St Joseph's Primary School Curriculum Meeting

St Joseph's Primary School Purpose of meeting: To give you a brief outline of the P1 curriculum this year.

Curriculum areas Play Communication (Literacy) Using Mathematics The World Around Us Religion The Arts P.E. Personal Development and Mutual Understanding (PDMU)

PLAY- “Play is the work of a child”- Maria Montessori. Young children learn in an integrated way and not in neat, tidy compartments, so subjects such as mathematics and art cannot be separated. Play is a precursor to academic learning. Children learn from interacting with other children, as well as adults. Children will: develop motor skills, develop concentration, develop social skills, develop creativity and imagination, learn about the world around them, develop Literacy/ Numeracy skills through games

Communication Language is central to learning. COMET – Communication and Education Together. Developed by speech and language therapists. This allows us to measure children’s language skills, in preparation for learning to read and write. Areas include : attention and listening, auditory memory, visual memory, vocabulary, phonological awareness

Linguistic phonics The linguistic phonics programme begins after the Halloween holidays. Linguistic Phonics is an approach to reading and spelling that builds on speech. They then learn how these sounds are represented by letters through investigation and a multi-sensory approach. The best way to help at home is to: play lots of word games, read to your child as much as possible – stories, information books, poems, instructions, time-tables, magazines etc, show that you enjoy reading and writing.

Reading Need to establish a language rich environment to model and share reading with the children. The central purpose of reading is to gain meaning from print, children also need to be encouraged to develop a curiosity about words, their sounds, patterns and how they are composed. In the classroom we provide a range of contexts in which to model the importance and enjoyment of reading, for example, reading stories and rhymes, information texts and children’s writing. Children will be taking home a library book and paired reader each week.

Writing in Foundation Stage Children need a lot of experience with pre-writing activities such as cutting, threading, pegs, painting, colouring and drawing before beginning to write. Much of this is done through structured play. In the classroom children will see others write for a variety of purposes, for example, notes, cards, labels and instructions. Through such experiences children will come to realise the importance of writing and the pleasure that can be gained from it. By the end of the Foundation Stage the majority of children will be able to use a pencil and hold it effectively to form recognisable letters, most of which are correctly formed.

St Joseph’s Primary School Pincer grip

Pencil Skills Programme Children progress through developmental stages before they have the necessary hand-eye co-ordination, fine motor skills and visual discrimination to produce conventional handwriting. http://www.hscboard.hscni.net/regional-integrated-support-for-education/

Developmental stages in Foundation Stage They show the steps that pupils may take to reach Level 1 of the Levels of Progression. Help us track the progress of the children in P1. Each term the children will complete 3 assessment tasks e.g. Literacy, Numeracy, ICT.

Understand that writing/printed text is recorded speech Understand that writing/printed text is recorded speech. See themselves as writers in a range of activities e.g. add labels. Use a comfortable, efficient pencil grip and begin to form some letters correctly.

Using Mathematics There are five areas in Maths : Number Measures Shape and Space Sorting Patterns and relationships

Numeracy areas Number – sing number rhymes; count forwards & backwards in ones within 10 & from different starting points. Recognise numbers up to 10. Addition to 10. Measures – compare two objects of different length/weight/capacity/area. Sequence their days of the week. Day and night. O Clock times. Shape and Space - explore and talk about shapes in the environment for example, shapes of leaves, containers, windows; build and make models with 3D shapes; create pictures and patterns with 2D shapes; describe and name common 3-D and 2-D shapes Sorting –Sort collections of random materials e.g. classroom materials. Sort for colour, shape and size. Talk about their collection. Patterns and Relationships – Continue a pattern. Create their own pattern.

The world around us Children are interested and curious about what is happening in the world around them Children should have opportunities to use their senses in order to develop their powers of observation, to be able to sort and classify, explore, predict, experiment, compare, plan, carry out and review their work. Cross-curricular Topic based work Incorporates History / Science / Geography Topics covered in P1 are: Nursery rhymes, Teddy bears, Hot and Cold, Spring, Holidays

Religion The children will be following the Grow in Love scheme. Each week the children will complete a lesson, which contains story, song, prayer, art, poetry, activities and classroom conversation.

The arts Incorporates Music, Drama and Art A lot of this is done through play in P1. Art will be completed during play. It allows children to experiment with a range of media and develop skills. Children will be drawing, painting, printing and working with clay. In music the children will sing a variety of songs and rhymes and play a range of percussion instruments, we will explore keeping a steady beat, loud and quiet and high and low sounds.

PE Children should wear their PE uniform on PE days. This will encourage the development of fundamental movement skills that will improve co-ordination, movement, control and balance. Information will be sent home throughout the year for parents on how to support learning. The children will be working within the areas of: dance, gymnastics, games, athletics.

PDMU Encourages children to: Recognise their uniqueness and value their abilities Recognise and manage a variety of feelings Know how they can have a healthy lifestyle Foster good relationships with family and friends Understand the need for rules Recognise and value diversity Understand their role in the school community

With this app we are able to include families in the learning process by inviting them to view updates to their child’s Seesaw journal. Seesaw’s immediate, visual updates actually get seen by busy parents and give families an opportunity to provide encouragement.

St Joseph’s Primary School A selection of policies are available for parents on the school website. If your child is absent please phone the school and let us know or speak to the teacher when your child returns. If your child needs to be collected early from school please fill in an early release form in the office. We will have parent meetings in October and February and you will receive a written report in June.

Developing independence To develop independence from the 2nd October please encourage your child to come into the classroom on their own. You can drop them off at the door each morning from 8.45am.

Homework Homework is sent home once a week, on Monday to be returned on Friday. Included will be a homework book, library book, paired reader, maths game and Grow in Love. Please encourage your child to complete their written homework themselves.

Allergies We are NUT FREE SCHOOL. If your child has any food allergies please inform the teacher. If epi-pens are required, please provide 2 for the teacher, to be kept in the classroom. If the child has an action plan, please provide the class teacher with a copy of this too.

Dinner money If your child is taking dinners please send the money in to the class teacher, each Monday. Dinners cost £2.60 per day. For a week it will cost £13. A menu can be requested from the class teacher.

Milk scheme The milk scheme will be available to Primary 1 children this year. If you would like your child to participate it will cost £33 If you do not wish your child to take milk please ensure they have a water bottle with them each day.

A final thought “A good education is another name for happiness.”