YEAR 1 PHONICS CHECK

Dear Parents/Carers

Year 1 Phonics Check

The statutory phonics screening check for Year 1 pupils will take place during the week commencing 12^th June.

The purpose of the Year 1 phonics check is to confirm whether individual pupils have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard.

The check will take the form of a ten-page booklet with four words on each page. Half the words will be real words and the other half will be non-words (pseudo/alien words). Each pseudo word will be accompanied by a picture of an alien and the children will be aware that this is an ‘alien/nonsense’ word. All letters will be lower case. The purpose of the pseudo words is to check that children are able to decode unfamiliar words using their phonic knowledge.

Please rest assured that the children will not be aware they are being checked, but simply undertaking a phonics activity with a teacher.

You will be informed whether or not your child has met the required standard once results are confirmed in July. If your child does not meet the required standard, appropriate support will be put in place which will continue into Year 2 where they will re-take the test.

Should you wish to see the phonics screening questions and guidance from 2014 as an example please follow the link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phonics-screening-check-2014-materials

During the Whit holidays, your child will be provided with a phonics activity book. It would be very useful if you could support the completion of this, as it will help to keep their phonic knowledge fresh, ready for when they return back to school on 12^th June.

If you have any questions about the phonics screening, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Mrs Ames

Online Games and Websites

If you want to have a go at some fun educational games, click on the 'Home Learning' link and scroll down to 'Useful Websites'.

Chicks

Today we got chance to hold the chicks! They are so cute and fluffy. Check out our chick diary for more updates...

In to Space!

We have had a great time today exploring our new role play area. Do you think we could be astronauts?

Exploring Nature

We had a great day today starting our science topic 'Plants', exploring the plants, trees and flowers that we have in our own playground. We talked about the similarities and differences between them and had a go at drawing our favourites using oil pastels. Thankfully, we had great weather shining down on us too!

Welcome back!

We hope you had a restful Easter holiday and are excited to start our Summer term. We are going to be exploring some new topics and continuing our hard work in Class 1.

To see more of what's in store, have a look at the curriculum newsletter below.

This half term, the children will have PE with Dave on a Thursday afternoon, so please ensure PE kits are in school on this day.

As always, if you have any questions, please let us know! 

Mrs Ames & Mrs Stow

Our Class Trip to Dunham Massey

We had a FANTASTIC time yesterday on our class 1 trip to Dunham Massey, where we got to explore our topic for this half term: Homes in the Past.

In the morning, we took part in activities with the Gamekeeper to help him solve a problem...

Don't we all look great in our caps and bonnets?

In the afternoon we became maids and servants, taking part in different activities to help prepare the house for Lady Stanford.

Lady Stanford was so impressed with our hard work!

World Book Day

We had a great time dressing up as characters from our favourite books! 

Don't we all look FABULOUS?

A Special Visitor

On Wednesday (8th February) we had a very special visitor to Class 1!

Emilia's grandpa, Mr Barber, came to show us a steam engine and we got to see how it works by using fire to heat up the water to make steam.

We loved seeing the steam train go round and round, using an elastic band to steer it. 

Thank you so much, Mr Barber! We had a fantastic morning!

Measuring in Maths

Today we investigated who had the biggest feet in Class 1!

To do this, we had to take off our shoes and ask a partner to draw around our feet. Then we measured the outline in cms using a ruler.

We put the feet in order from smallest to biggest and found that Mrs Ames had the biggest foot at 25cms! The rest of us had feet ranging from 15cms up to 19cms...

Welcome back Class 1!

I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas break - I can't wait to hear all about it! We have got a very busy 6 weeks planned for this half term and you can find out what we will be doing by clicking on the curriculum newsletter below.

Our new PE day will be on a Monday, so please ensure your kits are in school on this day.

I have also updated the topic home learning for the Spring term which you can find underneath the Home Learning tab.

If you have any questions at all, please ask!

Our Shabbat Celebration

This half term in class 1, we have been introduced to Judaism. Today, we had our own Shabbat celebration which is traditionally celebrated by Jewish people on their day of rest (Saturday).

First of all, we had to wash our hands to prepare for Shabbat...

Then we sat in a circle and pretended to light the special candles. Jewish people light two candles to signify the start of Shabbat.

We covered our eyes and said our class prayer...

Next, we carefully passed around the Torah and talked about why it is an important book for Jewish people.

We covered the Challah bread with a special cloth whilst we drank grape juice. This is so the bread doesn't feel 'sad' that we are drinking the grape juice first.

We were happy when we could finally eat the bread because it smelt so tasty!

At the end of our Shabbat celebration we had a Havdalah ceremony.

We passed around spices in a spice box and talked about how the smells can remind us of our celebration.

Traditionally, Jewish people pour wine so it is overflowing as a symbol of success for the week (i.e. may your cup be overflowing!) - but we thought it would be best not to let ours spill over! 

Finally, we passed around the Havdalah candle which is a special 6-wick candle to represent the multiple blessings for the coming week of work. 

Anti Bullying Week 

We talked about how we can prevent bullying from happening in our school. 

Class One decided that by being a good friend and promoting our class value which is kindness we can prevent bullying.

We wrote an acrostic poem which we read out to the whole school in our anti-bullying assembly:

F is for forgiveness.

R is for respect.

I is for including everybody.

E is for everybody can play together.

N is for never leave people out.

D is for don’t bully anybody.

S is for sharing.

H is for helping.

I is for inviting people to play.

P is for play nicely together.

In RE we read the story of The Good Samaritan. It helped us to think about how we can be a good friend to everybody no matter what they look like, what team they support, how old they are, whether they are a boy or a girl. We show kindness to everybody!

Our class assembly was all about...

Life in Year 1

We started off by showing some photographs of what we have been doing so far in year 1 - we have been very busy!

After that we talked about our topic for this term which is 'School in the Past'.

We had a visitor in school who told us all about what school was like in the olden days. Here are some of the things we learnt:

• In the past, boys and girls had different playgrounds.
• In the past, they had blackboards and chalk instead of whiteboards and pens.
• In the past, if you got into trouble the teachers could smack you with a ruler.
• In the past, they had over 40 children in one class with only 1 teacher.
• In the past, they did not have any after school clubs.
• In the past, some children had to wear a dunce hat if they were naughty.
• In the past, some children had to travel a long way to get to school.
• In the past, they didn’t have carpet spaces or comfy cushions to sit on.
• In the past, they didn’t have climbing frames on the playground.

Welcome to Class 1

I hope you have had a fantastic summer and are looking forward to a new school year in class 1 - I can't wait to hear all about your adventures over the last 6 weeks!

We've got some exciting work planned for this first half term, building on the skills already learnt in Reception. We will continue with our daily phonics as well as introducing more formal maths and English lessons. Our first topic is 'All about me' and this will link into our work wherever possible - including geography, where we will learn about our local area and history, where we will find out about the history of Stretton, including the school itself.

This week we will be choosing two School Council representatives and two Eco-Council representatives, which will involve attending some meetings and reporting back to the rest of the class. We also have a Church service on Friday morning to welcome us all in to the new school year.

Please find some other useful information below:

Home/School Diaries

These will be checked daily, so please feel free to send any messages or important information that you would like us to know. You can also use these to record your child's daily reading until we receive separate reading records. It is recommended that children in Year 1 should read for at least 10 minutes per day.

Home Learning

Children will receive homework on a Friday and should return this by the following Wednesday for marking and feedback. Homework will alternate between English and maths each week and will always be work which consolidates the learning for that week: this could be an online task, a practical activity or a worksheet. Homework is a fantastic way to reinforce learning done in school and we really appreciate your support with this . 

It is also recommended that children in Year 1 should read for 10 minutes per day, practice number bonds twice a week and phonics/spellings three times a week. Children will be issued with a list of high frequency words that they will be expected to read and spell, which will be changed regularly. Please see the separate home learning page for some websites and online activities which could be useful. 

Finally, children will also be set one task per term (from a choice of two) which will be linked to their topic learning. 

Please see the designated home learning area of the class page for further information as this will be updated regularly.

PE

Please ensure that all uniform and PE kit is clearly labelled with your child’s name so that it can be returned if it gets lost. Although our PE days are currently Monday and Friday afternoons, PE kits should be kept in school at all times in case of timetable changes. Long hair should be tied back for safety reasons during PE lessons.

Finally...

If you have any questions, queries or concerns, please do not hesitate to let me know. I am happy to book in appointments with any parents/guardians or you can leave me a message in the home/school diary.

We're really looking forward to getting started on what is going to be a fantastic first half term in year 1 !

Mrs Ames & Mrs Stow

Our Class Value is Kindness

In Class 1, we pledge to be kind to all.

We wrote our own prayers about kindness:

Dear God, thank you for making me and the world. It doesn’t matter what you look like. Amen.

Dear Lord, thank you for our parents and our sisters and brothers and our aunties and uncles. Thank you for our school and our teachers and our friends who are kind. Amen.

We wrote our own kindness pledges on our tree of kindness
which is outside our classroom.