Alexander McLeod Primary School

Year 1

On this page you will be able to find out about all the exciting learning happening in Year 1. Below you will find our year’s planning, half termly newsletter and link to our Twitter page.

Please click on an image for a brief introduction to the teachers

 

  • Mrs Csicsek
    Year 1 Teacher & History Lead
  • Mrs Hamilton
    Year 1 Teacher
  • Mrs Binks
    Year 1 Teacher & Leader of Learning,
  • Mr Shelley
    Year 1 Teacher & Maths Lead

Our Learning

Year 1 is a very exciting year as children move from the Early Years Foundation Stage into Key Stage One. As well as teaching the Year 1 National Curriculum, we will also be recapping important learning from the Early Years Framework.

Albert Einstein stated that ‘play is the highest form of research’. Year 1 will be using a provision based approach to cover our curriculum during the autumn term. We will use child-initiated play, along with small adult led focus groups to cover our curriculum. Each day we will provide various resources for children to explore freely in different areas of the classroom. Each area will be engaging, offer challenge and allow children to develop important life skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, as well as meeting the National Curriculum. As the children learn and develop, our provision will gradually become more formal. This will support children with their transition into Year 2 where all learning is formalised.

In Year 1, a big part of our provision is the use of books all around the classroom to enhance the children’s learning. As well as linking to our topics they also link to PSHE issues such as friendship and kindness and offer a range of diversity to ensure all children can see themselves represented through the books in our classrooms. As well as each child reading with an adult three times a week, we also use high quality texts to teach whole class reading every day.

The topics that are being covered in Year 1 this year are Superheroes, The Journeys (our local area), The Wonder Garden, Whale Rescue, Mary Anning and Island Adventure. We have chosen these topics as they all lend themselves well to cross curricular learning which will enable children to develop knowledge, skills and understanding, while motivating them to learn in a variety of creative ways.

Phonics Screening Check

In Year 1, children will complete a Phonics Screening Check at the end of the year. Children will take this test in an informal setting, one-to-one, with a teacher. Whilst children learn phonics to help them with both word reading and spelling, the Phonics Screening Check only tests their skills at word reading. This is sometimes called decoding. During the Phonics Screening Check, children are asked to read (decode) 40 words. Most of these words are real words but some are pseudo-words (made up words). Pseudo-words are included to ensure that children are using their decoding skills and not just relying on their memory of words they’ve read before. As some children may misread these pseudo-words based on their similarity to words in their existing vocabulary, each pseudo-word is clearly identified with an image of an alien. Most teachers and children, therefore, refer to pseudo-words as alien words. Children are taught phonics every day and they will be taught the difference between pseudo-words and real words throughout the school year.

Year 1 Newsletter - Autumn Term 2

Key Stage 1 Curriculum booklet