Beech Grove Primary School
Year 1
Autumn Term 2023
Head Teacher Message
Welcome back to our new Autumn term. On behalf of the staff we would like to welcome you to a new school year and hope that 2023/2024 is just as awesome as last year. It was brilliant to see our whole school community trying their very best for our children to try and reach their maximum potential. I am positive this year will be exactly the same.
Once again, I cannot thank you enough for the tremendous efforts you went to during this period. We should, as a school community be really proud of the way we (as we always do) stuck together and supported one another.
I hope that you have all had the chance to relax and recharge your batteries during the summer holidays. It is so important that our children attend regularly in order to continue to make the brilliant progress that they made last academic year. I’m positive with your continued support, our excellent teaching and well-planned curriculum and interventions, our children will continue to achieve well and try their very best in all lessons.
I continue to be amazed and am so proud of them all and the way they have started back this Autumn term. The children’s continued resilience and adaptability is absolutely outstanding.
As always, our teachers have lots of interesting activities planned for this term and hope that you will enjoy hearing what children have been working on at consultation meetings, and will support them with their homework and reading outside of school. Reading is the key to EVERYTHING and unlocking the children’s true potential! Please, please, please x10000000 encourage them as much as you can with their reading at home. It is greatly appreciated.
John Dixon
Our work for this term.
English
We will be working hard in our new Read, Write, Inc. groups every morning and bringing home a book that we have read in our lessons. We think you will be very impressed as our reading skills improve. Please listen to your child read their book and write down any comments about their reading and return the book each week. Thank you.
In our classes we will be writing labels and captions using our ‘Fred fingers’ to spell words. We will be focussing on saying our sentence before we write it down, using finger gaps and punctuating with a capital letter and a full stop.
We will enjoy reading a range of different stories this half term based around the theme of Superheroes: ‘Supertato’ by Sue Hendra and ‘Handa’s Surprise’ by Eileen Browne. We will be writing our own short sentences about these stories that flow and make sense using our non-negotiables of capital letters, full stops and finger spaces.
After half term, we will be writing our own instructions focussing around our topic about the weather; how to make a windsock. We will also be reading and writing about the Aesop fable ‘The contest between the Sun and the Wind’ by Heather Forest.
Maths
In maths this term we will be revisiting and consolidating all of the number work we have done throughout reception and beginning to move onto year 1 number work. This will include addition and subtraction within 20, counting to 50 and also counting in multiples of 10. Your child will start ‘Rapid Recall’ three times a week, to help them become fluent with these key number skills. Please encourage your child to finish these off at home, to help them reach the next stage.
Topic
Our topics this term will be ‘Superheroes’ and ‘Splendid Skies’. In the first half term we will be learning about our five senses; touch, smell, hearing, sight and taste. We will also be learning about a famous significant individual called ‘Florence Nightingale’ and the impact she had the changing of hospitals.
After half term we will be learning about the seasonal and daily weather changes within the United Kingdom, making links to plants and trees. We will also be designing and making our own wind socks. We will also be identifying and recognising the four countries of the United Kingdom and their capital cities.
Safeguarding (This section will tell you what we are teaching children about lifestyle choices)
During this term we will be highlighting the importance of feeling safe and happy in a school environment and also why being unique is special. We will also be reminding children of the importance of being safe in our local area and people who help us. We will be talking about dressing appropriately for the weather (please provide warm coats, gloves, hats as the weather begins to cool, as we will be going outdoors to look at seasonal change). We have begun to use hand sanitiser every day and are learning about the importance of good hand hygiene and its impact on our health.
Dates for your Diary
Autumn Term: Monday 4th September 2023 – Friday 22nd December 2023
Half Term: Monday 30th October 2023 – Friday 3rd November 2023
