Year 1

Dates for your Diary:

Term 5

17th April: Whole School Mass @ 10am

23rd April: Dress in red for St George’s Day

25th April: Parent Consultations

26th April: Parent Book Look

1st May: Crowning of Our Lady

6th May: Bank holiday

9th May: Whole School Mass @ 10am

20th May: World Bee Day- dress as a bee

23rd May: Last day of term 5

24th May: Inset day - no school for children

4th June: Pupils return for term 6

PHONICS

All children in year 1 will sit a phonics test in June. The aim of this is to check their knowledge of sounds that they have learnt and if they are able to apply them in various words. They will also be tested on  sounds, using 'alien' words, these are words that contain a taught sound, within a word that is not a real word. Children will be exposed to alien words throughout the year and will therefore be familiar with them. Below are previous tests that you can use with your children. 

General information:

PE: Wednesday 

This term, PE will be on Wednesday - Please ensure your child comes into school wearing their PE kits, with all items being CLEARLY NAMED. Also, please remove any earrings and ensure long hair is tied back. 

Reading: 

Please read with your child for a minimum of 15 minutes every day and sign/comment in your child's learning journal. Your child should bring their Learning Journal to school everyday, your child's journal will be checked and stamped daily, reading is reward! This is a time for your child to read and show off their reading skills to you.

Reading Quizzes:

Each morning your child will have the opportunity to complete a quiz using the iPads once they have completed reading their home book.

Reading books will be changed once a week:

St Therese- Green group - Monday

St Bernadette- Blue group - Tuesday

St Joan of Arc - Yellow group - Wednesday

St Lucy - Red group - Thursday 

Please listen to your child read and ask them questions about what they have read to enhance their understanding of the text. In school we check the children's comprehension through a quiz using the program Accelerated Reader. You will see a score in your child's journal to show how they did with this. If your child needs further practise to pass the quiz, we may ask for you to continue reading the same book for a little longer.

Spellings:

We will be sending new spellings home every week (these will be recorded in your child's Learning Journal). Please help your child practise their spellings throughout the week to ensure they are ready for their spellings quiz on a Friday. If your child misspells a word from the spelling list in the Friday test, this will be highlighted in your child's journal for you to keep practising at home.

If you would like to contact your class teacher:

Please write a comment in your child's learning journal. These are checked daily and any non-urgent messages will be replied to.

If your message is urgent then please do contact the school office to arrange a return phone call or an appointment.

Overviews

Parent Videos

St. Simon's Class Assembly

Celebrating both creativity and collaboration, the young minds of St. Simon's class embarked on a remarkable journey to bring the timeless Creation Story to life in their class assembly. With unwavering enthusiasm, the children planned and executed their representation weaving together a tapestry of imagination and innocence. Theses budding talents showcased not only their understanding of the story but also the magic that happens when the children work together. 

Collective Worship

 Collective worship is important for us all in St Simon and St James the Lesser class. We, as members of the school, together join in a weekly collective worship to promote the shared values of the school.

Theme - St. Andrew's Day

Year 1 learned about St. Andrew and what made him special. They learned that he was a fisherman and became a follower of Jesus who helped, 'Fish for Men.' They discussed what this could mean and concluded that he help spread the word of God and gather more followers of Jesus. The children role played the feeding of the 5000, decorating their own fish to help spread the message of these scriptures (John 6:5-15, Matthew 4:19).

Theme- Love

What is love? Year 1 discussed this topic this week and spoke about how they know they are loved, what it feels like and how they show it to others. They listened to the scripture 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 to help them understand more about love. They spoke about how they show love to Jesus and how they know Jesus loves them always.

Theme- Anti-Bullying Week

We are unique and different, which is what makes us amazing! Year 1 used the scripture Ephesians 2:10 to learn how they are workmen of God. They discussed how God made us each different, with different talents and gifts. They celebrated the gifts of their friends and decorated socks, for Odd Sock Day, that show how we are all different.

Theme- Remembrance

Today Year 1 has been remembering those who have died for us in the wars, past and present. We discussed how they sacrificed their lives so that we could have a better life. We also talked about the animals that lost their lives in battle. We created a class wreath and wrote a class prayer for those who have lost their lives.

Theme- Building Houses

Matthew 7: 24-27. Wise or foolish? Year 1 discussed the men who build their houses on rock and sand and they could build a strong community by living out the school's CIRCLE values in their daily lives. They joined together to sing "The Community" song.

Theme- Giving Thanks

Being thankful was the theme of this week's Collective Worship in Year 1. Pupils discussed what they were thankful for in their lives and how they show their thanks to those around them.

Theme- St.Michael's Day

Year 1 enjoyed learning about our patron Saint- St Micheal. They learnt how he defeated a dragon and that he is always there to guide and protect us. They sang our St Michael's beautifully and joined in with the prayer to St Michael, asking him to use his wings to protect us and his sword to defend us.

Theme- The Good Samaritan

Luke 10: 25-37. This week the pupils of Year 1 learnt about the message from the parable The Good Samaritan. They reflected on how they can be a good Samaritan to those around them. They roles played different ways of being a good Samaritan and wrote lovely words and notes to those who are good Samaritans around them.

Theme- New Beginnings
September brings a new beginning for the pupils of St. Michael's and Year 1 have had a wonderful time settling into their classes and moving up into Key Stage 1 from Reception. They reflected on their new beginning and as a class discussed their hopes for the upcoming school year.

Theme- Lent

We learned about Lent and the lead up to Easter. We listened to the sacrifices Jesus made when resisting temptation in the desert. We thought about things we could resist for the duration of Lent to show our love for Jesus. We created a Lenten Promise and hung these on our Promise tree. We also talked about the traditions of Pancake day and why we celebrate this. We enjoyed some delicious pancakes and had our own pancake flipping race.

Theme- Prayer

We had a moment of silence for those suffering in Turkey and Syria, we thought about them in our prayers and will keep them in our hearts

Theme- Love One Another

We gave to charity to share our love for those in need.

Theme- Living Water

We talked about Jesus providing us with all the things we need and reflected upon those in our lives who  provide for us now. We listened to the song, I'll Stand By You, and discussed the ways Jesus, 'stands by us.' 

Theme- A Good Hostess

We thought of different ways we could be a good host for Jesus and other special visitors.

Theme - The Epiphany

We thought of gifts we could present to Jesus to welcome him. These gifts were to represent something important and special to us that we could offer him and make him know how much we love him.

Theme - John the Baptist

We thought of ways we can help share God's love:

• Pray for those in need
• Look after the world
• Go to confession
• Do not hurt animals
• Share our beliefs

This will help us to make sure we prepare our hearts for Jesus and thank god for sending his only son to die for us so we could be forgiven.

Theme - Advent

Theme - Created and loved by God

We gathered together to talk about what makes us different and what makes us the same. We gave each other compliments to let our friends know how special they are. We thought of words to describe how unique we are and drew self portraits to show we are all created and loved by God.

Theme - Working hard

We gathered items that represented our hard work so far in Year 1, and othered this into our prayers so that we can continue this hard work with Gods guidance. We spoke of all our dream jobs that we aspire to reach for along our life journey.

Theme- Our community

We identified those that make up our community and discussed what we can do to ensure we care for the community and are following in the example of Jesus. We created some artwork for our local residential care 'Acorn House', to thank them for being a part of our community with us.

Theme - Remembrance

Luke 22:19 

We spoke about The Last Supper and how Jesus told His disciples to break bread and do this in memory of Him, celebrating His life.

We spoke about the different ways we remember others, we made poppies to help us remember those who died in the war.

Theme - Being a good Samaritan

Mark 12: 28-31 -

We role played The Good Samaritan and thought about what we could learn from this -

"We will try to help others, just like we would want them to help us."

"We will try to give and love as God wants us to." 

"We are Kind and caring at St. Michael's"

Theme: Remembering Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth ll

This week, in our collective worship, we said a special prayer in honor of Her Majesty, we made our own crowns to help us remember her full and glorious reign. 

Theme: Rebuilding our community

Matthew 7:24-27 

This week during collective worship, St James the lesser and St Simon talked about what Jesus meant by 'building your life on the rock? 

We began to realise that 'rock' is strong and if we follow the school values we will build a strong school community. We then all sang 'Roll over the Ocean, Roll over the Sea' to sing about our community and added actions to express our strength.

Theme: Flourishing together

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

We know that when we work together showing love and compassion to one another that we will flourish together. We continue to belong within our school and feel valued as part of the school community.

Theme: Compassion together

James 2:14-17

We thought about what we could do today, to show compassion just like Jesus. We all understand that the little things we can do make a big difference to the community. 

"I can change the world with my own two hands"

Theme: Resilience together

Roman 5:3-5

The Bible reminds us that it is not unusual to go through hard times, it helps us to grow and gives us hope. This week we discussed how we can help others at times when they feel low, with our words of encouragement and sometimes just a simple smile. We reminded ourselves that we are loved by our families and Lord Jesus.

Theme: Vulnerability together

Psalm 139:13-14, Matthew 10:30

A spider's web is very vulnerable, but its beauty is the strength of its design.

We learnt that being vulnerable is not a weakness, it is not about winning or losing but having the courage to show up. It is about asking for help, having difficult conversations and talking and how we feel. We created a spider's web to represent being vulnerable together.

‘What makes you vulnerable, makes you beautiful.’ If we trust in God, we will become strong again.

Kindness Together

Luke 10:36-36

Dear God, 
Thank you for all those who are sharing kindness in our communities. Thank you for their acts of kindness, generosity and love. Help me to be kind through my words, actions and attitude. Please show me if one of my family members or friends needs me to be extra kind to them today. Thank you, God, for inspiring us to be kind through your love for the world. 
Amen.

St Simon's Class Assembly 

St Simon presented an amazing class assembly to their parents/ carers and peers in KS1.

The theme of our class assembly was The Creation Story. We used our children's bible and references to Genesis scripture in our RE lessons to understand the importance of how we and everything around us was made and the order in which God created the Earth.

Children used props they had made during lessons and done extremely well in their first ever assembly!

Collective Worship

St James the Lesser Class Assembly

We presented an assembly themed around Noah's Ark to KS1, reception and our parents/carers. We learned the story from Genesis, focusing on the importance of listening to God, and retold it whilst doing a small role-play about the animals going in to the ark in interesting ways. St James the Lesser worked really hard and learned 2 songs: the animals went in 2 by 2 and another about God helping us to make right choices.

In year 1 we celebrated All Saints day by learning all about our class Saint and why they are so special. We  made stain glass windows to represent our Saint's and wrote a prayer to them as well.

We learnt all about Diwali 'the festival of lights' and why it is celebrated. To join in with fun celebrations we did lots of arts and crafts including: firework printing, painted rangoli patterns with water colours and made 3D elephants! We also learnt about the story of Rama and Sita and understood how light links in with Diwali.

Anti Bullying Week

This week in collective worship we looked at how we can say 'one kind word' to each other and prevent bullying. We wore odd socks and decorated our own during our provision time in class which was lots of fun!

Children in Need

Year 1 absolutely loved dressing up in spots or as superheros for Children in Need. We had lots of fun in class decorating Pudsey faces and spoke about the importance of children in need.

Advent

In year 1 this week, we have been learning what Advent means in the Roman Catholic Church and different ways in which we prepare for it. We have discussed that the word 'advent' means 'coming' and so this is a time of preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus. We have understood the meaning behind the four candles on the Advent wreath and how they symbolise hope, love, joy and peace. In our classes we all decorated a Holly leaf each to go onto our wreath and we used our candle to reflect on the importance of getting ready for Jesus' return throughout December. 

Collective Worship

God-Given Identities

This week we looked at our unique and special identities. We discussed how the Year 1 children are very sporty, creative, funny, beautiful and kind! We are lucky that God has made us all so unique. We talked about one of our teaching assistants Mrs Thompson and wrote about her identity. The children decided that they were very lucky to have her in the class.

'I am the bread of life'.

John 6: 32- 35

We have been thinking about what Jesus means when he described himself as the bread of life. We understand that Jesus will satisfy us forever and will bring us peace, forgiveness and a purpose to our life.  We shared bread as a class and made a class prayer thanking God for the food we have and his protection.

We celebrated Shrove Tuesday by sharing pancakes. The children enjoyed tasting the pancakes and made some lenten promises.

Collective Worship

Our Treasure - Matthew 6:21

We talked about our treasures and what we find special. The children collected some of the things from around the classroom that they would put in a treasure chest. 

Easter Gardens

At forest school the children made Easter gardens. They decorated them so beautifully using natural materials and they said a prayer to God standing next to them.

St Patrick's Day

We learned all about St Patrick and how he brought religion to Ireland. We learned that he had a very tricky life but that he stayed faithful and still believed in God although he was tested. We made rainbows to celebrate.

Parable of the Hidden Treasure - Matthew 13:44

We talked about the difference between what God finds important and what human's find important. The children decided that maybe people should care less about money, cars and material things and more about what is actually important.

This week we talked about making good choices. The children decided that good choices included brushing your teeth, helping your friends and working hard. Bad choices include lying, being mean and not tidying your room. We sang a song all about God helping us to make the right choice!

Collective Worship

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