Year 1 Spring 2025

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• In English lessons, during Spring 1, the following texts are taught: ‘The Highway Rat’ by Julia Donaldson, where a greedy rat travels the highway in search of other animals' food, before his sweet tooth finally leads him to a sticky outcome, and ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’. We now complete English lessons in Year 1 rather than just writing and Read Write Inc lessons. This is so that Year 1 children also develop their reading comprehension skills, outside of Read Write Inc lessons, and have more opportunity to retrieve basic information and make simple inferences, in addition to learning phonics. In writing sessions, pupils write a character description of the Highway Rat and then practise recalling events from Goldilocks in detail and in chronological order. During half term 2, the texts, ‘Ruby’s Worry’ and ‘Finn’s Little Fibs’ by Tom Percival are taught. These books are about children who struggle to express their feelings. During the first block of writing, pupils will focus on retelling one of these stories and, during the second block, they will write a basic letter from the perspective of one of the lead characters.
   

• Reading continues to centre around the Read Write Inc phonics programme for all Year 1 pupils and is tailored to meet the phonetical needs of each child. This term, our handwriting lessons and daily handwriting starters focus on printing letters using the correct formation, orientation and sizing, with a focus on some of the tricky formations such as k and f. Finally, Spelling Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG) is a key focus within English lessons, with pupils continuing to produce grammatically accurate sentences that make sense and include a noun, verb, and perhaps an adjective or simple conjunction like ‘and’ to add some very basic descriptions and cohesive devices. Punctuation lessons focus on full stops, capital letters, question marks and exclamation marks.
   

• In Year 1 Maths, the White Rose scheme is used to explore place value within 50, as well as addition and subtraction within 20. We explore these concepts in different ways, using concrete resources, visual models and diagrams to support us. In the second half of the term, we start learning about the measures of length and height, beginning with non-standard units like cubes and moving on to centimetres. We then learn about weight and volume, using cubes and cups to measure and compare.
   

• In Science, we use the White Rose Science scheme of work. This term, there is a focus on biology in the topic of plants, including the effect of light and dark on plants, and living things and their habitats. Pupils learn through practical investigations, making predictions, selecting materials, recording results and drawing basic conclusions for themselves based on these enquiries.
   

• Through the topic of “It’s a Wonderful World”, Year 1 and 2 undertake historical and geographical study. In history, pupils will find out about Nurturing Nurses from the past, considering the greatest achievements of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole whilst, in geography, pupils study the continents, concentrating on how places around the world are different.
   

• In PE this term, pupils will receive lessons with Soccer 2000 coaches on net and wall games, working on sending and receiving techniques. With their class teacher, they will be learning invasion games focusing upon the skills of striking and fielding.
   

• In Art, pupils will draw portraits of Florence Nightingale, considering proportion, shading and tone. We will then look at the work of Pablo Picasso and have a go at creating a cubist portrait! After half term, we will also experiment with paint and colour mixing, using 2d shapes to create paintings of animals and Aboriginal art from Australia.
   

• Computing includes the themes of programming, where we use programmable devices such as beebots and floorbots, and create block charts to represent basic data and information.
   

• In Jigsaw, we cover the topic “Dreams and Goals” where pupils learn about setting targets to be successful. We then move on to “Healthy Me” where pupils consider how to lead a healthy life, including food choices, road safety, using medicines safely and linking health and happiness. Our Project Evolve Online Safety lessons for the term concentrate on privacy and security, health, wellbeing and lifestyle.
   

• DT this term has a focus on designing and making a model ambulance using wheels and axles. DT explores the design, plan, make and evaluate model.
   

• In Music, Year 1’s learning focuses around a unit called ‘In The Groove’ in the first half term and a unit entitled ‘Round and Round’ in the second half term. Pupils will be given the opportunity to listen to and appraise songs, considering their own likes and preferences as well as making comparisons to other similar songs with a focus on not only the music and instruments but also the lyrics. Pupils will learn to sing songs and play instruments, including untuned percussion instruments.
   

• In RE, Year 1 and 2 finish the Autumn Term unit called, ‘Beginning to learn from Islam’ plus in the second half term study, ‘Questions that puzzle us – Christianity.’
   

• Homework for Year 1 is as follows:
  - Reading their school reading book at least three times a week.
  - Additional phonics prep which will be sent out ahead of the Phonic Screening Check in May.
  - Accessing Times Table Rock Stars to rehearse early multiplication facts.
  - Oracy homework that is sent via text and includes points of discussion for home based conversation around our “Thunk” of the week (a moral question suitable for debate) and our big question for history/geography for the week.