Brockholes Church Of England Voluntary Controlled Junior And Infant School

Welcome to Year 1

Summer Term

Welcome back to the Summer Term and hopefully a term full of lovely weather and lots of outdoor learning. Please bring coats or jumpers everyday just in case we are working outside on chillier days. Sun-cream must be applied before school and any sun-cream being sent into school with your child must be labelled and stored in their own tray. Children must be able to apply their own sun-cream in school. Please feel free to send a summer hat in with your child, please label these clearly with your child's name.

As always we will have a strong focus on phonics and reading for year 1, encouraging fluent reading and the use of independent phonics knowledge intertwined throughout all of our writing in every subject. The Phonics screening test is fast approaching and children will have more planned opportunities to practice reading real and alien words.

We will continue with our increased structured/formal lesson time. This terms focus will centre around reading in every lesson. Group reading sessions will continue this term to truly embed all the fluent reading skills required in Year 1. We urge parents to support this at home, reading as often as possible to create a love for reading and ample opportunities for your children to practice their new reading skills. Please see the attached fact sheet on the benefits to reading for your child - some staggering evidence to support the importance of reading at this stage in your child's education.

Learning will continue to be completed as a whole class at desks in mixed ability groups (except reading which is matched to reading levels) or via a carpet time. We try to make learning fun and practical wherever possible and include as much outdoor learning as we can.

Our Topic 'On the Farm'

This term the topic will be ‘On the Farm’. We will be learning about plants and animals and finding out where our food comes from. There will be some historical facts about farms and farming techniques. We will explore how these have changed over time. We will be identifying plants and finding out how they grow. We will be observing different plants more closely. We will look at and identify different plants in our immediate locality. We will talk about fruits and vegetables that we eat, where and how they grow. We will talk about foods that other animals eat. We will be thinking about animals on farms and why they are farmed, particularly thinking about milk, eggs, meat and wool. If any parents/grandparents are involved in farming, please make yourself known to me as we would love to arrange a farmer visit in school for the children to question further.

In Art this term we are very lucky and will be using a local potter (and parent) to show us some clay skills in school - we are all really looking forward to this!

In Music we will be focusing on repeating songs and the children are already underway learning some farmyard songs.

As always, we have a fantastic school trip planned to explore our 'On the Farm' topic even further. Details will be sent out to all parents via the usual communication.

Phonics and Reading

Monster Phonics books will be read in class and then sent home for children to read and talk about at home. Please try to do some daily reading with your children at home. This term the children will be taking part in their phonics screening test and the more practice your child gets the better. We are working at reading real and alien words everyday in school to try and prepare the children for this. This term is all about fluency with reading, being able to spot those split digraphs, digraphs and trigraphs in words and read all words accurately. Thank you to all of the parent volunteers that are supporting our guided reading this term in school.

Spelling, grammar and phonics

We will be teaching spelling in class and some words will be sent home to practice on a Friday. Please practice these regularly with you children at home. Your child is tested on these very Friday in school. Grammar will be taught as part of literacy so children will need to recognise words like verb, noun, adjective, suffix, pre-fix and be able to identify them. We will be using capital letters, finger spaces and punctuation during our sentence writing. This term we are encouraging independent writing and reading wherever possible and re-reading and editing our own work.

Year 1 will have PE on Monday and Friday afternoon with the focus for Summer Term is invasion games and athletics. Please come to school wearing PE kit on those days. There may be some lessons taught outside in the playground so please make sure PE kit reflects the outdoor temperature.

Outdoor Learning

Outdoor learning is every other Tuesday with Rosie and Maggie. This starts for Year 1 on Tuesday 29th April.

Spelling and Homework

Homework will be put on Google classroom by Friday teatime. The children will have homework books with spellings inside. Spellings will be sent home every Friday for the children to learn and practice at home - please return these by Wednesday for checking in class. Thank you for your support at home in this area - frequent revision of these trickier spellings are really beneficial for the children in Year 1. Homework is voluntary and will be given to support the learning in class. If it becomes a battle between you and your child please leave it, but let us know. There are plenty of things you can do to help your child anyway, e.g. reading and enjoying books together, recognising coins and notes, spotting numbers, letters and words out and about, telling the time, days of the week, months of the year, recognising shapes, and practical skills such as using scissors, tying shoelaces and zipping up coats. I have also included weekly maths homework on Google Classroom for you to do with your child at home - these sheets will not be printed in school but will be uploaded to Google Classroom.

The Importance of Regular Reading

Please read the fact sheet below. This highlights the importance of regular reading with your child at home as well as in school.

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