Welcome to Squirrel Class!

We are a class of year 1 pupils.

Our teacher is Mrs Brown

Our TA is Mrs Wakeling

Class Teacher's email- browd439@mastacademy.co.uk

Below we have listed some helpful things about our class that we thought you might find useful to know.

Our Curriculum

We are using a curriculum for our non core subjects that has impacted well on children’s attainment and motivation nationwide. This  curriculum is published by Cornerstones. Our curriculum is based on inspirational learning activities which take place in a classroom environment and allow children to learn in a way that motivates and interests them. Cornerstones will provide our children with a good level of challenge, giving them opportunities to solve problems, apply themselves creatively and express their knowledge and understanding across the full range of National Curriculum subjects. Year 1 will experience 3 Imaginative Learning Projects in a year. Each individual project is split into sections, which see children progress through four stages of learning: Engage, Develop, Innovate and Express. We are confident that our curriculum will instil in our children a curiosity and love of learning / school, that it will develop their levels of mental health and wellbeing and ultimately will provide opportunities for each of them to achieve their full potential.

Our key projects this year are:

Autumn Term: Childhood

Spring Term: Bright Lights, Big City

Summer Term: Dinosaur Planet

This Term our topic is called Dinosaur Planet

Stomp, crash, roar! Watch out – there are dinosaurs about! Yes, that’s right, we’re travelling back in time to the age of the dinosaurs.This term, we will look closely at ancient fossils and study reptiles to understand how dinosaurs may have lived and eventually died out. We’ll learn about the great fossil hunter, Mary Anning, and follow in her footsteps, studying dinosaur teeth and bones to find out what dinosaurs liked to eat. Learning dinosaur names, creating puzzling riddles, writing fantastic fact files and creating exciting dinosaur stories are some of the other activities we’ll be involved in this half term. We’ll also use our artistic skills to make model dinosaurs and to design dinosaur landscapes. We will invent some dinosaur games to play and entertain each other with our wonderful dinosaur music.

Core Subject Priorities

Our school priorities this year are maths, writing and challenge.

Children will be given opportunities to complete a maths challenge each day during their maths lesson. 

Children will be given at least one designated writing session each week to develop this skill and their ability to write for long periods of time.  Everyday children will have a handwriting lesson following the Letter-join whole school handwriting scheme, they can also login at home using the schools unique code practice at home. 

Maths 

Our topic focus for this term...

Multiplication and Division  - learn to count in multiples of twos, fives and tens, fractions and geometry  - position and direction.

English

The children have daily spelling tests in their Read Write Inc group but any extra support you can give them would be fantastic. The children also do a termly independent write. 

Knowledge Organiser

Children may also wish to extend their learning beyond the knowledge organiser if they have a specific interest in the topic.

Please use the knowledge organiser as a starting point for any extra study. The information on these sheets should be easily recalled by the children once the topic is completed. The children will be given a Knowledge Organiser to help support their learning at home at the beginning of each term which you can read to them regularly to refresh their memory.

Other exciting games to play

https://play.ttrockstars.com/

http://www.edshed.com/

https://www.letterjoin.co.uk/

Behaviour

Squirrel class are expected to follow the School’s rules.  The rules can be found at the foot of this page.

Homework

Homework for English and Maths will be sent home for each week on Fridays; it needs to be returned by the following Thursday. We would also like children to be practicing reading every day, preferably with an adult who can answer questions about the book; children will bring home their current phonic book or a class book to read.  We also encourage writing the Year 1 common exception words regularly.  

Challenges

• We love a challenge in Squirrel class.  Every lesson has a challenge and every piece of homework does too. 

• The homework challenge is optional but we encourage children to complete it.  

PE

PE takes place on a Thursday. Please ensure your child brings their PE kit into school on this day. Children may need jogging bottoms or shorts if we are outside as the weather changes. Please can children wear a plain PE kit rather than one with logos or patterns.  Children must be able to take out their earrings before the lesson and are responsible for looking after these. If your child is unable to remove their earrings, they must come to school with tape on their ears or you can show your child how to apply the tape themselves before the lesson.

Supporting learning at home

Where possible, we encourage children to learn at home through everyday experiences. Linking family days out to our theme is a brilliant way to do this and children love coming into school and telling the class what they’ve learnt.

Keep In Touch

• We have an informal open door policy in key stage 1. 

• If you wish to speak to our teacher just catch her on the playground at the end of the school day after she has safely seen all of the children in the class out to their appropriate adult. 

• If after school is not convenient to you: phone up the school office and request that the teacher phones you back to arrange a more mutually convenient time. 

• Failing all of the above – write a note to the teacher asking to speak to them and get your child to pass it on.     

Final Bits and Pieces!

• We are trying to instill independence in the children in a variety of ways in school, such as classroom monitors, being responsible for their stationery and books etc.  

• Please ensure that your child arrives at school on time and attends every day.  It is vitally important that your child has a good attendance as this has a tremendous impact on their learning.

• Please also ensure that your child wears the correct school uniform every day.  

• Our school operates a no jewellery policy (except for stud earrings).

• Long hair must be tied back at all times.