This term, the children will continue to practise their writing in both handwriting sessions and English lessons. There will be a focus on progressing from writing discrete, stand-alone sentences to writing a narrative (a sequence of sentences) correctly. Children will learn how to make sentences more interesting by using adjectives and how to use conjunctions such as ‘and’ and ‘because’. Year 1 writing will be taught through the stories, ‘Bobbo Goes to School’, ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’, ‘Katie and the Waterlily Pond’ and a range of verse. During Book Week, the children will also explore non-fiction texts and have opportunities to present information in a variety of forms.

This term, the children will be focussing on the numbers from 0 to 20 and 0 to 50. They will be solidifying their understanding of the value of these numbers by sorting them, counting forward and back, partitioning and finding one more and one less than a number. Children will also look at addition and subtraction using concrete and pictorial resources. The children will also explore the value of money and telling the time to the half hour. They will be looking at length and height as well as weight and volume, measuring in standard and non-standard units. The children will develop an understanding of fractions (halves and quarters).

The children will continue to read books appropriate to their phonic stage with adults throughout the term. This will usually be on a one to one basis or within a lesson as a shared read.  They will also be exposed to engaging texts by being read high quality texts on a daily basis. They will have the opportunity to read for pleasure by having access to a wide range of books in their class reading corner and having regular opportunities to use it. They will be taught word-reading skills daily in phonics lessons and reading will be integrated into other subjects, such as reading about events and important people in history and becoming familiar with different types of book, such as atlases in geography lessons. This will give children the chance to practise their decoding, fluency and comprehension skills in a meaningful way throughout the day. We will also continue to spend time working exclusively on the children’s inference skills in short regular sessions this term, encouraging pupils to back up their thoughts with evidence from images or text.

We will firstly consolidate the children’s ability to recall the different sounds up to Phase 5 with an emphasis on identifying any gaps in their knowledge. We will then focus on blending sounds quickly and automatically, removing the need to ‘sound out’ individual phonemes (sounds). This term, the children will continue to practise reading polysyllabic words and learn about alternative pronunciations.

Throughout their day, children will be identifying, using and applying their phonic knowledge across all subjects. They will blend when decoding words to read and segment in order to spell words in their writing.

All year, the children are supported to learn to read and spell high frequency words.

This term the children will be exploring the question ‘How do some people’s religious beliefs encourage them to care for the world?’.

The Children will look at two creation stories and consider why these stories might make people care for the world. They will also look at the importance of cows in Hinduism and what could be learnt from the story of Noah’s Ark. The children will then re-read both stories to compare the similarities and differences between them, reminding them why these stories are important. They will also focus on the question and discuss why they think the creation stories help to encourage people to look after the world.

In PSHE the children will continue to look at how they can develop a ‘Growth Mindset’ in Year 1. They will then move on to look at rules and why it is important to have rules for different places, for example, we have different rules at school and different rules at home. The children will also learn about people who live in the community and their different needs and how we care for different living things, such as animals. They will also look at how people have different strengths, interests and jobs within the community. This topic will also lead on to how people within a community use the internet to find out information and how we can look after our area by recycling.

In PE lessons this term, the children will work on their dance skills where they will be working on space awareness and different ways to move their bodies. They will create their own dance to a piece of music ensuring their bodies move in different ways.

The children will also build on their personal and social skills by working independently and in groups. They will also work on their coordination, static balancing and dynamic balances.

In Science this term, the children are going to explore Materials. They will identify and name a variety of everyday materials, such as wood, plastic and glass. They will look at the physical properties of different materials and conduct experiments to see whether a material is absorbent and floats or sinks.

They will then move on to learning about Plants. In this topic, the children will have a chance to plant their own seed and watch it grow. They will identify and describe the basic structure of a variety of common flowers and plants. The children will be supported to begin to ask simple questions and recognise that they can be answered in different ways in the context of considering what plants need to grow.

In History this term, we will be looking at the topic ‘Nurturing Nurses’ and develop an awareness of the lives of significant people in the past, we will be looking at Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. We are going to be learning about the impact they have had on nursing and how it has influenced nursing today.

In Geography this term, our topic will be ‘Africa’ were we will be focusing on Kenya. Throughout this topic the children will be developing their geography skills looking at maps and human & physical changes. We will be exploring the countries landscape and animals as well as looking at the weather and climate. We will further explore how our findings compare to countries such as the United Kingdom.

This term, the children have been looking at Pulse. They will create simple patterns using their body and develop an understanding how sound is represented by symbols. They will also learn how to maintain a pulse and find a strong beat. They will also begin to identify tempo.

In Computing this term, the children will have a chance to explore Microsoft Word, using the key board to write a sentence and change the formatting (colour and size of the text). They will then move on to developing an understanding of eBooks. The children will have a chance to plan and create their own eBook.

In Art, we will be researching the life of Pablo Picasso. The children will begin to control lines to create simple drawings from observations and begin to add detail to line drawings of single objects. We will explore how we can change a line dependant on its shape and thickness.  They will also have the opportunity to create their own portrait.

They will then move on to creating a print using different resources. They will research and learn the work of William Morris and create their own pattern in his style.