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Key Stage 1 Autumn Newsletter

Welcome back from what we hope was a fabulous summer holiday for you and your family. We hope all of our children have had a relaxing and enjoyable summer and are ready for an exciting year and a busy Autumn term.

The Turtles class will have their PE day on a Wednesday. They will also have Forest school on a Monday morning until October half term.

The children should now bring their PE kit on Wednesday to change into, including outdoor shoes. On Mondays they will need to bring a change of clothes for Forest School which should be a long sleeved top, long legged trousers, a waterproof coat and a pair of wellies or sturdy outdoor footwear.

The books of the month for Turtles class this term will be...

September

October

November

December

The Gorillas class will have their PE day on a Wednesday and as with Turtles class they should bring their kit to change into.

The books of the month this term will be...

September

October

November

Dec

The Giraffes class PE day will have their PE day on a Wednesday and as with the other classes they will need to bring their kit on a Wednesday to change into. Giraffe class will also have Forest school on a Monday afternoon until October half term.

On Mondays they will need to bring a change of clothes for Forest School which should be a long sleeved top, long legged trousers, a waterproof coat and a pair of wellies of sturdy outdoor footwear.

The books of the month for this term will be...

September

October

November

December

Geography

For the first part of the term our geography learning will be answering the big question "Is Knottingley the centre of the world?" by learning all about the world we live in, including the United Kingdom, Europe the 7 continents (Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Africa, Australia /Oceania/ Australasia) and the 5 oceans in the world (Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, Arctic Ocean, Southern Ocean)

We will be learning the names of the countries in the United Kingdom and all about the capital city of England and it's landmarks. Finally, we will be learning where Knottingley fits into the bigger picture by working with maps and atlas'.

How you can help at home...

Talk you your child about where they live, point out some landmarks on your way to and from school to help them learn some of the local geography. Talk to your child about your own home. Help them to learn their address, postcode and house number.

English

In our English writing lessons we will begin the year by focussing on writing lists, captions and labels, through books that are all about starting school. In Zog by Julia Donaldson we will be making lists of the things a dragon needs to be able to do to graduate from dragon school. In Whiffy Wilson the wolf who wouldn't go to school by Carly Hart, we will be labelling the things that we love about our classroom and school. In The colour monster goes to school by Anna Llenus we will be creating captions for pictures of the colour monster as he explores the different emotions he feels as he goes to school for the first time.

Our Traditional tale of the term will be Puss in boots and we will also be working on writing instructions for washing our hands, using remembrance day as a stimulus for some acrostic poetry and creating some story endings and diary entries as we head toward the end of the term

Early reading

Reading is something that we at St Botolphs are incredibly passionate about. We can not stress enough how important it is that children are fluent and literate readers as early as possible to ensure that they can access all areas of learning. To ensure we are all off the the best start, all children will begin the year learning to read through the Read Write Inc program.

They will learn to read in small groups that support them to become confident and move through the program as quickly as possible, to ensure they are reading fluently as soon as possible. This may mean your child brings home a colour of book that they have has before. This is to build your child's confidence and push them to master the sounds they are learning and does not mean that they have slipped backwards.

The book bag books they will bring home link to the Read Write Inc book that your child is reading in class. They are the same sounds that are in fun and engaging stories, all designed to help your child become fluent and move on through the program faster. It is essential that your child reads this book at home and returns it in their book bag each day to allow us to listen to them read and celebrate their success.

How you can help at home...

Please support your child's reading journey by recording home reading in your child's reading record to help us keep a track of how they are doing at home.

Mrs Skelding and Mrs Groves will be leading some sessions for parents to explain more about the program and the assessments that your child will have this year and we will let you know the dates of these closer to the time

Maths

In our school we follow the White Rose scheme of learning to plan and deliver our maths lessons. This scheme allows children to experience a wide range of strategies to use across the different operations and pushes the children towards mastering the subject by allowing children to use what they know about number relationships and patterns in different ways, helping them solve problems.

In Year 1 the children will be learning all about number and place value this term. they will be expanding on the learning they did in their reception year by sorting and counting objects, learning to recognise numbers as words, learning to add and subtract single digit numbers, using object's to support them and learning to recall number facts and number bonds fluently.

In year 2 they will be expanding on what they have learned in Year 1 to help them Count objects to 100 by making 10s, recognise tens and ones, partition numbers to 100 in different ways and write numbers to 100 in words.

How you can help at home...

There are many counting songs on YouTube that we will be learning in school and we will send more details and links to them as we learn them through our class Dojo pages. Count forwards and backwards using numbers to twenty. Point out and talk about numbers and numbers written as words when you are out and about.

RE

Our RE lessons this term will focus on the big question "Who am I?" and will help us to focus our learning around different religions and how we are all unique and individual. After Half term we will move on to explore big question "Why is Christmas so important to Christians?"  where will explore the theme of incarnation, where it fits into the big story of the Bible and why the traditions Christians follow at Christmas are so important to them.

Our core Christian values for the term will be Responsibilities in the first part of the term and then Resilience in the second half of summer. We will explore these themes in our daily worship sessions learning about relationships, hope, peace, creation and faithfulness.

Science

Our science work this term will be learning all about Materials through the big question "Why would paper not make a good window?" We will be learning to identify the materials that objects are made from and looking at the different properties of materials to discover why some materials are better for some objects than others.

Art and Music

In our Art lessons we will be exploring the formal elements of art though our exploration of sketching techniques using lines, shape, shading and contrasting tones.

The artists that we will focus on will be Max Ernst, Beatrice Milhazes, Jasper Johns and Ed Ruscha.

In Music we will be learning about rhythm and sequences with some African call and response songs and using our bodies to make sounds to explore pulse and tempo.

PE

PE this half term will focus on the fundamentals of exercise in the first half of the term and then gymnastics in the second. We will be learning to move in different ways at speed, changing direction and controlling our bodies.

Our PE kit is a plain white t shirt with plain navy or black bottoms. These can be leggings, shorts, skorts or track suit bottoms. Please ensure that children remove any earrings, have their hair tied up if it is collar length and have both an indoor and outdoor kit with appropriate footwear with them.

computing

In computing the children will be learning all about programming using Bee Bots in the first half of the term and then digital images in the second part of the term. they will learn and how to follow and create instructions, how to make a simple program for the bee bot to follow and then how to take, store and use images in a photo story.

Finally, as we begin our new school year it is vital that you check to ensure your child's uniform is labelled. We encourage children to be independent with their belongings, especially jumpers and cardigans and it helps them to keep a track of them when they are clearly named.

Please also remember that we follow the Wakefield policy on healthy school life and your child must have only water, no flavoured waters or fizzy drinks in water bottles.

We are looking forward to another fantastic year and term and can not thank you enough for all of your support and help in getting our children off to a flying start this year.

Yours in learning

Mrs Groves and the KS1 team