Update - Welcome to Year 1!

2024-25

In Year 1, our teachers are Miss Ferguson (Class 4), Miss Norman (Class 5), and Mrs Hardyman (Class 6). We are also supported by our dedicated Learning Support Assistants (LSAs): Mrs Clarkson, Mrs Kirkup, and Miss Purdy.

If you have any questions, please contact your child's teacher. If they are not around at pick-up, you can speak to them by phoning the school office and requesting an appointment.

Keep referring back to this page for regular updates about the children's learning. 

Curriculum Newsletters

• Curriculum Newsletter Year 1 - Autumn 2024
• Curriculum Newsletter Year 1 - Spring 2025
• Curriculum Newsletter Year 1 - Summer 1 2025

Update - Friday 25th April 2025

To start with, we celebrated Earth Day and commemorated this by creating individual pledges. We had some amazing discussions on ways we can help and spoke about actions we could take both in school and at home. We listened to stories and watched videos to gain a deeper understanding of the importance of Earth Day.

   

In English, we started our brand-new unit - 'The Lonely Beast'. We were shown some images on the board from the story and had to use our detective skills to infer how the beast was feeling. We also used some impressive adjectives to describe what he looked like. This helped us during the following lessons as we had to create sentences with some noun phrases. The teachers were very impressed!

      

Finally, in history, we started our brand-new topic - 'School Days'. We refreshed our memories on what some of the key vocabulary meant before moving on to talk about timelines and the importance of them. Our teachers then challenged us to complete a timeline of our own in groups. 

   

Update - Thursday 3rd April 2025

This week in Year 1, we have been really busy! In maths, we have consolidated much of what we have learnt throughout this half-term, including missing number problems and doubling.

In English, we finished our unit on 'This is not my hat' and tried to predict what will happen at the end of the book. We wrote our ending and shared with our peers how we believe the big fish got his hat back!

In science, we finished our topic on seasonal changes. To demonstrate our understanding of everything we have learnt, we completed a quiz.

In art, we shared our collography as a class and wrote some words around our printing to describe what we had done; we were very proud!

In PSHE, we have focused on the emotion of anger and discussed ways to tell when someone might be feeling it. We have also examined different strategies for what to do when we might be feeling angry or how we can support someone else when they are feeling this emotion. We have also finished 'healthy me' in PSHE and designed our own healthy lunchbox, thinking about what we could include if we were making our own lunch.

On Wednesday we really enjoyed the school disco! We had sweets, played games and showed off our brilliant dance moves. We have made some Easter cards for our friends and family to finish our week!

      

Update - Friday 28th March 2025

This week in maths, we have consolidated everything we learnt this half-term, including revisiting our number bonds to 10 and 20. We have completed some assessments and used practical resources to share what we have understood.

We have also finished our English unit 'This is not my hat.' We have completed some writing that includes contractions and added exclamation marks where we think they are appropriate.

In science,, we examined the weather forecast again, comparing the weather today to the forecast from that morning.

In art, we have finished our colography, and we were able to use ink to create our very own print using a variety of materials. We really enjoyed this art lesson and our teacher's took pictures to that we could share what we had done with the other children in the year group.

In computing, we have looked at virtual bee bots and followed a program to move our bee bot from one place on our screen to another. We have been able to give our partner precise instructions using directional language to make sure the bee bot goes the right way!

In PSHE, we have continued to look at the colour monster to share how we might be feeling and how we can identify other people's feelings. We also looked at road safety, did a quiz to recap everything we have learnt and reminded ourselves to 'stop, look, listen and think.'

Update - Thursday 20th March 2025

This week in Year 1, we have been continuing with Mass and Volume in maths. We have used a variety of containers and measured the capacity of these. We have also compared the capacities of different containers using the terms 'greater than' and 'less than' and used cubes to help us to explain this.

We have started our new unit in English, 'This is not my hat.' We have read the story, inferred what we think might happen at the end of the book and used adjectives to describe the characters. We have also taken some of the important vocabulary from the story and matched this to sequenced images.

In art, we have begun to look at collagraphy; we have gathered a variety of different materials to make our very own one of these and next week, we will add the ink to print these!

In Geography, we helped our friend Marley travel from Kuala Lumpur to London Zoo. We discussed what Marley would need to pack depending on the season and gave him precise instructions for getting around London using a map. We also ensured he could see the London Landmarks on his way and drew what these would look like.

In PSHE, we have been continuing to look at what is safe for our bodies. We had another look at some different medicines and discussed when we should take them.

In science, we have been looking at the term 'precipitation'. We know that this term means 'rainfall', and we have been out to look at the level of precipitation each day. We have also had a go at being weather forecasters and pretended that we were on TV! 

        

Update - Friday 14th March 2025

This week in Year 1, we have moved onto Mass and Volume in maths. We have used the scales to look at heavier and lighter, compared the mass of objects and looked at full and empty. In English, we have continued to look at 'The Great Fire of London' and learnt that we need to include a capital letter when writing the days of the week. We have put the days of the week into our sentences and used 'and' to join clauses. In geography, we have reminded ourselves of England's capital city, London, and compared this to the capital city of Malaysia, which is Kuala Lumpur. We looked at different features of both cities and discussed the similarities and differences that we could spot. In science, we have recorded the temperature throughout the week, we have looked at a thermometer that is outside the classroom, and each day we have watched how the temperature has changed. In Art we have continued to look at lines and shapes as well as the textures of different materials. We have passed a variety of materials around our class and cut out some samples. We then stuck them into our sketchbooks and wrote words describing how they feel.  In R.E we have looked at Palm Sunday and learnt how Christians use this story to learn about welcoming others. In PSHE, we have continued to look at the emotion 'calm' to understand and share how we are feeling. We have also looked at how to keep ourselves healthy and understand that germs cause illnesses. We completed an activity about how not all household items are safe, and how they can be harmful. We then learnt that we can tell an adult when we might be feeling unwell and who to ask if we need some medicine. 

Update - Friday 7th March 2025

This week in Year 1, we finished our unit on place value within 50 in maths. We then looked at length and height, measuring various objects in centimetres. In English, we have been continuing to look at The Great Fire of London, adding -ed to the end of words and sharing discussions about what we do throughout the week to write in a letter back to Samuel Pepys. In Science, we have been testing the wind and recording how the wind changes each day. We have then put this into a graph to compare our results. In PSHE, we have continued to look at the colour monsters to share our feelings. We focused on the green colour monster which represents 'calm', and then looked at how this links to the zones of regulation. We have also looked at what it means to be 'healthy' and sorted some healthy and unhealthy foods. In Geography, we had a look at what an aerial photograph is. We built our own versions of London and used the iPads to take pictures from above to get an aerial photograph and spot the landmarks we had built. In art, we explored lines and shapes and tried out a variety of pencils to draw different lines and shapes. We then described the different types of lines and shapes to our peers. 

On Thursday we also celebrated World Book Day! We completed a quiz about some of our favourite books and authors and listened to the audio book 'Elmer,' sharing discussions about what we have heard. We also read a variety of books throughout the day and made a promise to do lots of reading at home! In the afternoon, we had a go at illustrating one of our favourite books, 'Supertato!' We then finished the day by going outside to share books as a year group. We had a really great day! 

Update - Friday 28th February 2025

This week in Year 1, we had a very exciting week! We started our new English unit on 'The Great Fire of London,' and we have learnt about what happened in 1666, revisiting plurals and learning the days of the week. During the music, we learnt the song 'London's Burning,' which changed the pitch of our voices and followed a beat. In history, we then continued to look deeper into 'The Great Fire of London,' sharing artefacts and building our very own Pudding Lane! We set up two scenes of London, one showing what London is like today, where the houses are more spread apart, and one of London in 1666, where the houses are close together. Then our teacher set fire to both scenes so that we could see the real-life 'Great Fire of London!' We enjoyed this and could see how quickly the fire spread in 1666. In Art, we started a new topic called 'Rays and Sunrays,' and we looked at what transient art is. We were able to use a variety of materials to represent weather motifs. Then we could move and change our art when we wanted to. We took lots of pictures to remember what we did! In Science, we completed an experiment about how we need to be protected from the sun's rays. We tested a variety of items, such as sun cream. We could see that sunscreen would protect us from the sun's rays, but water would not!        

Update - Friday 7th February 2025

This week, in Year 1, we enjoyed learning about numbers within 20 in maths. We have looked at related facts, addition and subtraction, and consolidated our number bonds. In English, we have shared features of Basingstoke and noted these down in a bubble map, and then we have used this to plan sentences using 'and'. In DT, we built our taxis! We reminded ourselves of our success criteria and carefully worked together to build our vehicles, including wheels, axles and chassis. In geography, we have looked at the settlement of London, studied some of the landmarks and discussed the purposes of these places. We have also consolidated what we have learnt about physical and human features. In P.E., we finished learning our dance, we worked hard within our classes and we performed these to our teachers. We really enjoyed this! In science, we have continued to look at the weather, keeping a log of how the weather changes each day and recording what type of weather we have using symbols. 

Update - Friday 31st January 2025

This week in Year 1, we have been consolidating our knowledge of numbers to 20, including our number bonds! We have used lots of practical resources to do this and also looked at doubling numbers within 20. In English, we have moved onto a topic, all about information texts, preparing for a final piece of writing all about our school to go on the website. We have looked at the suffixes -s and -es, and used a bubble map to gather our ideas about the features of our school. For our geography lesson this week we went for a walk in our local area, identifying the different physical and human features that we could see. In DT, we looked at the features of a taxi. We came up with design criteria as a class that included some of these features to help us build our taxis next week. In science, we have continued to look at the seasons. We have now looked at how animals change throughout the different seasons and what they need to survive all year round. In P.E., we have continued to practice our dances, incorporating new moves and getting ready to show our teachers! 

Update - Thursday 23rd January 2025

This week in Year 1 we have finished place value to 20, continuing to count forwards and backwards from any number. In English, we have learnt how to use a question mark and shared with each other what questions we had about our book 'Elephant in My Kitchen!' We have also looked at prepositions to describe the location of the animals in our book. We put these prepositions into simple sentences and then came up with our own. In DT we have built vehicles using junk modelling along with a variety of vehicles to ensure we have included wheels, axles and chassis. In PSHE, we have continued to look at dreams and goals, working as a team to design our own houses, looking at the different steps we should take to achieve this. In science, we have been looking at a variety of trees and their features, discussing what they look like in wintertime and comparing these to what they will look like in other seasons. In computing, we finished designing our own rockets on the computer and sequencing instructions to build these rockets. We had to spot which instruction was missing! 

    

Update - Friday 17th January 2025

This week, in Year 1 we have been continuing our Maths topic on place value within 20, focusing on the number line, ordering numbers and estimating. We have been using practical resources to support this learning and feel more confident going up to 20! During English, we have had another look at writing using suffixes. We were able to discuss what the different animals in our story, 'Elephant in our Kitchen,' were doing and describe where they were in the houses. In science, we have been looking at winter's seasons and features in our outside area. This included learning about what deciduous and evergreen trees are and how these trees change over the different seasons. In geography, we have looked at the four countries of the United Kingdom and described their locations along with their capital cities. We have also challenged ourselves to use cardinal points to describe these places. In computing, we have been learning how to save our work and designed our own rocket using Sketchpad. 

Update - Friday 10th January 2025

This week in Year 1 we have been really busy! We have been continuing with our maths topic, 'Place Value within 20,' looking at one less and one more and using 10s and 1s. In English, we have been looking at the story Elephant in My Kitchen, using the word 'and' in our sentences, and remembering to add capital letters, finger spaces and full stops! In geography, we have been looking at landmarks and have focused on the City of London. We also looked closely at our local landmark, Festival Place, and shared when we might have seen it and the purpose of this landmark. In DT, we used construction to build our own vehicles. We had to make sure we included wheels, axles and a chassis! In PSHE, we focused on our goal last week and thought about the steps we would need to achieve this. We hope to achieve this by the end of this half-term!

Update - Thursday 19th December 2024

This week year 1 have been busy preparing for their year 1 Christmas performance. They were all amazing and we hope you all enjoyed it too. Year 1 have also been learning the songs for the Christmas carol concert on Friday. 

In phonics, year 1 have been revising what they have learnt this term and they have been continuing to develop their letter formation during handwriting sessions.  

We hope you all have a lovely break and we will see you in the New Year. 

Update - Friday 6th December 2024

This week, in year 1, the children have been working hard at learning the Christmas songs and adding in  actions. 

In Maths, Year 1 have been consolidating their knowledge of shape, addition and subtraction. They have been finding one more and one less and solving missing number problems. 

In Science, the children have been investigating their sense of touch. They had to feel inside lots of different boxes and use their sense of touch to identify what was inside. 

In art, the children created their own portraits using collage. It was great fun!

                

Updated - Friday 29th November 2024

This week year 1 have started their new English unit on Christmas poetry. The children enjoyed listening to different poems and were keen to share their favourite poems with their peers. The children particularly enjoyed the poem 'Chocolate Cake' by Michael Rosen and discussed how the author used facial expressions and changed his voice to make his performance of the poem more interesting. 

In Art, year 1 explored works by different artists. They talked about how different portraits were the same and how they were different. They thought about the colours used, whether the artist had created their artwork using pencil, paint, or used photography and what emotions were being represented.  

In Computing, year 1 have been learning about decomposition. They learnt that this was when they break a task down into smaller steps. 

Updated - Thursday 21st November 2024

This week, Year 1 finished their unit of work based on the story 'Mr Tiger Goes Wild'. They enjoyed writing postcards to their friends as if they were Mr Tiger, about being wild. 

In Maths, the children explored 2D shapes. They learnt to recognise squares, rectangles, triangles, and circles. They then talked about how these shapes were the same and different. They thought about the number of sides and corners each shape had. 

In Art, year 1, learnt all about college. They enjoyed creating their own funny face collages. 

All the year 1 children really enjoyed the school pantomime on Thursday. They watched the story of Sleeping Beauty and loved participating in all the key moments.

   

Updated - Friday 15th November 2024

This week, year 1 has been enjoying their new Art unit on portraits. They explored the key features of a human face and used mirrors to create their own self-portraits. 

In Science, year 1 have continued learning about the human body. They drew graphs to identify how many body parts they have. 

In Maths, year 1 has been learning all about shapes. They have explored 3D shapes and learnt to recognise cubes, cuboids, pyramids, cylinders, cones, and spheres. They talked about how these shapes were the same and how they were different. 

In English, year 1 were learning to write sentences using 'and' to join 2 sentences together. 

      

Updated - Friday 8th November 2024

Welcome back,

We hope you all had a lovely break. 

In Maths, we are continuing with our unit on addition and subtraction within 10. The children have been learning to use whole-part diagrams to find missing parts and fact families. 

In English, we have been reading the book 'Mr Tiger Goes Wild' by Peter Brown. We have been making predictions about what we think could happen in the story and writing sentences about the key events that took place. 

We have started D.T this half-term. Our topic is all about shade and shelter. We enjoyed exploring our school and looking at different shelters and the materials they are made out of. 

    

Updated - Friday 25th October 2024

Year 1 have had a very busy last week!

In history we once again stepped back in time to the 1950s. This time however we were comparing a map from the 1950s to a map from the present day. We had to work together to recognise features that were the same and things that were different. We looked at how the 1950s map had some features that the present-day map didn't have - we also found that the present-day map had some new features. Finally, we recognised that some features actually stayed the same!

      

In maths, we have got really confident with our number bonds and adding! We have been using ten frames and counters to help our confidence in fact families. We had got so good at them that our teachers have been challenging us with some additional word problems!

     

Finally, in geography we have been learning about the 4 countries that make up the United Kingdom. We looked at atlases and maps to help us identify where each country was on our map and we labelled them. We then had to add in each capital city!

      

Updated - Friday 18th October 2024

Year 1 have been doing a lot of investigating in science this week! They had been challenged to find the perfect material to create bunting to display outside of their classrooms. They looked at materials such as foil, plastic cloths, paper, tissue paper and newspaper. They checked if the material was strong or weak, bendy or stiff and they even checked if it was waterproof or not waterproof. They concluded that the plastic cloth was the perfect material!

In maths we have been doing a lot of work on part whole models and using these to help us create different number sentences. This is leading us to writing number bonds within 10!

Finally, in history our classroom turned into a museum! We came back in from lunch to find lots of toys and images from the 1950s. We had time to explore these different objects and images before coming back together to discuss what we had found. We discovered things like flip books, puppets and even had a go at playing with yo-yos. We talked about how milk was in glass bottles and delivered by a milkman, we also talked about how sweets were in jars and were measured out by the shop keeper and put into paper bags. 

Updated - Friday 11th October 2024

In English we were introduced to our brand-new story "Beegu". We read it together during our first lesson but in the second lesson we discovered that our teachers had completely mixed up the order! 

We had to work together in teams to fix the story; once we had done this, we had a go at creating sentences for some of the photos. 

We became artists in Art this week! We were given some beautiful templates and we were free to paint them however we pleased! We used a mixture of primary and secondary colours. We knew if we got stuck on how to make a colour, we could look at our working wall for help. 

During our science lesson this week, we had to test different objects to determine the type of properities they had so we could place them into the correct venn diagrams. We looked at things that were hard, soft, shiny and even objects that were transparent and opaque!

Updated - Friday 4th October 2024

This week in English, year 1 finally concluded their 'Three Little Pigs' story. We had a shared write as a class where we created sentences on the board together before having a go on our own whiteboards. This helped us create some amazing sentences during our final write!

During computing, we tested our mouse skills by trying to draw different shapes. Once we were comfortable with our mouse control we then practised changing the colour of the pen and even the thickness and the brightness.

In geography we were introduced to the continents. We listened to a fun song to help us remember them before we were challenged to put together a giant puzzle of the world and its continents. This enabled us to successfully label our own maps in pairs!

Finally, in history we have been learning about the past - our past! We looked back through different decades and thought about what our family members might have been doing during these times. We then created our own family trees. 

Update- Thursday 26th September 2024

In English, we have been retelling part one of the three little pigs story in our first apprentice piece of year 1! We've ended the week by looking at part 2 so we are ready to write it in our final piece next week!

In art we have been looking at some lovely, colourful paintings. We picked out the primary and secondary colours we could see in each one. We then picked two that we loved to stick into our books and we wrote down the colours we could see as well as painting the colour beside it. Some of us even tried to write down what we liked/didn't like about the paintings.

Finally, in geography this week, we have been looking at maps and directions. We went over some key vocabulary used when giving someone directions and then had a go at drawing our partners a map to follow, we used arrows and words such as forwards, right turn, left turn and even tried to use the compass points! 

Update - Friday 20th September 2024

This week in year 1 we have had a busy week. In English we have continued to look at the story of The Three Little Pigs, we have learnt some of the key phrases and added capital letters to the beginning of sentences. In maths we have found 1 more and 1 less than numbers between 0 and 10, using cubes and counters to help us. In geography we have learnt about what a map is and what the term ‘location’ means. We have had a go at drawing our own maps that included human and physical features. In art we have continued  

to look at the primary and secondary colours. We have painted our own colour wheels and mixed the different primary colours to make secondary colours. During R.E we have continued to look at celebrations, we looked at different types of celebrations and discussed how it made us feel when we celebrated something. 

Updated - Friday 13th September 2024

On Monday we had a very exciting visit from Grandad Paul who came in to talk to us about growing up in the 1950s. He also shared some games with us that he remembered playing when he was a child. We then ordered photos of Grandad Paul and our teachers onto timelines as part of our history lesson. 

In art this week we applied our colour mixing skills to create colour wheels showing the relationship between the secondary colours and the primary colours used to mix them. 

In maths, we continued representing numbers and started looking at one more than a number. In English, we continued learning about the Three Little Pigs and practised writing sentences from the story with finger spaces. 

Updated: Friday 6th September 2024

Year 1 has settled beautifully this week, and we had lots of fun starting our new learning. We have been getting to know each other and our classrooms. In maths, we sort objects into groups and represent numbers in tens frames. We have been learning the story of The Three Little Pigs and retelling it using puppets. In art, we explored mixing primary colours to make secondary colours, and we went on material hunts in science. We started our history topic by learning some words we use to describe the past.