Owl Class
Welcome to the Owl Class web page for 2023-2024!
A very warm welcome to Owl class’s home page!
What a successful start to the academic year we have had in Year 1 across our first four terms - over half way through! We cannot wait to see what the final two terms have in store for us, as we begin our final round of projects across our curriculum.
This page will be updated throughout the year with information regarding our topics and learning for the term ahead. You can find all relevant information regarding our latest term below.
Owl Classroom
Our learning
As a school, we follow the Cornerstones Curriculum. Each ‘long’ term (so 3 times a year) the topics change. There is always one main topic and several companion units.
In Terms 5 and 6 the main topic is a History unit called ‘School Days’. In this unit we will learn about the history of our school, Bethersden Primary - which dates back to 1902! We will then explore what school life was like in the Victorian times, an era that we will be comparing the present day to.
The companion units for this project are 'Street View' (Art and Design), 'Plant Parts' and 'Animal Parts' (Science) and 'Chop, Slice and Mash' (Design Technology). The latter will give us opportunities to prepare food in order for us to design and make our own sandwiches. Something we have had recent experience of as we made our own marmalade sandwiches inspired by Paddington.
English
Children in Year One continue to develop their phonetic knowledge using Read Write Inc (RWI). We carefully group the children according to their phonic knowledge. This ensures each child is being supported, yet challenged, aiming for excellent reading progress.
Children will have Read Write Inc lessons from Monday-Thursday. Our RWI lessons are followed by a whole class English lesson, where we will continue to focus on reading skills as well as our writing skills. The theme will vary each week, our learning may be based on a story, inspired by a picture, an event or even a piece of music! On Fridays alongside our whole class English lesson, we will also have a focus session on Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG), as well as dedicated handwriting sessions.
Reading
Children will have access to two books to read at home. One will be an eBook set by their RWI leader to match their phonic ability. These will be set on Thursdays. Each eBook will be accompanied by a quiz, which provide opportunities for children to apply their phonic knowledge, as well as developing their comprehension skills. Children will also have a RWI Book Bag Book, a physical book that they will take home that is matched to the phonics they are learning. Book bag books are changed accordingly every Monday and Thursday. Therefore each eBook and Book Bag Book will stay with each child for a few days and should be re-read to support fluency in reading.
For those children who have completed the RWI scheme, they will then move onto reading AR (Accelerated Reader) books. These books are equally matched to the child’s reading ability, as an initial quiz provides each child with a reading level. The children will then get to choose a reading book within their book band levels, providing each child with autonomy over their reading.
Maths
We use Power Maths as the main driver in our Maths learning, but this is supported with a range of practical activities to ensure that each child has a secure understanding of the concepts taught.
Last term we began our new Mastering Number program, where we focus on developing our fluency and understanding of number. We have been thoroughly enjoying using a range of maths manipulatives, particularly the introduction of the rekenreks.
Term 5 coverage
English – Read Write Inc will continue in the same way that the children are used to from Bumblebee class. Our core text for our English learning this term is a fairy tale anthology - A First Book of Fairy Tales retold by Mary Hoffman. We will explore this genre of writing, building up to creating our own fairy tales. We will also used this key text to explore a variety of other writing genres, including persuasive writing as we create an advert to sell Daisy the cow - a character from Jack and the Beanstalk. We are looking forward to delving into our creative side in English this term, which coincides nicely with our current school value, Creativity.
In Maths this term we have begun learning about mass and capacity. We have been using a range of resources to measure in non-standard units, including balance scales, multi-link cubes and cups! We will then begin learning about multiplication and division as we begin exploring how to count in 2s, 5s and 10s.
In Science this term we will begin with our project 'Plant Parts. This project teaches children about wild and garden plants by exploring the local environment. We will identify and describe the basic parts of plants and observe how they change over time.
History is our main unit within our Cornerstones curriculum, with our driver project ‘School Days’. In this project we will learn about and explore the history of our own school and locality. We will compare it to what they are like in the present day. We will then travel further back on our timeline to the Victorian era! We will learn about what school and education was like during these times and will compare them to our experiences of school today. Look out for an exciting event coming up that will help us explore Victorian schools a bit more...
In Art our project 'Street View' will teach us about artwork depicting streets and buildings. We will be focusing on a particular artist, James Rizzi, an American pop artist. We will spend some time looking closely at some examples of Rizzi's artwork and will build up to creating a 3D mural inspired by Rizzi's work.
In our DT project ‘Chop, Slice and Mash’ we will learn about sources of food and the preparatory skills of peeling, tearing, slicing, chopping, mashing and grating. So any opportunities to practice these at home would be amazing! We will then use this knowledge and techniques to design and make a supermarket sandwich according to specific design criteria.
In Computing our new unit 'Digital Writing' will allow us to explore the various aspects of using a computer to create and change text. We will familiarise ourselves with typing on a keyboard and begin using tools to change the look of our writing, using a word processor. We will then consider the differences between using a computer and writing on paper to create text, deciding which we prefer.
In PE this term we will be focusing on Athletics - we will be developing our running, jumping and throwing skills. In order to make PE lessons run more smoothly, we will continue to ask for children to come into school dressed in their PE kits on their PE day. In Owls our weekly PE session will take place every Friday. So please make sure that your child comes into school every Friday dressed in their PE kit.
In PSHE this term we will begin learning about ‘health and well-being’, as we explore our key question 'What helps us stay healthy?'.
Home Learning
Here at Bethersden our home learning tasks are set each week on Tuesday via Google Classroom. Each child has their own login details to access this (which includes an email address and password – these can be found in their yellow reading records). Once set every Tuesday, the tasks will be due the following Monday. Each week we dedicate time to sharing and celebrating completed home learning tasks, something we and the children always look forward to. The tasks will range from physical activities, discussions, questions to explore – all activities we hope you will enjoy!
Alongside tasks set on Google Classroom, there will also be a weekly spelling ‘assignment’ set on Spelling Shed. We would also encourage children to practise their maths skills using NumBots. Links to both of these sites can be found here on our class page. All login details can also be found in their yellow reading records.
We are looking forward to continued support with home learning this new academic year.
How can you support your Year 1 child?
There are many ways that you can support your child to have a healthy, fun filled Year 1!
- Please make sure that they are on time, have the correct uniform and have had a healthy breakfast.
- Read! Listen to them read, read to them, let them see you enjoying reading – reading in any form will help foster a love of books – something that we are passionate about at Bethersden Primary.
- Please ensure that they have the correct PE kit. Our PE day is on Friday, so please ensure your child comes into school on Fridays wearing their PE kit.
- Provide a water bottle (hydrated brains are happy brains!) - Please make sure these are filled with water only and not squash/juice.
- Please provide appropriate clothing for outdoor learning, we will not let the weather stop us! We are also needing to keep the room well ventilated, so an extra layer, or a blue fleece may be appreciated as the weather gets colder.
Contact us
We are always available after school if you need a quick catch up. If you need a longer or more private meeting, please book this in at the office and we will be happy to accommodate.
If you have a non-urgent message for the team you could email the families email on the address below. This is checked regularly and the message will be passed on to the class team.
families@bethersden.kent.sch.uk
We cannot wait for another successful term in Owl Class!
Very best wishes,
The Owl Team