Welcome to Year One!

Please keep an eye out on our page for regular updates on what we're learning as well as other important information we would like to share with you. 

Our Classes

Our Vision

Parent Information

Please find below the slides from our Year 1 information session that we delivered for parents. If you have any questions at all then please speak to your child's class teacher. 

 Tapestry

We use Tapestry in Year 1 as a way to keep communicating with our parents. We will be sharing what we're learning each week, any assessments we carry out, mental maths, and the sounds we're learning each week in phonics. We will also be sharing a weekly handwriting focus too. Please speak to your child's class teacher if you need any support. 

Our Classrooms

The team have worked so hard this summer to get the classrooms ready for our amazing children!

Our Provision

Our shared area can be accessed by all of our 3 classes as part of their continuous provision during Discovery Time.

We have:

• Block Play
• Role Play
• Enquiry
• Construction
• Curiosity Cube

Our Outside Area

Here is our amazing outside area which has been lovingly developed by our dedicated team. The children really enjoy using this space as a way to continue their learning and build on what they have learnt in Year R through continuous provision and set activities linked to our current topic, as well as our weekly Rainbow Challenges. 

Rainbow Challenges

Rainbow Challenges form part of our Continuous Provision. The children are asked to complete a range of activities throughout the week that link to the 7 colours of the rainbow. When the children have completed each job, they get to put their coloured lolly stick into their individual rainbow. We celebrate every Friday with our celebration song and everyone who has completed their jobs gets a special Rainbow Challenge sticker! The jobs cover different curriculum areas and allow the children to apply what they have learnt previously and they also help them to develop their independence.

Talk Time

We are invite a child each week to talk to the class all about themselves to help develop their oracy. We would like them to talk about their interests, pets, family, clubs or anything else they'd like to talk about. 

Our Class Charter

Each class decides on 3 areas that they feel they need to work on together. When a child is spotted, their name is added onto the porthole and we celebrate together. When all areas have been achieved, these are then changed for new ones. This ensures it is bespoke to each class and runs alongside our whole school Sarisbury Charter. 

Our Curriculum Plan

Here is an overview of our curriculum learning journey for this academic year. 

Our Reading Journey in Year 1

Here are our chosen focused texts for each of our topics throughout the year. We will also be reading additional books to enhance the children's wider reading which include fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

2024-2025

Our Curriculum Learning Journey

Autumn 1

Once upon a twisted tale

We have begun the first term in Year 1 and the children have settled in brilliantly. We have started by reading the story of Three Little Pigs which is one they know really well.

We've talked about the good and bad characters you find in traditional tales. We have also discussed the how each tale has a problem and a solution. We will be retelling the story in the coming weeks. 

Partner Talk

We are focusing on developing our talk partners this year and we have decided on some rules to help us which are:

• We will use ‘talking knees’ when it is time to talk.
• We will turn to face our talk partner.
• We will look at our partner when they are talking.
• We will share our ideas.
• We will listen.
• We will take turns.
• We will share our ideas with the class.
• We will change our talk partners each week. 

Our next focus text has been Jack and the Beanstalk. We have been ordering the pictures for the story and have been writing descriptive sentences using adjectives. In our DT we have been making houses out of card and paper, testing them with a hairdryer to see how strong they are. In Science, we have been sorting and classifying materials which has really helped with our house making. 

Autumn 2

After Dark

We will be learning all about the animals that come out at night time as well as share stories all about the dark. Watch this space to see all of our amazing learning as the topic unfolds...

Our current focus book has been The Night Box. We have been learning all about adjectives and prepositions. We then wrote descriptive sentences all about the setting of the story. 

Guided Reading

We have started whole class guided reading this half term and our first focus book has been Flashlight. This is a wordless book so the children have had to use their imaginations to create their own narrative about what is happening in the story. We talked about the different nocturnal animals we could see as well! We focused on:

• predictions
• setting of the book
• answered questions about the story

Be Bright Be Seen Day

As part of our After Dark topic, we had a special day in school where we learnt about how to keep ourselves safe when we are out at night time. We talked about crossing the road safely, what clothes would help us to be seen as well as using lights to help us to see where we are going. 

Night Walk

We welcomed our children back after school to join us on a night walk in Holly Hill so we could listen for any nocturnal animals that might have come out at night time. We all wore colourful clothes and brought along lights so we could see our way in the dark. We then came back to school where we shared stories together as well as enjoying a hot chocolate. 

Spring 1

Cold, Cold, Cold

Our new focused text this half term is Jonty Gentoo written by Julia Donaldson. We will be learning all about the cold including the animals that live there. We have made cone penguins for one of our making Rainbow Challenges and have been applying our skills on Tux paint to draw the different types of penguins we have been learning about so far. 

Visit from the Hampshire Fire Service

We welcomed the Hampshire Fire Service into Year 1 who talked to us all about how to keep safe if there is ever a fire. We also learnt about how to keep safe if we ever find some matches and we learnt the following little rhyme to help us:

'Matches and lighters, never touch,

They can hurt you very much.'

Our trip to Milestones

We visited Milestones in Basingstoke as part of our History topic which is all about toys.

• We learnt about so many different different old toys and how they have changed over time. 
• We learnt new games and added toys to a timeline of when they were made. 
• We had a chance to explore the exhibits and a highlight was climbing on board an old bus!
• The children also particularly enjoyed spotting the hidden teddy bears around the museum.

We came back to school and continued our History learning where we looked at old and new toys. The children spoke to their parents and grandparents at home who shared the toys they remember playing with. We also looked at how toys have changed over time. 

Scooter Training

The children were given the opportunity to participate in a scooter training session so that they felt more confident and safe to scoot to school and have an awareness of potential hazards and how to react to them. They spent an hour on their scooters learning how to stop at roads, standing safely with a scooter. They travelled carefully on footpaths with a scooter and showed fantastic manners when sharing the path with other users. On the playground they had time to show off their speed and skills, whilst playing fun games together.

World Religion Day

Penguin Sewing

As part of our Art this half term, we have been learning how to sew. First we practised using the running stitch on Binca.

Then we used the running stitch to sew our penguin puppet pieces together so we could get our hands inside them. After that we followed our plans really carefully to add any embellishments to them. We are so proud of our finished penguin puppets!

Children's Mental Health and Well-being Week

As part of this week, the children were invited to come into school wearing wearing their favourite outfit, a splash of colour, or traditional attire that celebrates their culture or celebrates a hobby. The theme was 'Know yourself, Grow yourself' so the children took part in lots of activities that celebrated themselves.

• We gave compliments to our friends to make them smile. 
• We wrote about the outfit we had chosen and why it was special 
• We talked about what gives us joy and what brings us sadness linked to the film Inside Out.
• We did some mindfulness colouring.
• We played games and did some puzzles to show how we can be kind and share with others. 
• We did some Cosmic Yoga with in our classes
• We remembered to have snack and drink regularly to keep our brains working. 

Safer Internet Day

As part of Safer Internet Day, we thought about all the ways that Harri Heart helps to keep us safe online. We reminded ourselves about our Computing Charter which is on display in our classrooms. We watched some videos to remind us how to keep safe and then took part in some activities which included watching Jesse and Friends on the laptops, completing algorithms with Lego and Multilink, making posters about how to keep safe online as well as sequencing pictures about different parts of our day.

Spring 2

To Infinity and Beyond!

We have started by reading Man on the Moon by Simon Bartram which has the most wonderful illustrations. 

We talked to our talk partners about the story using the following stem sentences:

We have been practising our writing by editing sentences to spot missing capital letters, full stops and word spaces. We have also been trying very hard with our handwriting too!

Mars Day

The children had a great Mars Day linked to our space topic where we:

• Watched live videos and an interview with Tim Peake who told us all about his expedition to space.
• Made alien masks. 
• Designed and painted an alien picture. 
• Read real and alien words.
• Designed a new meal for space. 
• Made star shortbread biscuits. 
• Drank hot chocolate and marshmallows like Bob in the story on Man on the Moon.
• Practised entertaining visitors to the moon just like Bob.
• Created star constellations using chalk and star stickers. 

Spring Day

Year 1 had the most amazing Spring Day! 🌹🌸🌺🌷🌼🌿🌱🍃

Our parents very kindly gave us donations of flowers, herbs, vegetables and fruits for us to grow. This really has made a difference to our garden ❤️

We have had a very busy day and here are just a few of the activities we got up to:

🌼 We all wore colouring spring coloured clothes

🌼 We planted some cress seeds which will be coming home soon!

🌼 We created a painting showing how the trees change through the seasons

🌼 We did observational drawings of daffodils

🌼 We all helped to do some planting in our Year 1 outside area

And many more activities too 😊

Summer 1

Ready, Steady, Grow!

Our new focus texts for this half term are:

We have started by looking at and following instructions. 

Here is a copy of our Curriculum Overview Letter for this half term:

Art Day

We had the most wonderful art day where we focused on the artist Yayoi Kusama. 

• We made view finders to see what it's like through the eyes of Yayoi Kusama.
• We painted in the style of Yayoi using pastels, water colours and poster paint.
• We designed our own sunflowers with polka dots using cotton buds.
• We drew features on a face and then added sticky dots to create the polka dot effect. 

2023-2024

Our Curriculum Learning Journey

Summer 1

Turrets and Tiaras

Our topic this term is all about dragons and castles. Our focus text is Billy and the Dragon written by Nadia Shireen. 

We have been looking at character descriptions, using adjectives to describe them. We thought about each of the characters and created a path to retell the story. 

We have had some focused days:

• World Art Day
• Harri Heart Day
• Year 1 Spring Day
• History Day

World Art Day

We focused on the artist Joan Miro and created art based on his work. 

Harri Heart Day

We recapped the PANTS rule and how to keep ourselves safe both inside and outside of school.

Click on the link to find out the song we sing to remind ourselves about the PANTS rule. 

Let's talk PANTS with Pantosaurus! | NSPCC

Spring Day

We came to school dressed in Spring clothes and took park in lots of activities.

• We all planted cress seeds to create grass in the gardens we created. 
• We painted trees to show how they change through the seasons.
• We used crayons to create rubbings of objects in the outside area.
• We helped to plant lots of donated plants in the Year 1 outside area

Here is all of the amazing learning in our classrooms:

Spring 2

To Infinity and Beyond

Our learning next half term will be all about Space and the expedition to the moon. Our key text drivers will be:

Here is a copy of the Curriculum Overview Letter which explains all of our learning for this half term.

We returned to school to some very interesting CCTV footage and an extremely peculiar scene! Over the weekend a space shuttle had crash landed on the playground and left behind some clues. We described what we could see and made a prediction about who might have left it there. See the picture below of what we saw.

We have begun this half term by reading the book 'Man on the Moon' and have focused on describing the different settings in the book. In guided reading we have spent time exploring 'The Smeds and the Smoos' and have focused on the different parts of the book, the character/setting descriptions and have learnt more about the well known author Julia Donaldson. In science we have been busy learning about the different seasons and the effect this has on the weather, animals and plants. In History we have what we already know about the first successful moon landing and have begun to learn about Neil Armstrong and his Apollo 11 crew. 

Spring 1

Cold, Cold, Cold

Our learning next half term will be all about Antarctica and penguins. Our key text drivers will be:

Here is a copy of the Curriculum Overview Letter which explains all of our learning for this half term.

Our topic is in 3 different enquiries:

• Antarctica enquiry
• Penguin enquiry
• Explorers enquiry

We began the term by reading 'Lost and Found' written by Oliver Jeffers. We made predictions about the story, we innovated the story and wrote our own endings too. We used the story in our Computing too where we used pictures from the book to help us on Tux Paint. We learnt all about Antarctica and the animals that live there.

We then went on to read Emperor's Egg where we learnt all about penguins and how many different types there are. We looked at fact files and learnt lots of interesting facts before making our own. 

Our final enquiry taught us all about Captain Scott and his expedition to Antarctica. We thought about what we would need to take on the journey if we went ourselves. We had a big question to answer as part of our History - 'Who was Captain Scott?' to show what we had learnt throughout our topic. 

Autumn 2

After Dark

This half term we will be learning all about what happens at night time! 

We started our topic by learning all about The Gunpowder Plot to find out why we have firework night. We welcomed in the Hampshire Fire Service to talk to us about how to keep safe if there was a fire. We have also learnt about firework safety and how to keep ourselves safe in the dark. We finished off our focus week with a 'Be Bright. Be Seen' day where we all dressed up in bright coloured clothes to keep ourselves safe at night time. 

Our key text drivers for this half term are:

Here is a copy of our curriculum overview letter which gives you information all about our learning for the next half term. 

Autumn 1

Once Upon A Twisted Tale

The children have been learning our oral story all about The Three Little Pigs.

We have acted out the story, learnt actions to help us remember the key vocabulary and time connectives as well as creating a story path. The children have been impressing us with their writing by choosing a picture from the story and writing a sentence to go with it. We have been tracking our learning journey on our writing walls in each class which the children are using as a reference point to support them in their writing. 

We have moved onto our next key text driver which is Jack and the Beanstalk. We have learnt the oral story and remembered the actions we had learnt from when we did the Three Little Pigs. We have been practising our writing skills and have written sentences all about the story. In Music we have been looking at Goldilocks and the Three Bears which is another traditional tale. 

Here are photos of our classrooms which celebrate all of the amazing learning we have done so far in Year 1. 

We visited St Paul's Church to learn all about how Christians celebrate Harvest. We found out that they sing songs, decorate the church with flowers and other autumnal treasures, they give food to those who need it and they also have a special supper for Harvest where everyone comes together to celebrate the food we have. We came back to class and the children were able to recall how Christians celebrate as part of our RE learning. 

Here is a copy of the curriculum overview letter sent out to explain our learning for the next half term.