“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”

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Dear Parents / Annwyl Rhieni,

Welcome to Year 1!
We are really looking forward to teaching your children and we hope that they are excited about the year ahead. We are sure that by working together, we will make this a fun, happy and productive year.
Here is some general information about our class, however should there be anything you need to know, please do not hesitate to come and see us. We would also appreciate it if you could keep us informed if there are any issues or concerns that we need to be aware of regarding your child.

Aims of Year 1

To develop pupils independence and confidence.
For pupils to be happy, have fun and continue to grow their love for learning!
To develop pupils Literacy, Numeracy and Digital Competency skills.
To provide a balanced and stimulating curriculum through the exploration of ‘Big Questions’, differentiated to suit the needs of each child.
To build on pupils social skills through communicating and working with others.
To have an exciting and fun year!

Teachers

Year 1 Class teacher: Mrs Davis & Mrs Bennett
Teaching Assistants: Mrs Jones, Mrs Besley, Mrs Lewis & Mrs Stonham

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 and place homework or letters in the correct tray. We will also spend the first few weeks this term getting to know your child and doing some activities that will help me gain a good perspective of his/her needs.

Physical Development and Outdoor Learning

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 Thursday 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.

Please remember to label your child’s school uniform and PE kit.

We also have our outdoor day on ‘Welly Wednesday’. Please can you ensure that your child brings wellies and into school every Wednesday or alternatively he/she can leave them in school permanently. He/she will also need to bring a coat.

It is important that your child brings items relevant to the weather to school every day, such as a coat, sun hat or sun lotion etc.

Dinnertime & Playtime

As in reception, school dinners are payable via Squid. Please ensure that your child has a healthy snack and drink for morning playtime. If your child has sandwiches, please ensure that his/her lunchbox is clearly marked with his/her name.

Big Questions

Throughout the year we will plan activities based on our big questions. We will provide fun, hands-on activities within a safe and stimulating learning environment which will promote your child’s learning.

Our big questions for this year will be:

Autumn Term- Do all Superheroes wear capes?

Spring Term- Where in the world am I?

Summer Term- What is causing the Commotion in the Ocean?

Summer 2024:

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Reading

Please ensure that pupils read at home every night where possible.
Please ensure reading books are brought to school every day, in order for us to help your child develop his/ her early reading skills whenever possible. We aim to listen to the children read in school as often as possible during independent reading sessions.
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.
When listening to your child read ask them questions about the text. (This encourages pupils to talk about and understand what they are reading.)
When faced with new/ unfamiliar words, encourage pupils to use the different skills of decoding e.g. using picture clues, breaking down longer words or chunking.
We also have lists of high frequency words on our school website which can be utilised to develop pupil’s sight recognition of key words.
Encourage reading for pleasure.
Share books with your child as often as possible and your love of reading too.

Writing

In Year 1, we will continue to focus on pupil’s letter formation and the development of their cursive handwriting skills. To assist them with this at home, there are cursive letter formation templates that can be found on our school website.
We will focus on developing pupil’s independent writing through encouraging them to write about exciting and stimulating topics.
Pupils will be encouraged to experiment with a range of written communication.
As previously noted, pupils will be set weekly spellings.

Mathematics

Pupils will develop their Mathematics and Numeracy skills through undertaking a variety of practical, recorded and problem solving activities.
Pupils will apply their Numeracy skills across all areas of learning.
Some of the skills we will focus on include; reading and writing number words to ten or more/ counting up to 20 objects (or higher if appropriate)/ reciting numbers to 100 forwards and backwards/ counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s to 100/ number bonds to 10 (or higher if appropriate)
We will also be looking more in depth at telling the time this year (looking specifically at O’Clock and half past)- you could support your child by drawing their attention to any clocks you encounter, encouraging them to help you tell the time.
We will also continue to explore money and paying for items using a variety of coins.

Multilingualism

Pupils will have daily games and activities aimed at encouraging the use of the Welsh Language during Slot Drillio.
Children are taught about their Welsh heritage.
Children are taught incidental Welsh (commands in Welsh in every lesson)
Emphasis on developing knowledge of the Welsh language as we work towards achieving our Siarter Iaith Silver Award.
Children will be exposed to incidental French.

Other information

It is important that your child brings items relevant to the weather to school every day, such as a coat, sun hat or sun lotion etc.
Parent Evenings – One in Autumn term and one in Spring term. Reports sent out in the Summer term.
Keep up to date on school blog at www.pontlliwprimary.co.uk
Ensure you are signed up to Squid mail for updates from ourselves or the school.

Working Together

We are very much looking forward to continuing working with you to ensure that the pupils have a fun, happy and productive time in Year 1.
This year, we will be encouraging the children to become more independent and show more responsibility for their belongings in school.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any issues or queries regarding your child.
Please share any important information about your child with us e.g. any new medication.

Homework

Mathematics– Maths homework will be set every week on the Active Learn website (Logins/Passwords will be given out shortly)
Spelling- Spelling words are sent out every Friday as a consolidation task following our spelling activities in class.