Welcome back to the Spring Term and the start of a brand new year - Happy New Year to you all! We have welcomed in 2025 in class with a super start to the new term. The children have settled back into class, they all have new talk partners to work with and/or new places to sit and they are already working hard. This week has been all about the Three Wise Men and the gifts that they brought for Jesus - we have asked ourselves in class, what can we bring to the baby Jesus?
English - we have continued on with our RWI lessons. During these sessions we all focus on phonics, reading, spelling and sentence development. We have also been working on our pre-cursive handwriting in which we focus on how to write our letters, starting on the line. We are continuing to work hard on our common exception words, reading them in class every day!
Maths - this week has all been about subtraction, part part wholes and fact families. We have used the three numbers from a part part whole to write a subtraction question - making sure we know what each part of the calculation represents. We have used part part whole models, counters and ten frames to support our learning.
RE - this week has been all about the gifts that we can bring to the baby Jesus - the children have amazed me with their wonderful responses - giving themselves to the Lord. We have celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany by going to Mass as a whole school yesterday.
Science - this week we have begun our new topic all about Materials. We started by examining a range of different objects and seeing if we could identify the materials they are made from.
Geography - our focus for this half term is all about maps and the various pieces of information that different maps provide. We started by looking at a variety of maps and then made our own treasure maps and directed our partner around it using the compass points.
ICT - this week we started our programming unit by using the Bee Bots and reminding ourselves of how these work.
Art - this week the children focused on mark making as part of their new drawing unit.
Many congratulations to this week’s winners…..
Golden Award - Maya for being a super star role model in Year 1 and embodying all our schools values of Care, Learn and Respect.
Writing Award - Remi for showing a super ‘have a go attitude’ towards all aspects of writing this week - I am very impressed Remi!
Maths Award - Draya for taking that first step to success by ‘having a go’ at her subtraction problems this week - and finding that trying means succeeding. Keep up the hard work.
General pieces of information
PE will be on Monday and Friday so please send the children into class in the PE kits on those days. No earrings can be worn for PE so please ensure that they are taken out at home.
Trainers - if your children is wearing trainers with laces for PE they must be able to tie them by themselves. This is a health and safety issue - please ensure your child can tie their laces before sending them in lace-up trainers.
Water bottles - all the children were given a new school bottle this week. This will come home each night to be cleaned and re-filled. Please only use the school bottles and ensure your child brings theirs each day. Lost water bottles can be replaced at the school office, but I am afraid you will have to pay for those. Year 1 have orange tops.
I will not be in class on a Thursday afternoon, as it is my release time. This will be covered by Mrs Debowska and Mrs McCooey and is also when the children will have Music with Mrs Watson.
Party Invitations - I am afraid that Mrs Debowska and I will not be able to give out party invitations in class. Please do not send your child into class with them for them to give out - it creates upset and fuss about something that takes place outside of school.Thank-you for your understanding with this matter.
Key Rings - please do not put key rings onto your child’s school bag, it create fuss in class and then upset if they are lost.
School bag - please continue to use the red book bag that your child was given in Reception, we don not have the room to store large bags. Many thanks for your help with this matter.
Homework Expectations - please see the Homework page for what I expect the children to do at home…..don’t worry, it’s mainly just reading!! HOMEWORK EXPECTATIONS - YEAR 1 — Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Primary
In Key Stage 1, children have common exception words to learn alongside their letters and sounds spellings. Common exception words are words in which the English spelling code works in an unusual or uncommon way. They are not words for which phonics 'doesn't work', but they may be exceptions to spelling rules, or words which use a particular combination of letters to represent sound patterns in a rare or unique way.
In Year 1 we are having a real PUSH on these words this term - to ensure that ALL children can read, write and spell correctly ALL of these words. They really do help support the flow of reading. You can really support your child at home by practicing these words. First of all, can they read them instantly? Not sounding them out, but just read them because they know them. Secondly, can they spell them? Thirdly, can they spell them correctly if they are writing their own sentence and are not told how to spell the word? These are all things you can help with at home - just 5/10 minutes each day will really help.
I have included a link to the Top Marks web page with a few interactive games which might hep!
Many thanks for your help.
Words and Spelling, English Games for 5-7 Years - Topmarks
Spelling games: Common exception words (spellzone.com)
Little Bird Spelling || Practise spelling Common Exception Words (ictgames.com)
Catholic Life of our school..
The following resources are a great way of keeping you all informed of our current liturgy themes and of the weekly Gospel scripture, with some activities that the children can complete at home. We hope you find these resources useful and that they help you to support prayer and worship in your own homes.
https://www.paperturn-view.com/wednesday-word/baptism?pid=MTA101634&v=159.3
At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters.
Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.
This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…
What Parents & Educators Need to Know about JusTalk Kids This free guide breaks down the potential risks of JusTalk Kids and provides expert advice on how to safeguard young users as they navigate the app.
We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.
And finally….may I take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy New Year. Have a lovely weekend…Mrs Hollinghurst, Mrs Debowska and all the Year 1 team.
A few pictures of our week…..
