Welcome to Class One

Summer Term 2023

Welcome back to the final term of Year 1! As always it will be a packed term, with themes on changes in childhood and on the structure and identification of plants.

As with last term, the cloakroom doors will open around 8.55am, with pick up from the classroom door at 3.10pm. Please let us or the office know if someone else will be collecting them in the afternoon. Please remember to bring your book bag daily, as books and letters can be sent home on any given day.

Phonics & Reading: We will continue with the Little Wandle phonics program, exploring many new letters and sounds. To help facilitate this, children will be given two books to read at home: an easily decodable (readable) book, and a book to share and enjoy (to develop their love of reading). Children will have multiple reading sessions throughout each week at school, and we will share their progress with you through their reading record. Reading at home is greatly encouraged, try to build this into a daily routine if you can, and let us know how your child got on through the reading record. Don’t forget that you can also access a huge range of e-books as well through the school’s online library: https://appleyprimary.eplatform.co/

English: Alongside our phonics sessions, we will also encourage your child’s independence in their writing by exploring a range of books and texts, encouraging their comprehension and developing their handwriting. We will begin this term reading and exploring the book ‘Wild’ to stretch their imagination and to create some persuasive writing.

Maths: In Maths we will be using the White Rose scheme to develop your child’s confidence in multiplication and division, and developing their knowledge in fractions, place value within 100, fractions, money and time, using lots of practical resources.

History & Geography: In History we will be focusing on the changes within childhood, exploring how life has changed in living memory. We will look at various aspects of being a child; were toys always the same, what was school like and what did children in the past have to wear? As we also be celebrating the King’s coronation this term, we will also look at the changes in the past coronations; those of King Charles, Queen Elizabeth and King George. We will also be exploring a ‘Wonder of Appleby’ as part of geography, looking at the high street and the shops around us.

Science: In science we will be exploring the various plants which we can find around us, identifying common garden and wild plants, and exploring different trees; which are deciduous and evergreen. We will investigate the structure of a plant and see if this is the same as a tree. We will even try to grow some of our own!

Art and Design: Our art and design this term will be a sculptural project beginning with making drawings from observation, exploring media, and transforming the drawings from 2d to 3d to make an animal such as a bird!

Computing: In computing, we will become programmers, creating and debugging simple programs. We will work together to create algorithms and then program these into bee-bots, debugging and remaking our instructions as required.

PE: Our PE sessions continue to be twice a week, again on Tuesdays (am) and Friday (pm). Children should bring both outdoor and indoor kit as we will be going outdoors as it is much warmer! Please make sure all kit has your child’s name in it, so we are able to reunite lost items successfully. Earrings must be removed for PE and the children must be able to do this for themselves.

Music: This term we will be looking at improvisation, reflecting on a wide range of musical styles. We will practice our timing and musical note knowledge using glockenspiels, using increasingly simple note patterns to play tunefully! 

Communication: We will continue to use Seesaw for announcements and for communicating directly between home and school. I will keep sharing images of any exciting activities we do in school-time as well!

Please do not hesitate to send us a question via Seesaw if you have any queries. Looking forward to busy term!

Clara Dickinson