1. Year 1 “Learn with your child”

2. Transition from Reception o Gradual transition from Reception o Opportunities to choose own activities o Complete more teacher led activities as time goes on o Independence is encouraged (look after own belongings) o Cross-curricular links o Maybe some teary mornings

3. Typical school day o Children line up outside their own class door in the mornings o The teacher will collect any letters, monies etc. at the classroom door o Your child will put their book bag in a special box o They will put their water bottle in a tray on the side o Any personal items will be put in their own tray o Coats and PE bags are stored in the cloakrooms on their own named peg

4. o Boot camp wellies will be stored for the whole term in the year 1 welly shed o The children will gather on the carpet ready for registration o The rest of the day is spent learning through activities and whole learning carpet sessions o There will be a daily phonics session o Other lessons will include, maths, literacy, art, DT, PE, ICT, geography, history, science, RE, music, boot camp, outdoor learning, PHSE o The children will be given a fruit snack and a drink (paid milk or water bottle) together in the classroom o The children will go out to play as a year group in the morning and afternoon, as well as their usual lunchtime break o They will have their lunch in the classroom o At the end of the school day the teacher will open the class door, the children will leave one at a time when they can see their appropriate adult

5. Literacy in Year 1 Speaking and listening o This is an extremely important stage in developing all language skills o We develop speaking and listening in school through Talk partners, Talk for writing, reviewing their independent learning, Circle time, role play, etc. o Homework – This is a chance for you as a parent to talk about what they have been learning at school

6. Literacy in Year 1 Phonics o The children will participate in whole class daily sessions o The focus will be learning new sounds and practising blending and segmenting, real and made up ‘alien’ words (an important skill) o Children can practise these skills when reading at home with an adult o Some words will need to be learnt by sight (high frequency words) and these will be sent home in a word list

7. Literacy in Year 1 Reading o The children bring a reading book home whenever they have finished the book (everyday if you wish, but longer books may need a few days to read) o The books your child brings home are different to the ones they read in school o Please write a comment on the reading card so that we know the book has been read and needs changing o When reading with your child at home, remember that discussion about the book helps you to know if your child has understood what they have read o Seeing adults read at home will encourage children to read themselves

8. Literacy in Year 1 Writing o Writing is the most difficult literacy skill at this stage because to write the child needs to be able to: - have an idea - put this idea into a complete sentence that makes sense - have the physical skills to write - know which letter/s make that sound - remember finger spaces and punctuation - and finally to be able to read it themselves! o To support the children in the classroom, the children will have access to word banks, phonic mats, letter formation mats, and Talking postcards o To help your child practise these skills, encourage your child to write at home e.g. shopping lists, party invites, cards etc.

9. Literacy in Year 1 o Much of our written work is based around a topic or a book o How we teach writing in school o All writing tasks are proceeded by lots of talk. This helps the children to formulate their ideas o We then model how we would go about writing this idea down to the whole class o The children then go to a table to have a go by themselves o The teacher/TA will work with different groups as needed to develop their skills o We teach the children about capital letters, full stops and finger spaces. This leads us into teaching commas, question marks, describing words, and other VCOP skills

10. Literacy in Year 1 Handwriting o In year one the children are expected to use cursive handwriting o This is taught in handwriting lessons by teaching groups of similarly formed letters e.g. Curly caterpillar (c, o, a, d, g, q) o Handwriting activities might include playdough, Write dance, variety of media, construction equipment, tracing, colouring etc.

11. “Learn with your child” Literacy activity The purpose of this session is to show you how we teach writing in Year 1. o The class teacher will read a story and talk about it o Then we will model how to think of and compose a sentence o At tables, the children will draw a picture from the story and you will help them to write a sentence