Welcome back from what we hope was a relaxing Christmas break for you and your family. We hope all of our children have had an exciting and enjoyable time with their families and are ready for an exciting 2023 and a busy Spring term.
The Turtles class will have their PE day on a Wednesday and an outdoor session on a Thursday. These PE sessions will be outdoor weather permitting and mean that you will need to provide your child with suitable clothing and footwear on these days.
The children should now bring their PE kit on Wednesdays and Thursdays to change into, including outdoor shoes.
The books of the month for Turtles class this term will be...
January
February
March
April
The Gorillas class will have their PE day on a Wednesday and an outdoor session on a Thursday. These PE sessions will be outdoor, weather permitting and mean that you will need to provide your child with suitable clothing and footwear on these days.
The books of the month this term will be...
January
February
March
April
The Giraffes class will have their PE day on a Wednesday and an outdoor session on a Thursday. These PE sessions will be outdoor, weather permitting and mean that you will need to provide your child with suitable clothing and footwear on these days.
The books of the month for this term will be...
January
February
March
April
In History this half term we will be answering the big question "How have toys changed over time?" We will be looking at the development of toys over time and looking at how this has changed children's lives since the 1800's. We will be sequencing chronological events and learning what living memory means. We will also be furthering our learning with an exciting day out to Abbey house to explore their Victorian toy museum.
How you can help at home...
Talk to your children about your favourite toys as a child. Ask older friends or relatives to share their experiences about how they played as a child.
For the second part of the term our Geography learning will be answering the big question "where does food come from?" by learning all about food chains and food production in the UK.
We will be learning about how food travels from farm to fork, how the land is used to grow and harvest crops, raise livestock and the areas of the UK that these things take place.
We will also revisit our learning about the four countries in the UK by looking at how regions have special and local dishes and traditional foods.
How you can help at home...
Talk you your child about the different foods you eat as a family. look at packaging together to see how far your foods have travelled around the country or world. Talk about our local area and the types of farms we have on our doorstep
In our English writing lessons we will begin the year by focussing on story endings by crearing alternatove endings to the story Traction Man by Mini Grey.
Our Traditional tale of the term will be Pinocchio and we will also be working on writing Diary entries using The Proudest Blue by Ibtihaj Muhammad and creating weather fact files based on the text The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.
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. At this point in the year the majority of our children will still be learning to read through the Read Write Inc program.
They will continue to 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 had 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.
In June all children in Year One will undertake a phonics assessment required by the government. To better prepare them we will be sending home a variety of resources to help you support your child in learning and recalling the sounds they will need to be fluent in to pass this national test.
As we begin to prepare our Year Two children for the SAT assessments later in the year they will also be learning to answer comprehension questions to enable them to demonstrate that they understand the things that they are reading. There will also be the chance for some children to attend booster sessions to support this skill and more information on these these will be sent to those invited later in the term.
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 further 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
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 about Place value within the number 20 and then 50 and furthering their understanding of addition and subtraction and length and height this term. They will also be learning to use the number facts and bonds to solve simple arithmetic questions in dedicated arithmetic sessions.
In year 2 they will be expanding on what they have learned in Year 1 to use money in problem solving using addition and subtraction. They will be furthering their learning in multiplication and division using the 2,5 and 10 times tables as well as learning to use standard measures in length and height, mass and capacity and temperature.
How you can help at home...
There are many counting songs on YouTube that support the rote learning of times tables that your child could use to help them recall these number facts at speed. Try counting in jumps of 2, 5 and 10 at home to help them practice.
Our RE lessons this term will focus on the big question "Who is a Muslim and what do they believe" furthering our understanding of around different religions and how we are all unique and individual. After Half term we will move on to explore big question "Why Easter important to Christians?" where will explore the theme of salvation, where it fits into the big story of the Bible and why the traditions Christians follow at Easter are so important to them.
Our core Christian values for the term will be Respect in the first part of the term and then Reverence in the second half of spring. We will explore these themes in our daily worship sessions learning about justice, compassion, generosity and endurance.
Our science work this term will be learning all about Animals including humans through the big question "Why are humans not like fish?" We will be learning to identify and classify different animals, the things all animals need to survive and how we can keep ourselves happy and healthy as humans.
Our key scientist of the term is Harriet Chick ( 1875-1976)
In our Art lessons we will be exploring Human Form though our exploration of line, shape, portrait work and collaging.
The artists that we will focus on will be Julian Opie, Edwina Bridgeman and Claude Monet
In Music we will be learning about Timbre and rhythmic patterns in our musical me topic. We will be learning about musical notation to write our own melodies and composing our own pieces using untuned instruments.
PE this half term will focus on target games in the first half of the term and then net and ball games in the second. We will be learning to throw with accuracy and technique, play against opponents by defending spaces and develop our racket and ball skills.
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.
In computing the children will be learning all about programming using the app, Scratch Junior in the first half of the term and then data handling in the second part of the term.
They will learn how to create and follow simple algorithms, how to use simple code and debug simple programs. They will then move on to learning about collecting, sorting and representing data digitally.
Our internet safety focus will be making room to talk about life online in support of world internet safety day in February and in the second half term online emotions and how we manage our feelings online.
Finally, Thankyou for your continued support in helping the academy achieve it's attendance target of 97%. every school day counts and we have such an exciting curriculum planned it is important that your child does not miss out.
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 fantastcs 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