Success in almost any area of the curriculum depends upon good basic literacy. A good understanding of the spoken and written provides children with an important form of self expression and confidence in learning.
In Year One heavy emphasis is therefore placed upon promoting high standards of language and literacy through the four basic key elements of speaking, listening, reading and writing. Children have daily Literacy lessons which focus on equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and develops their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment.
In Year One the curriculum has two main focuses for reading development
– Word Reading
– Comprehension (both listening and reading)
It is essential that pupils develop competence in both areas.
In Year One we ensure this happens through a range of phonic, independent and group reading combined with detailed questioning where pupils give both oral and written answers. Pupils continue to build up their reading skills and develop their phonic awareness started in the Reception class. Their interest and pleasure in reading is developed as they become more confident independent readers.
The children read from a variety of structured reading schemes and will be able to choose books to read for pleasure from the library. They are heard reading on a one-to-one basis at least three times a week, in addition to Big Reading in class, where they read alongside other children supported by the Class teacher and learning support assistant.
Pupils will read from a variety of texts both fiction and non-fiction, they learn about the key features if both text types. They will be taught strategies to help them make sense of what they read and enable them to look beyond the literal answers in the text.
The main focus of writing in the curriculum is aimed at two main areas of development.
– Transcription (Spelling and Handwriting)
– Composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech and writing)
The teaching in Year One develops pupils’ competence in these two dimensions. In addition, pupils are taught how to plan, revise and evaluate their writing.
In Year One Children are beginning to write independently they are encouraged to attempt writing for a wide variety of purposes such as lists, stories, rhymes and information.
The writing genres that the children are introduced to are:
Poetry
Traditional stories
Reporting and recounts
Captions
Instructions – Lists
Letters – Invitations
Dictionaries
VCOP
Our writing lessons are taught with a strong focus on four skills. Children may talk about VCOP:
Vocabulary (descriptive language) Children are encouraged to use ‘wow’ words in their writing.
Connectives (words that link sentences) Children are encouraged to use connectives to extend their sentences. They are like ‘joining words’. The better the connective, the better the sentence.
Openers (sentence starters) Children are encouraged to think carefully about how to open a sentence in an interesting way.
Punctuation (full stops, exclamation marks, commas). Children are made aware that every sentence that they write needs to be punctuated.
In handwriting lessons children are taught to form lower case letters correctly in a script that is easy to join later. They have the opportunity to practice handwriting in conjunction with spelling and independent writing, ensuring correct letter orientation, formation and proportion.
During Year One, the children have weekly lessons focusing on the wide range of phonic sounds. They learn that many sounds can be represented in more than one way, for example the / ae / sound can be spelt with ‘ai’, ‘ay’ or ‘a-e’. Work is focused on identifying when to use the correct sound in both decoding words and spelling. The children learn phonics through a wide range of activities, including interactive games, group work and written work. Throughout the year opportunities for teachers to enhance pupils’ vocabulary arise naturally from their reading and writing. As vocabulary increases, teachers show pupils how to understand the relationships between words, how to understand word meaning, and how to use it within speech and writing.
Grammar and Punctuation
In year 1 children learn to write fully structured sentences that convey meaning and are punctuated correctly. Weekly Grammar lessons teach children about different aspects of written and spoken sentence structure. Areas that are covered are.
– Alphabetical order
– Using Nouns, adjectives and verbs
– Past/ present Tenses vocabulary
– Pronouns
– Punctuation including. ? ! , ” ”
In Year 1 most children will develop their understanding of story structure and language by retelling events from their own experience in the correct sequence using story language and by making up their own stories. They will use improvisation and role-play and act out familiar stories, for example using puppets or toys and changing voice for different characters. They will learn to listen with sustained concentration, follow instructions and take turns within a group. They will use an audible voice when they are speaking to the class or group, for example to recount an event, tell a story or express their views. They will experiment with and build new stores of words.
Year 1 is an important year for reinforcing concepts already learnt, building confidence in handling numbers, and gaining an increasing understanding of mathematical language and the operation they learn to perform. During the year the children develop their ability to use and apply mathematics in a variety of real life situations, whilst at the same time tackling more difficult mathematical activities. All learning objectives for Year 1 are taken from National Curriculum Mathematics programmes of Study Key Stage 1.
Year 1 children will be taught to:
Read and write numbers from 1 to 20 (and beyond for some to 100) in numerals and words.
Year 1 children will be taught to:
Year 1 children will be taught to:
Year 1 children will be taught to:
Year 1 children will be taught to:
Year 1 children will be taught to:
Year 1 children will be taught to:
Big Maths is a new way of looking at the primary maths curriculum. As part of our drive to constantly up level the children’s Numeracy it is essential that they are able to memorise and recall certain basic facts. The Year One facts are on the website.
There is a website that will give you a lot of information on ‘Big Maths’ and there are freebies that can be downloaded from this site too.
Children’s natural curiosity about the world around them provides an excellent starting point for science. In Year 1 the children will study science through a range of topics.
Science Topics:
In year 1 the children are encouraged to develop an understanding of their immediate locality. They develop skills to enable them to compare different places in the world.
Topics:
In Year 1, children will begin to acquire a sense of time. They will learn that there is a ‘past’ and that it can be studied through artefacts, books visits and stories. They will begin to distinguish between fantasy and reality.
Topics:
ICT is now called Computing. It focuses on teaching children about all areas of using a computer. It teaches children about how computers work and how to make them work using some components of basic coding rather than just playing games. This is a scheme that allows creativity and progression.
The computing units have been developed to focus on delivering computing through a flexible context, whilst providing links to other areas of the curriculum. Children will access computing through the use of laptops, interactive whiteboard tasks using the IWB, ipads and Beebots.
TERM 1
TERM 2
TERM 3
During Year 1 the children are exposed to a range of different styles and techniques. They have the opportunity to use paint, clay and other resources to create their own art. They also have the opportunity to use famous artists’ work as inspiration and to experiment with their styles.
