Year 1 Team

Mrs Hyde, KS1 Leader- Head of Year 1

Kalahari class - Mrs Hyde

Colorado class - Mr McGillicuddy

Mojave class - Mrs Eakins/Miss Lewington

Sahara class - Miss Brett-Smith

Physical Education

Children are expected to wear their PE kit to school on their PE days. If your child cannot take part in PE, we need a signed letter confirming the reason/reasons why. Please make ensure your child has the appropriate PE kit.

Home learning:

We firmly believe that the partnership between home and school is paramount in enabling your child/ren to fulfil their potential and we ask our families to support their child’s learning through the completion of home learning tasks.

Home learning is set in order to encourage pupils to develop the skills, motivation, self-discipline and confidence required to study effectively as independent and life-long learners. Home learning also provides opportunities for the involvement of parents/carers in their child’s education, keeping them informed about their children’s learning at school.

Children will be expected to complete the following core homework activities:

Reading: Daily reading has a huge impact on learning across the whole curriculum. Your child will bring home a reading book and their reading record every day. Every night, please listen to your child read and discuss the book with them, as well as asking questions to help build their comprehension skills. (Question prompts to support daily reading can be found in the useful resources below). Please indicate in your child’s reading record when they have read, noting any opinions and comments on how they found the book. An adult will check and initial their reading record every day, and change their book accordingly. If they have read every night of the week, the children will receive a special Star Reader certificate.

Word Walls: Word Walls are proven to help children learn frequently occurring words by sight, thus aiding their reading skills. Your child’s teacher will send home a word wall. Please help your child to learn these words so that they can be read quickly, without any need for sounding out or blending, and return these to school when you feel your child is confident. An adult in school will then check these and send home the next Word Wall if appropriate.

High Frequency Word Sets: Following completion of all Word Walls, High Frequency Spelling Sets will be sent home each half term. Please help your child to learn the spellings on the list and return in the last week of half term for checking. An adult in school will say the word and ask your child to spell out the word using the letter names (not the sound it makes).

Number Bonds: After the October half term, your child will be provided with a Number Bond Card containing different number bond ‘stories’ (helpful instructions are on the reverse). Learning number bonds will help your child to improve their mathematical recall and have a great impact on their calculation skills. Please help your child to learn one number bond story at a time. As soon as your child is fluent and confident in that story, please return to school to be checked by an adult and moved onto the next story. Your child will receive a sticker in their card each time they complete a number bond story. Once all stories have been completed at bronze level, they will continue to complete silver and gold levels, before moving onto the next card.

Reading Comprehensions: Throughout the year, as appropriate to your child’s reading attainment, class teachers will begin to send home reading comprehensions. Reading comprehensions will be sent home fortnightly, on a Wednesday. Please work with your child to complete the reading comprehension by reading the short text and answering the questions. Please encourage your child to look back the text to help them find the answer. When the comprehension is complete please return to school for the class teacher to mark.

Optional home learning: English, Maths and Science activities are available on Education City and Mathletics. All of these activities are highly valuable for your child’s learning, as well as being fun and game like in nature.

Additional home learning activities can also include developing your child’s experiences and life skills through visits to museums and places of interest, researching school topics or topics of interest, visiting the library, making models and games, playing board games, drawing maps and plans, taking photographs etc.

Home learning activities should be an enjoyable experience for families. If you have any queries or concerns regarding

Reading

Reading at home – Questions to ask which support the development of comprehension skills

Click here for our Calculation Policy

Useful websites for Year 1

Maths

English

ICT

School policies:

The Bedonwell Federation’s Policies, including the calculation policy which may be used to support your child’s Maths learning, can be found at:

https://www.bedonwell-inf.bexley.sch.uk/bexley/primary/bedonwell/site/pages/aboutus/policies

Working together

At the Bedonwell Federation we are passionate about working as a team with parents and carers to support the learning and wellbeing of every child. If you have any questions, queries or information that you wish to discuss with us, please do not hesitate to speak to your child’s class teacher or the Head of Year.

We look forward to working with you and your child this year.

The year 1 Team