Year 1 (5 to 6 years )

The Year 1 classrooms are situated next to the Lower School Hall.  Children move on from Reception to Year One in the September following their fifth birthday and attend five days a week.

In Year One the children build on the work they did in Reception and continue to develop their skills in literacy and numeracy. They begin to write with more independence, using their knowledge of spelling patterns and sentence structure including simple punctuation. They are also introduced to joined handwriting using a cursive script.

Each child will read to the teacher daily.  They will also have a short bible story read to them before daily prayer. This supports the child’s main lesson of R.S. where they learn about the Christian world through festivals and bible stories. Through this, they gain an appreciation of different  faiths and religious celebrations, for example Diwali, Chinese New Year, Easter and Christmas.

In Numeracy we continue to work on the children’s knowledge of number, calculations and shape, space and measures.  We may use real life problems to make this more interesting.

The children carry out topic work throughtout the year.  For the ‘People Who Help Us’ the children experience first hand occupations in the community including fire fighters at Ludlow Fire station. They explore and compare houses through time and visit Pembridge, which inspires children’s poetry, non-fiction writing, DT and artwork through a creative approach.
In the summer term our science topic is minibeasts. Year 1 explore the school including the pond, woodland and extensive grounds. They really enjoy independently pond dipping from the safety of the school jetty. This inspires various cross-curricular work which is enhance by using the outdoor classroom and theatre.

At the start of the Year One children are introduced to a French programme designed to deliver simple conversational French through practical exercises, games and songs on the Interactive Whiteboard. During the year the children enjoy using the on site covered swimming pool to develop their individual skills working towards ASA awards.