Year 1
What have we been learning this week?
Week beginning Monday 2nd November 2026
What an amazing, bedazzling, magical first week back after half term. Year 1 have had a wonderful time on their fairy tale week.
In English, we have introduced our new topic of Fairy Tales starting off with a dress up day. We were all impressed with the children's outfits from princesses to trolls and some famous characters. On our Fairy Tale Day, we had an amazing workshop who got the children to reenact the story of Jack and the Beanstak through drama. The children drew and labelled their own characters thinking about what they looked like and their thoughts and feelings. In the next lesson, we went on to discover some of the key features of Fairy Tales which included Good and Bad Characters, Magic and Once Upon a Time.
In maths, we have begun to introduce the concept of multiplication and division by distinguishing odd and even numbers as well as counting in 2s. The children enjoyed exploring odd and even numbers using the Numicon and grouping them in 2s. We have also been classifying animals into the 5 key groups of vertebrates in science.
How you can help:
Please can you practise zipping coats up with your child at home. Please practise counting in 2s with your child.
Please continue to read their school book at home. Please ensure your child has their school reading book with them every Thursday so it can be returned and a new one issued. If their previous book is not returned, they will not be issued their next book until it is.
Have a great weekend.
Year 1 Curriculum Meeting
Please see below, the Curriculum Meeting presentation shared with parents on Thursday 17th September 2026.
Welcome
Welcome back to all our wonderful Year 1 children and their families. We hope you all had a lovely Summer break and enjoyed some family time. We will be starting the year with our new topic 'Enchanted Forest'.
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Year 1 - Spring Term Curriculum Map
Our Topic this term is 'Around the World'. Below are some of the things the children will be learning this term.
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Year 1 - Summer Term Curriculum Map
Our Topic this term is 'Animals and Plants'. Below are some of the things the children will be learning this term.
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How can I support my child at home?
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- It is extremely important that your child uses a comfortable and efficient pencil grip, even though this may not be the same as your own. This should be the pincer grip. See picture above.
- Help your child to practise dressing and undressing including being able to turn clothes the right way out.
- Help your child to practise putting on his/her coat and doing/undoing the fastenings, including zips.
- Practise cutting up food so they can use a knife and fork in the dinner hall.
- Develop independence and thinking skills by encouraging your child to think for themselves and solve simple problems with minimal prompting
- Play games which might involve turn taking, rolling dice or moving counters
- Share stories together, discussing the pictures, plot and characters
- Listen to your child read their school reading books daily and complete the reading worm.
- Read and spell words from the Year R and Year 1 Common Exception Words.
- Practise writing your child's full name with correct letter formation and a capital letter to start.
- Practise individual letters, starting in the correct place
- Read, write and order numbers from 0-50 and 0-100
- Count forwards and backwards from 0-50/50-0 and 0-100/100-0
- Practise mental maths toolkits, little and often, to embed skills (copies of these below).
- Finding pairs of numbers that make 10 as well as other numbers e.g. 5 = 0+5, 1+4, 2+3, 3+2, 4+1, 5+0
Key information
Key words
In Year 1 it is expected that children will read key words on sight, or be able to fluently apply their phonics to read them. Throughout the year children will also be learning to spell these words. Some of these words are 'tricky words' that cannot be sounded out (e.g. said) and some of these words require the children to apply their phonics knowledge (e.g. sound). Please use the lists above (for spellings) as these are also the words that the children will be covering in Year 1, through their phonics lessons, spelling time and the English curriculum. It would be really helpful to practice reading a few words at a time at home too.
Reading
Your child will bring home a scheme book appropriate for their reading level in their book bag each day. Once the book has been read either at home or school, and this has been recorded in the reading diary, your child will be able to change their book to get the next one in that particular scheme. Thank you for your continued support in reading regularly with your child at home.
Phonics
When supporting your child with their reading, you may find it useful to refer to these sounds. As well as the individual alphabet sounds (e.g. the 'd' sound in 'dog'), your child will also learn these digraphs (sounds with two letters) and trigraphs (sounds with three letters).
Mental Maths Toolkits