Year 1 - Archive

FRIDAY 12TH SEPTEMBER 2025

What a full, busy week we've had in Year 1. In his assembly, Mr John talked about the learning habit of 'Independence', and after just 4 weeks in school, it is so clear to see how many of our Year 1 students are really developing this good habit. 

In English this week, we continued our adventures with 'Not a Box'. Alongside the main story, we have read other books with a similar theme, such as 'The Nowhere Box' and 'Bruno's Box'. All the stories had the same message - that a box is not just a box if you use a little bit of imagination. Imagination is something that our Year 1 children have plenty of! They came up with their own ideas for what their box would become and wrote sentences about it. We focused on using finger spaces between the words in our sentence. 

In our Maths lessons this week, we continued our unit on Place Value. First we practised representing a number of objects by using counters on a tens frame. We also matched digit cards to our representations. Then we looked at the numbers to ten represented as words. We practised reading and recognising the number words and talked about which words are green words that we can sound out and which are tricky red words that we can't. Finally, we practised counting on from any number, ensuring that we said the numbers in the correct order and spotting mistakes in patterns that were in the wrong order. 

For our IPC topic this week, we continued to learn about portraits with a focus on the artist Pablo Picasso. We particularly enjoyed studying some of his abstract portraits and discussing what we noticed. We used his work to inspire our own Picasso style abstract portraits using paint and collage. I think you'll agree we have some very talented artists in Year 1! 

Wishing you a lovely long weekend ahead.

Ms Sarah L & The Year 1 Team

THURSDAY 4TH SEPTEMBER 2025

Year 1 has managed to cram so much into such a short week! We've been reading 'Not a Box' and creating our own story characters and settings. In Maths, we've been practising counting accurately and working with a partner to check. In IPC lessons, we learned about portraits and we tried to complete a photo of our faces that had been cut in half. We tried hard to remember all the different features that we needed to include in our own self-portraits. We even had a very successful Fire Drill today when we practised evacuating the building very sensibly indeed.

A huge thank you to all the parents who came along to the Settling-In conferences this week. It was wonderful to hear about your children and learn more about them. If you were unable to attend this week, please contact your class teacher to arrange an alternative appointment. We look forward to getting to know you all much better as the term progresses.

Wishing you a lovely long weekend ahead.

Ms Sarah L & The Year 1 Team

FRIDAY 29TH AUGUST 2025

At the end of our second week, we can easily say that this Year 1 cohort are amazing! They have adapted so well to the new routines and are already developing their skills of independence. New friendships are being formed as we get to know one another and find common interests. 

In classes this week, each teacher has chosen a 'Story We Treasure'. This is one of the class teacher's favourite books; a treasured story that they wanted to share with their new class. 1SL have been reading 'The Bog Baby', 1TL have been reading 'The Koala Who Could', 1JK have been reading 'I Can/Can't Fly', 1AB have been reading 'The Girl and the Dinosaur', 1GV have been reading 'Amy Wu and the Perfect Bao', and 1RP have been reading 'Peace at Last'. 

The children have been taking part in a range of different activities to engage with their text. In 1SL the children had to listen to clues about what a Bog Baby is and then drew pictures of what they imagined a Bog Baby to look like. They also loved painting Bog Babies and creating their own Bog Baby out of clay. 1AB had so much fun bringing their imagination to life as they went on a magical adventure with their best friend, the Dinosaur. 1RP became authors and wrote their own version of the story. From scary monsters to noisy race tracks, lots of things were keeping them awake at night! 

1JK created stunning Antartica landscapes using paint and collage materials. They added their own emperor penguins into their masterpieces and wrote all about the things that they can do, just like Little Penguin! 1GV made some beautiful family portraits using loose parts. They looked at Amy Wu’s family from the story, and talked about our different family structures. We celebrated our similarities and differences in our class family. 1TL enjoyed reading The Koala Who Could. Kevin the Koala dreamt of playing with his friends on the ground. 1TL used their fingers to twist, thread, stretch and stick, making their very own dreamcatchers to catch their dreams.

Wishing you a lovely long weekend ahead.

Ms Sarah L & The Year 1 Team

FRIDAY 22ND AUGUST 2025

What a wonderful start to the new school year we have had in Year 1. It was so lovely to welcome both familiar and new faces into school on Monday. This year we welcomed 32 new students and their families. The teachers have been incredibly impressed with how quickly all children are settling in.

This week we have been learning about Year 1 and getting to know one another. We are learning all about our new routines as well as finding our way around the different spaces in the primary building. We've met many new teachers this week as we have begun our specialist lessons. There are lots of names to learn!

In class we have been concentrating on learning each other's names and making new friends. We have had lots of time to explore the continuous provision in our own classrooms as well as our Shared Classroom space with Ms Apson and Ms Indra. We've talked a lot about how, at school, each class is like a family. We read the story 'Our Class is a Family' and talked about how important it is that at school we look after each other just like a real family.

The children have already made us so proud with their wonderful attitudes, positivity and kindness. We can't wait to see these children grow and flourish over the coming year. We know that we will have a wonderful year together and we are so excited to see what they will achieve.

Wishing you a lovely weekend ahead.

Ms Sarah L & The Year 1 Team