Welcome to Year 1 - Willow

 

Mrs Andreas and Mrs Bannister

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Maths

We have been busy developing our understanding of addition and subtraction. We have learnt about parts and wholes, writing number sentences and fact families. For example, if 5 is a part and 3 is a part, the whole is 8. We could record this as:

5 + 3 = 8
3 + 5 = 8
8 = 5 + 3
8 = 3 + 5

The children have used a range of practical resources to help them explore these ideas and deepen their understanding. They have been counting, combining, splitting and recording numbers in different ways, which has supported them in building confidence and fluency.

Literacy

In Literacy, we have been reading and enjoying the book Naughty Bus by Jan and Jerry Oke. The children loved following the bus’s mischievous adventures and were keen to talk about what happened in the story. We practised sequencing the events from the book, helping us to remember the order of the story. The children also thought of some fantastic adjectives to describe the bus and its adventures, showing great imagination and developing their vocabulary.

Inspired by the story, the children then created their own adventures for the Naughty Bus. It was wonderful to see so many creative ideas and lots of enthusiasm for writing.

Phonics

We have started learning some Phase 5 sounds (we call this ‘Growing the Code’ and the children have loved it so far!), including ea, oy, ou, ay and ir. The children have been practising reading and blending these sounds in decodable words such as:

• ea - sea, read, bead, beach
• oy - toy, joy, boy, annoy
• ou - out, cloud, proud, found
• ay - play, day, say, tray, stray
• ir - bird, girl, third, first

We have also been reviewing all of our Phase 3 and 4 tricky words, including there, were, says, said, what, when, out, here, like and little. The children are becoming more confident in recognising these sounds and tricky words in their reading and writing, and it has been lovely to see their growing independence and enthusiasm in phonics lessons.

History

We have been exploring a timeline from 1950 to the present day. We discussed a range of significant events, including the Queen’s Coronation, the turn of the millennium, the invention of the World Wide Web, the opening of the Channel Tunnel and the invention of the iPad.

We then looked at several photographs from the 1950s to find out what life was like in the past. We discussed houses, transport, shops and entertainment, and the children were fascinated by how different everyday life looked. It was particularly amusing to see how small televisions were, and many children were surprised by photographs of children playing in the middle of the road. This led to a great discussion about how there were far fewer cars at that time.

We also looked at pictures of childhood in the 1950s. The children were very thoughtful when comparing life then and now, and many decided that school looked a little boring back then!

Science

We have been testing a variety of materials to find out which would be best for making some bunting to hang in the playground. We used Venn diagrams to record our results and will be making the final product before half term. When we return, we will check whether our bunting has withstood the weather!

PE

This week**,** we have used all the skills we have been practising and developing over the past few weeks (ball skills, running, jumping, hopping and skipping) to create our own obstacle courses in groups. We used ladders, cones, skipping ropes, hoops, bean bags and balls, and came up with some really interesting ideas.

Next Up

• In Art, we will be starting a new topic called Funny Faces and Fabulous Features, in which the children will sketch their self-portraits and create collages.
• In History, the children will compare maps of the same place from the 1950s and the present day, identifying key features and discussing how land use has changed over time. They will work together to spot differences and think carefully about why these changes may have happened, making links to their learning about life in the 1950s.

Autumn Term 2026

Watch this space for our first learning update on Friday 25th September.