reading, writing and wider curriculum.  By learning in this way, we deepen our understanding, become critical thinkers, and develop both knowledge and skills in key areas.

Our themes in Year 1 are:

  • Who Am I?
  • Under The Sea
  • In The City
  • Tremendous Tudors
  • Out Of Africa
  • Chocolate!

All our themes give us the opportunity to acquire new knowledge and develop our skill-sets and develop our 6Cs: Character, Communication, Collaboration, Creativity, Critical Thinking and Citizenship.  Our learning in school is built around these areas and linked in with a class read. We love sharing what we have learnt in school, although learning also happens outside the classroom; our homework and wider reading opportunities are one way this happens.  It is important to us that we are always learners whether we are in school, at home, or out and about in the world.  Events we look forward to are our Big Outcomes where we welcome parents and visitors into school to share in our learning with us; this is one of the times you will see our 6Cs in action! 

 

Who Am I?

Our first theme in Year 1 is ‘Who Am I?’ which is a brilliant way to start the year as we get to think about ourselves- what makes us unique as well as what makes us similar to our friends. All learning is interweaved around the concepts of the individual belonging to large groups, such as in R.E. where we learn about belonging to a wider community. In Science we learn all about the human body and investigate our senses. We practice drawing in art and link this to Science by drawing self-portraits as well as continuing to explore sound in Music. In History, we look at the childhoods of the past generation through first- hand experience and guided discovery focusing on toys, which is appropriate for our children to relate to, as well as linking back to Science with what the body can do at different stages of baby and child hood. As part of our History learning, we make rag dolls in D.T.

 

 

Under the Sea

Science continues to lead our thematic approach to our learning this half term alongside Geography.  We focus on comparisons between The Arctic, Antarctic and The U.K. with a particular focus on animals living under the sea. We will be using critical thinking to consider clothing choices linked to the weather, which links to insulation, waterproofing and absorbency in Science.  We will also have many opportunities for investigations and comparisons.  In Computing, we will be producing reports and including art in our work. We will also be linking our Music to the sea. We will be enjoying stories such as ‘Commotion in the Ocean’ and ‘Snail and a Whale’ and using these to help us with writing stories with patterned language and poetry.

 

 

 In The City

History drives our learning this half term, with a focus on following lines of enquiry linked to transport over time. Our writing opportunities of fantasy stories, recounts and letters will all link to this theme. We will recall and build upon our pre-existing knowledge about where we live while reading the story ‘Katie in London’ and use this story while learning about roads and local amenities we recognise. We will learn about the artist Lowry who is known for his portrayal of the movement of people; he also painted steam trains and red buses, which links to our History focus. We will use computing to collect data linked to the learning already mentioned. Our learning in Science will focus on materials and building on our previous learning in the year and in R.E., we will learn about the beginnings of Sikhism through stories.

 

 

Tremendous Tudors

History continues to be our driver this half term as we learn all about the Tudors in Art and Geography as well as in our writing as we build upon our skills in instruction writing, letter writing and information texts. We will also be reading about Henry VIII. Eltham has a rich Tudor heritage (including the incredible Eltham Palace) which we can explore in our Geography learning as we develop our map reading skills and understanding. In Music, we will learn about Tudor instruments and compositions as well as linking this to aspects of our P.E learning. Although Science will be mostly discrete learning, about plants, we know that Elizabeth I had associations with oak trees so this will feature in our learning. 

 

Out Of Africa

 ‘Handa’s Surprise’ is a wonderful story, links in beautifully to our theme this half term and will also help us to write our own traditional stories. Geography comes to the forefront as we compare a hot location to the UK and we will be about to use our learning to help write information texts and reports about differing localities. We will build upon our prior learning about the Equator and temperature in relation to the Sun. African art is going to be wonderful to learn about and replicate and although our Science topic of light does not directly link to our theme, we will be using our knowledge of light to make shadow puppets to perform our traditional stories which will have a link to our theme. We are also looking forward to expressing ourselves in P.E. and learning about African music and instruments. Our discrete R.E. topic of Hindu worship will allow us to broaden our awareness of different world religions and where these religions are followed.

  

 

Chocolate!

Our class read of ‘Candy’s Chocolate Kingdom’ will help us to write our own stories and we are looking forward to learning all about cocoa plants and other foods in Science. As part of our learning about the history of chocolate, we will be looking at art, making our own chocolate bar wrappers and finding out about where chocolate comes from. We are looking forward to being creative with poetic jingles for chocolate and instruction writing for making our own chocolate. In R.E. we will be learning about the Jewish Shabbat and in P.E. we will continue to build upon the skills we have developed all year.