Year-1-Class-Page (ID 1038)

• Overview
  Overview

  We love being in Year 1. We know how important it is that we work together as a team. At the beginning of the year, we decide on our class rules and try really hard to follow them. We work hard on using our manners and being polite to everybody in school.

  In Year 1 we begin following the National Curriculum but there is still lots of opportunity to learn through play through continuous provision activities that are matched to our learning in English and Maths as well as in our topic work, music, PSHE and RE.

  As the year progresses (when the children are ready), learning in Year 1 becomes more formal as the children prepare for Year 2. They work at tables both in supported groups and independently but we still have lots of opportunity for outdoor learning and practical activities. We love to use our fantastic school grounds as much as possible.

• Visits and Vistors
  Visits and Vistors

  Educational Visits

  Throughout the year we visit many places in the local area to support learning in Geography, PHSE and RE. These include Rastrick Library, St Matthews Church and the park.

  In the Summer Term, as part of out topic ‘Beside the Seaside’ we experience the seaside first hand when we visit Lytham St Annes. We build sandcastles, walk on the pier and promenade, paddle in the sea, have a picnic on the beach and an enjoy an ice-cream. This gives us plenty of opportunity to embed the language that we have learned in class and compare seaside holidays of the past with those of today.

  Visitors in Year 1

  We love welcoming visitors into Year 1. This year, we have met:

  • Angharad from Rastrick Library Services who came to read the nominee for Calderdale's favourite story to us. We even got to vote for the winner!
  • The Dogs Trust, who gave us a workshop about how to care for and stay safe around dogs.
  • Santa Claus!

• Uniform and PE
  Uniform and PE

  School uniform helps us to feel like we are all part of the same team.

  It is important that we all wear the correct uniform, please refer to School Uniform (Parents & Carers menu tab)

  PE Days 2025 2026

  • Class 1:1 Robin - Monday and Thursday

• Reading
  Reading

  In Year One we love reading and recognise how incredibly important it is to practise our book daily at home and bring it to school everyday.

  We learn how to decode the English language through our daily phonics lessons. We use the Little Wandle Phonics scheme and you will be amazed at how quickly we start to read our books fluently and with real understanding. We read three times a week with our adults at school – once to make sure that we can use of phonic skills to decode the words, the next time is to read fluently with prosody (ask us what that means, you will be really impressed!). Finally we answer questions by going back and checking the text.

  After we have completed the three reading sessions in school we bring our reading books home to share with our parents and carers and to show them how fantastic we are!

  We have core stories that we read as part of our English lessons. They link to our topic and we love being able to read them independently in our reading areas.

  We love our special reading area in class. We like that we get to read our core stories again by ourselves. We can share them with our friends, or even the teddies who love a good story! We like looking at the pictures in the reading area and chatting about our favourite books with our friends.

  We have class readers which we read together as a whole class. Some of the books that we read are longer chapter books that might be too difficult for us to read on our own. We really look forward to the stories and love finding out what happens next each day!

  Non-Fiction

  We love story books, but also really love finding out about different things in the world around us. We really enjoy reading non-fiction books and love looking at the atlases that are kept in class. Some of our non-fiction books help us to understand the topic work that we are doing, but some are just very interesting and contain some very cool facts that we love to share with our friends.

  Poetry

  We have poetry books in class and like to read familiar poems and rhymes that we have been learning. We also learn to say some poems off by heart and have even performed them to our friends in Year 2 in assembly.

• Homework
  Homework

  We bring home a new reading book once a week. This is a book that we’ve read three times in class. We need our grown-ups to listen to us reading every day so that we get better and better!

  We also visit the library every Monday lunchtime to choose our own reading for pleasure book which we enjoy reading with our grown- ups at home.

  We do phonics every day in class and, at the end of the week, we will come home with a sheet so that we can practice all of the new graphemes (sounds written down), words and sentences that we have been learning.

  We enjoy our maths lessons in class and we bring home a Big Maths 'Beat That' challenge' each week to practise at home to help us to beat our best ever score.

  Finally, later in the year, we will bring home a special log in and password so that we can access 'TT Rockstars' at home. This is a super program where we can play games online (even against our Longroyde friends!) whist helping us to learn our two, ten and five times table facts.

• Weblinks
  Weblinks

  These websites are great for Year 1, they will help with reading, spelling, maths and our science work:

  Little Wandle Letters and Sounds

  Booktrust - Getting Children Reading

  BBC Teach

  Love Reading 4 Kids

  Oxford Owl

  BBC Teach Resources

  Math Games

  Top Marks

  Teach Your Monster Number Skills

  Mathletics

  Stem Learning