Y1 Tigers

Tiger class is made up of 30 wonderful Year 1 children and our class teacher is Miss Hardaker. Across Year 1, we are lucky enough to be supported by our fabulous teaching assistants: Miss Gunnel, Mrs Ashton and Miss Austen, at different times during the week. We are also very lucky as we get taught by Mrs Robinson every Monday and every other Tuesday.

On our webpage you will find important information such as our spellings and any important dates. These will also be communicated on Class Dojo where further regular updates will be shared so please make sure you are connected. Feel free to email me any time via class dojo or through my school email: ghardaker@dovedale.derbyshire.sch.uk 

We hope you enjoy seeing all of the exciting things we will get up to on our learning journey this year in Tiger Class.

The School Day

We are currently using staggered start/end times to the day for each year group. Here is the pick up/drop off information for Year 1 children. 

Morning drop off - 8:50am through the Main Green Gate.

End of day pick up - 3:10pm collect children from the 'new' gazebo - wait on the playground.

Reading books

Reading books are changed on a weekly basis when your child has reading time with an adult at school. If your child is reading regularly at home, I am very happy to change their colour banded book more often. The children will need to leave their reading book and reading diary in the designated book box (they know where!) when they arrive in the morning. This will give me enough time to change their book during the day. 
Please could you write a little note in their diary asking for books to be changed so I know they have definitely finished these and please remind your child in a morning to hand their diary and book in, or send me a quick Dojo if they are likely to forget so I can remind them too! 

Spellings

In Year 1, the spellings are mainly linked to the high frequency and tricky words to aid them with their spelling during independent writing. At the beginning of every half term, children will be sent home with a booklet containing 30 different words, split into groups of 10 to practice each week. The booklet states which week each set of spellings relates to and which date the children will be tested. Spelling tests will generally always take place on a Wednesday. 
Please find resourced below a copy of the spelling booklet for this half term, as well as a range of different ways to practice with your child. As a school, we highly recommend Spelling Shed which the weekly spelling lists will also be added onto. Please find your child's log in on the first page of their Reading Diary. 

PE

We have indoor PE every Wednesday afternoon and outdoor PE every Thursday afternoon.
Please make sure PE kits come to school at the start of the term. We will keep these in school for the whole half term and send these home for a wash over October half term! Please ensure that the children have something warm (tracksuit bottoms and a tracksuit top) for outdoor PE, especially as we approach the colder months. 

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Over the first week or two of Autumn term 1 (September until October half term), we will be working with the children and assessing them in different ways. This will help us to see what they are great at and it will also highlight any gaps in their learning that may have occurred due to being away from school for so long! We will then adapt our teaching during Autumn term 1 to fill those gaps and cover any essential skills teaching a 'recovery curriculum' before moving onto our actual Year 1 curriculum. 

Alongside our recovery curriculum, we will also be covering other key curriculum areas. This will include PE (Physical Education), Science, RE (Religious Education) and PSCHE (Personal, Social, Citizenship and Health Education). Hopefully we will get chance to throw in some nice art/DT, music and computing bits too however in this first half term our primary focus is filling any gaps from EYFS so understandably this will take up more of our time! 

English - We will assess the children and then teach to fill any gaps/key skills. 

Maths - We will assess the children and then teach to fill any gaps/key skills.

Science - Plants (with a specific focus on trees). During Science this term, children will spend a lot of time outside! They will set up their own investigation where they will ask questions, use their prediction skills, make observations, collect data and hopefully reach a conclusion. The children will look at the structure of trees and draw diagrams. They will be looking at, and naming, types of trees in our school grounds, going on a leaf hunt and they will find out the difference between deciduous and evergreen trees. Make sure you know your trees as we will be sending the children home in search of trees in their local environment! The children will get the chance to plant daffodil bulbs so that we can watch them grow as we move into Spring and hopefully brighten up the area outside our classroom. We will end the term by looking at seasonal changes that we see in Autumn. 

RE (Religious Education) - Our key question that we will explore in our RE lessons this term is 'Who is a Christian and what do they believe?' Throughout this topic, we will explore what Christians believe about God, what the Bible teaches Christians about God, why Jesus is important to Christians and why Christians pray. The children will have the opportunity to discuss their own thoughts and beliefs and ask questions surrounding these topics. 

PSCHE (Personal, Social, Citizenship and Health Education) - Our main focus this half term is 'Being Healthy'. The children will explore different ways of being healthy including food choices, exercise, personal hygiene and having a healthy mind! During this topic, the children will get to sample different healthy foods (more info will come soon), create their own 'Joe Wicks' style workout, discuss what they can do if they ever feel blue and learn the importance of keeping clean by watching what happens to germs when we use soap. The children will also be taking part in a different 'Chill Skill' each week while exploring the importance of relaxing.

Indoor PE - Our indoor PE this term is gymnastics. The children will be using and exploring different ways to travel, they will be using their bodies to create different shapes and balances and exploring different turns. The children will put all of this into practise by creating their own gymnastics sequences.

Outdoor PE - Our outdoor PE this term has a focus on throwing and catching. We will be taking part in a range of activities such as pocket rocket, rainbow throw, pirate ship and space docking to help the children practise these key skills.