“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
Dear Parents / Annwyl Rhieni,
Welcome to Year 1!
Here is some general information about our class.
Teachers
Year 1 Class teacher: Mrs Davis
PPA Teacher: Mrs Richardson General Information
In Year 1, we will be encouraging the children to become more independent and show more responsibility for their belongings. During registration, the children are expected to organise themselves, i.e. put their coat and bag on their hook, place their reading book in the reading book box, remove any money, homework or letters and place in the correct tray.
Dinnertime & Playtime
Your child has the option of having school dinners or sandwiches. School dinners cost £2.25 per day. From September there will be an online payment system for school dinners and further information will be sent home when it is available. If your child has sandwiches, please ensure that his/her lunchbox is also clearly marked with their name.
Please ensure that your child has a healthy snack and drink for morning playtime. Alternatively, we also provide a variety of fruit for the children to buy at play time. This can be paid for on a daily basis at 20p or a weekly basis at £1.00. Should you wish for your child to have fruit, please can you send in the money in an envelope marked clearly with your child’s name.
Themes
Throughout the year we will plan activities based on particular themes. We will provide fun, hands-on activities within a safe and stimulating learning environment which will promote your child’s learning. Our topic for this year will be ‘Superheroes’, ‘Countries and Cultures’ and ‘Commotion in the Ocean.’ Supporting Learning at Home & Homework
Language, Literacy & Communication
Reading Books
Reading books need to be brought to school every day, in order for us to help your child develop his/ her early reading skills whenever possible. Please note that your comments in your child’s reading diary are important and help us to support you with helping your child’s reading development at home as well as in school.
Spelling
Spelling words are sent out on a Friday in preparation for the following weeks spelling activities. It would be beneficial if you could spend some time helping your child to identify and learn their spelling words in readiness for the lessons. The planned sessions involve practical, fun games which are designed to help your child learn the focus spelling pattern.
Mathematics & Numeracy
Your child will have homework allocated to them via the Active Learn website. HWB
Your child will be issues with a log in and password so that they can access HWB at home, as well as in school.
PE and outdoor activities
Your children will have lots of opportunities for physical development, during our P.E. sessions and during our outdoor activities.
Our P.E. sessions will be every Wednesday and Friday. Please can you ensure that your child wears appropriate P.E. kit to school on these days. Suggested clothing for P.E. is navy jogging bottoms, white polo shirt, trainers and school sweatshirt. All jewellery needs to be removed and long hair should be tied back.
We will also be working outdoors on a regular basis; therefore it is important that your child brings items relevant to the weather every day, such as a coat, sun hat or sun lotion etc.
Please remember to label your child’s school uniform and PE kit.
And finally… Thank you for your continued support. If you have any questions please pop and see us. We hope your child enjoys his/her time in Year 1.
Mad Science Assembly
On Wednesday, Mad Science visited our school to present a fantastic assembly to the children. They were shown lots of amazing experiments linked to air and forces. All pupils thoroughly enjoyed, and left feeling inspired to further their scientific knowledge through undertaking their own investigations and experiments!
Year One Christening
In year one we have been learning about Christianity. We have been finding out all about the church and learned that some Christians choose to have their children christened. The children thought it would be fun to have our own christening, so we had a lot to organise! They made cucumber or jam sandwiches for […]
Fortune cookies
We learnt about fortune cookies this week and even got to try some examples. We then made our own special versions. We wrote a thoughtful or kind messages to other pupils in the class and put them into special red envelopes. The children will each bring an envelope home tonight with a special message from […]
Chinese dragons
We enjoyed getting creative and making our own Chinese dragons in Year 1. Some of the children enjoyed using our puppet theatre to make their own shows using the puppets.
Year 1: Football to music
Year 1 enjoyed developing their football skills to music this morning. We had lots of fun!
Chinese New Year
As part of our Countries & Cultures topic, we have been learning about China and specifically Chinese New Year. To support our language genre of discussion, we experienced trying a variety of different Chinese style food this week, providing lots of opportunity to discuss our likes/dislikes and give our opinions.
Burning Energy Gyda Ynni Da
On Friday 1st February we had an awesome ‘Welsh’ day – saving energy can be fun and keep you fit. We held our very own Eco School Party with this unique Pedal power experience. All the energy for the disco, was produced by pedaling bikes. It gave the pupils an understanding of the energy requirements […]
Tric a Chlic
Year 1 have been enjoying developing their understanding of the Welsh language and phonics by using our new resource, Tric a Chlic.
Tornado in Pontlliw!
Year 1 have been learning about the weather as part of science and technology. This week, we looked at extreme weather, especially in other parts of the world. We experimented by making our very own tornadoes!
Ordinal numbers
We have been learning about ordinal numbers in our maths. The children were especially shocked to learn that a delicacy in France is frogs legs, so we had a frog race, recording which frogs managed to escape and come 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. We also read the book ’10 little rubber ducks’ by Eric Carle […]
Heated discussion in Year 1
We have been looking at the genre of ‘discussion’ this week. The children were presented with one ‘pain au chocolat’ and were asked to consider whether someone should eat one or not. The children had a fantastic discussion, coming up with lots of different opinions and ideas. However, they were then extremely excited to see […]
Brilliant balancing
Year 1 enjoyed their first ‘balancing’ session today with Gavin, where they practised their balancing skills. Next week, we are looking forward to using the balance bikes.
Year 1 Christmas Party
Year 1 had a great time in our class Christmas party today. We played games and ate lots of party food! We are all certainly feeling festive and looking forward to more fun over the next few days.
Christmas Story Workshop
Blwyddyn 6 have been busy drafting and editing their Christmas stories in order to share their work with Blwyddyn 1. All pupils thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Keep posted for our next stage in the process… making and producing animations using clay and IPads.
Safety Soldiers Meeting
This week the Safety Soldiers pupil voice group worked on gathering ideas for improving road safety outside our school. The children discussed the issues and how unsafe parking affects different people. They came up with some fantastic ways to improve road safety, and will be working on them in the coming weeks.
Magical Maths Team!
Congratulations to our ‘Maths Magic’ team, who took part in our cluster Maths event in Pontardulais Comprehensive. Each team played their heart out, and showed that Pontlliw has great Mathematical skills. All of our year groups showed great team spirit and encouraged each other to do best they could. Our Year 5/6 team got though […]
Year 1 Enterprise
The Year 1 enterprise stall is up and ready to go for tonight’s Christmas fair. Come along and support the children. Their decorations are all hand made and will be on sale for just £1!
Fantastic firefighters!
We had a very special visitor in class today. Mr Godwin came in to tell us more about his role as a firefighter. We found out what a typical day would be like in the fire service and we also learnt some very important information regarding fire safety. A huge thank you to Mr Godwin […]
Fun at the fire station
What a fantastic day Year 1 have had at the fire station. They learnt lots about the role of fire fighters and what to do in the event of a fire. They had the opportunity to use the equipment and even got to sit in the fire engine. We were also lucky to see an […]
