Summer Term 1
Summer Term PE DAYS: Tuesdays and Fridays
Wednesday 24th May - Creating Land Art (inspired by Andy Goldsworthy), parents welcome to join us! 2:00-3.15pm
What a fantastic half term it has been! The children have all worked exceptionally hard in preparation for their final term in Year 1.
A huge thank you to the parents who attended our Natural Sculpture day, we hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did. It was wonderful to see how much the children had remembered about Andy Goldsworthy and his style of art.
As we prepare for our phonics screening the children will be coming home with a phonics booklet to complete during the holidays. The children have been working extremely hard in school and it is important that this continues over the holidays to further embed learnt sounds and blending using consonant clusters.
We all hope that you have a wonderful break 😊
22/5/23
All the children looked fantastic as we celebrated the King's Coronation on Friday. Our deacde was the 00s and through the week we looked at music from that time- ask your children if they can show you some of the dance we practised. We also learned some facts about King Charles III- perhaps see how many your child can remember? On Friday, we had lots of fun following instructions, which is our current English unit, to make the coronation quiche and all worked as a team to follow the different steps: rolling pastry; mixing cream, eggs and milk; chopping tarragon; popping broad beans... When it came together, it looked, smelled and tasted really good- a surprise to some who underestimated the skills of the children and staff involved!
Thanks for all your time and help to support children to come into school in their outfits. Everyone looked great and had a brilliant time at the street party over lunch time with music, special food and fun on the inflatable slides and obstacle courses!
We have lots of pictures of the day that we are trying to share with you all but are currently having some technical glitches- I am hopeful these are resolved soon as we can't wait for you all to see the photos of this special day and talk about them with your children.
12/5/23
Next week (15/5) will be our belated Kings Coronation week. The children will be completing various activities linked to King Charles III, the royal family and Great Britain. Each year group has been given a decade to celebrate. Year 1 will be going back to 2000 – 2009. Be prepared for them to share many new facts about the era.
The children are invited to come to school on Friday 19th May wearing clothes from their decade, ready for our coronation party over lunch time.
In art we have been learning about the artist Andy Goldsworthy and discussing his land art. We would like to be able to create our own land art at school using natural objects such as sticks, flowers, plants, leaves, bark, shells, stones, feathers, and much more. We will be collecting natural objects at school and would like for children to collect some from their garden, the park, on their way to school or even go on a nature walk - the more objects we all collect, the better the land art will look!
We would like to invite parents and carers to join us to be a part of this activity. We are planning for Wednesday 24th May from 2.00-3.15pm. Please notify us by email or in person if you would like to join us so we know who to expect.
(Since this activity is weather dependent, please ensure you receive school texts in case of any amendment/cancellation to this date.)
I hope you all had a fun, relaxing, refreshing Easter break and it was wonderful to see the children back in school today!
Our new topic this term is called 'Back to Nature'. We will be learning about different plants in science, the differences between wild and garden flowers, evergreen and deciduous trees and identifying plants in our local area. In art, we will be developing our knowledge of natural objects and doing some observational drawings of these, then using Andy Goldsworthy as our inspiration, creating our own land art/ nature sculptures. In geography we are exploring weather patterns and also learning about the UK countries and capital cities.
In English this week, we are improving our writing skills through non-fiction recounts of our holidays and then this week and next week through fictional narratives, using Nick Butterworth's Percy the Park Keeper series. We will be developing our descriptive writing of settings and characters and our understanding of the structure of stories (beginning, middle and end), progressing to writing our own version of a Percy the Park Keeper story.
In maths we are counting in 2s, 5s and 10s this week and consolidating our knowledge of numbers to 50, deepening our understanding of tens and ones.
Finally, we are very excited to announce Y1 will be recieving ukulele lessons from Trafford Music Service every Monday! The children had their first lesson today and made us proud with their excellent listening skills. Please look out for the letters that will be coming home soon with further details about lessons, looking after the instruments and a performance.
Spring Term 2
SPRING TERM PE DAYS: Mondays and Fridays
27/3/23
This week's learning:
This week is our final week of term and so we will doing some assessments with the children in maths, English and phonics to see track their progress and development within these areas and understand what their next steps are for next term. These are always done in a relaxed environment and we call them 'special' pieces of work, explaining to the children that this is their chance to show us everything they have learned and improved with since the last piece. We always keep it very positive (they love being able to use 'special' pencils with rubbers on the end just for these occasions!) and we reward the children for their hard efforts. We also explain that if there is something they are unsure of then that helps us, as teachers, know what we need to help them with and what we need to practise more so that is a good thing.
To break these up, we will be having some fun, practical science lessons where we will continue to investigate the properties of everyday materials and sort them according to these properties. We will be designing, building, testing and evaluating our own paper planes in DT and creating our own logos to go on them. In RE, we are continuing the study of Christianity on the build up to Easter and in assemblies we are continuing the theme of diversity. Towards the end of the week we will use simple maps in groups to have our very own Easter Egg hunt and we will make Easter cards.
20/3/23
This week's learning:
This week we are continuing to celebrate diversity in our assemblies and will be discussing how we think about other people and how we treat them.
In English, we are using Stephen Biesty's Flying Machines to explore the changes and improvements to planes through time since the Wright brother's Flyer. Children will be developing their knowledge of navigating non-fiction texts to withdraw information to answer questions.
In maths, we are continuing our unit of Place Value to 50: counting with numbers to 50; looking at different ways to represent numbers; showing 10s and 1s; comparing 2 digit numbers to 50.
In history, we are assessing the credibility of different sources and thinking about how we can use evidence to support our knowledge about events that happened in history. In geography, we are using compass directions to navigate a simple map using landmarks.
In phonics we are nearing the end of Chapter 4b with the sounds 'ou' as /oa/ such as mould, 'ear' as /ur/ as in early, and 'ear' as /air/ as in bear.
Thanks for all the money raised for Comic Relief on Friday- we had lots of outfits that made us all smile and we learned a little about where our money was going and who it could help. Well done everyone, working as a team to help others.
13/3/23
This week, we will be reading Emma Jane’s Aeroplane in English and working with numbers to 50 in maths. We will be learning three new sounds in phonics: ‘y’ (i), ‘ou’ (oo) and ‘ou’ (u).
The teaching staff will be striking on Wednesday and Thursday; therefore, the school will be closed unless you have secured a place for your child.
Friday is Comic Relief day and the children are invited to come to school wearing something that makes them smile.
We look forward to the week ahead!
6/4/23
A fun filled week was had by all last week. Firstly, I would like to say a huge thank you to the parents who came in to read with us for Book Week. I know the children thoroughly enjoyed having you in school with us. On book day we enjoyed creating two whole school stories which will be read out by Mr Cash in Monday’s assembly. The school was split into 2 teams and each given a list of random objects to incorporate into the story to make it as creative and unusual as possible. I wonder which team will have the created the best story? May the best, most creative team win!
This week, we will continue our focus on ‘Planes and Navigation’. We will be re-capping the journey of The Wright Brothers and re-telling the story using simple sentences; Introducing Amelia Earhart and her success story, and again re-telling her story in full sentences. The children will continue to focus on: nouns, verbs and suffixes.
In maths, we will be subtracting within 20 by finding 10.
27/2/23
It is Book Week here at Oldfield Brow, and we have a fun filled week ahead.
This week, we will be continuing our focus on our whole school book ‘The Lost Happy Endings’. Our focus in English is applying the past tense suffix ‘-ed’ and the present tense suffix ‘ing’ to verbs e.g. jump-jumping-jumped.
In maths, we are continuing subtraction with numbers to 20.
In D&T, we are designing our own paper aeroplanes using different design ideas, materials and sizes. We will test these next week, evaluate how they performed and improve our designs the following week.
In history, we are exploring the life of the Wright Brothers and what lead up to the amazing breakthrough in 1903 with the first successful flight.
Please check the image below for more details about the exciting activities during book week.
Welcome back everyone! We hope you had a well-deserved rest over the break and we are looking forward to hearing the children's news about what they have been up to...
This term's topic is Navigation Time where we will delve into history, discovering the journey of flight and finding out all about the Wright brothers. We will discuss the significance of different events and put them into chronological order using a timeline. We will also be developing our geographical knowledge by looking at maps and aerial photos of both our local area and other areas, identifying human (man-made) and physical (natural) features. We will also be using simple compass directions (North, East, West, South). In science, we will explore different everyday materials and their properties and in DT we will be designing and making our own paper aeroplanes with different materials, testing and improving our designs.
This week in English, we will be reading the The Lost Happy Endings by Carol Ann Duffy. This is the text we are sharing across the whole school for World Book Day next Thursday and we will be using this text over the next two weeks. This week, we are making predictions about the text and looking at the structure of sentences, identifying nouns and verbs. Then we will use different nouns and verbs to write our own sentences about our shared text.
In maths, we have been adding with numbers to 20 and are now subtracting 1 digit numbers from 1 and 2 digit numbers to 20.
10/2/23
A HUMONGOUS WELL DONE, to all of the children! They all worked exceptionally hard this week to write and then perform our class assembly. They blew us away with their clear speaking and big smiles. You should all be extremely proud of yourselves.
A HUGE well done to Joshua who received our Head Teachers Award, and Well done to the entire class for receiving the citizen award for their efforts this week. And finally, a shout out to Gyan for receiving the Reading Champion certificate.
Our P.E slots will continue to be on Mondays and Fridays next half term.
We hope you have a wonderful break.
The Year1 Team 😊
6/2/23- MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK
During our final week of term we will be bringing our Amazing Animals topic to a close by looking endangered species, what is threatening them and what can be done to help. We will work collaboratively in groups to plan our animals, research some facts and put together a group poster that we will present to the other Y1 class... pictures of the posters will be published at the end of the week!
As part of Mental Health Awareness Week, we will be completing some collage artwork of different animals to calming music as a mindfulness activity and we will connecting as a class to design our own dance to perform later in the week in assembly, along with some other classes. We are also very, very excited about performing our first Y1 class assembly on Friday afternoon- 2.15pm start... we look forward to seeing many of you there, what a wonderful way to end the term!
Animal Day!
What a fantastic day we have had today in Y1!
First, the children enjoyed exploring how animals such as seals, dolphins and whales stay warm in the freezing cold environment in Antarctica by using "blubber" to dip their hands in icy cold water- they were very impressed with how it kept the cold out! We also explored how a penguins waxy feathers make it waterproof, which allows them to be more streamlined swimmers and keep warm and dry.
However; the highlight of the day had to be our real-life animal visitors from Zoolab. We were thrilled to welcome Chris into school with his collection of small animals that live with him at home... A giant African Land Snail, a Madagascan Hissing Cockroach, a Chilean Rose Tarantula, a North American Cornsnake, a White Treefrog, and a rat.
We also investigated how nocturnal animals use their senses of touch and hearing rather than sight. The children felt different items in opaque envelopes, described them and guessed what they might be- they had some incredibly accurate guesses and thought well about their descriptions. They also practised identifying different animals by listening to the sounds they make and even the adults felt some were very tricky! They worked well and there was some lovely pair work with children explaining their reasons for their choices to each other. We even moved around the classroom like different animals for our 'brain breaks' today too.
What an amazing week we have had! A huge congratulations to our certificate winners this week and last: Ayra, Azfar, Gyan, Archit, Leo and Nico. Well done!
16/1/23
Our ‘Amazing Animals’ topic continues this week as we begin to learn all about amphibians and reptiles. Did you know that most snakes and lizards smell with their tongues? Or that a crocodile regulates its temperature through its mouth? And that the tortoise was the first animal to travel to the moon?
Last week, the children began reading with their buddies in Miss Drabble’s class and they had a wonderful time. Y4CD came to our classroom and had the opportunity to meet their buddy and learn all about one another. They shared their favourite books or one from our library, and I must thank the children in 4CD as they were impeccably patient and acted as fantastic role models to Year 1 pupils. We will be reading with our buddies every Thursday and this week will see the children in 4CD share their favourite story.
A polite reminder to send your child to school in full P.E kits on Mondays and Fridays. This includes: blue polo shirt, plain black jacket and plain black jogging bottoms all of which must be labelled with your child’s name.
And finally, WELL DONE to our children who received certificates last week. Oscar, Hannah and Rocco- you all worked impeccably hard last week and all of your teachers are extremely proud of all you achieved. What a fantastic start to the year you have all had.
9/1/23
Last week, the children thoroughly enjoyed the beginning of our ‘Amazing Animals’ topic where we focussed on mammals. This week, we are focussing on birds and fish. Did you know that the African Grey Parrot is the most talkative bird? or that the ostrich has the largest eyes out of all land animals?
The children welcomed Mr Cash by showing him their can-do attitudes as discussed in our first assemblies with him. They all received lots of tokens and brought many smiles to their peers and teachers faces.
This week, we will begin reading buddies with 4CD. Miss Drabble and I, ask that all of the children in 1EG create a small poster about themselves to allow their buddies in Miss Drabble’s class to create a short story all about them. This does not have to be a time consuming task and is designed to be fun. Please include things such as your: favourite story, favourite animals, hobbies, family, friends and favourite food. Please bring this alongside your favourite story book to school on Thursday.
And finally, a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Siddiq, Annabelle and Nico on receiving their well-deserved awards on Friday. We could not be prouder of your efforts, determination and attitudes. Well done!
SPRING TERM PE DAYS: Mondays and Fridays
Welcome back Y1. We are very excited about beginning our new topic - Amazing Animals!
We will be exploring the similarities and differences between a variety of mammals, reptiles, birds, fish and amphibians, thinking carefully about their characteristics. We will be looking at what they eat and whether they are herbivores, carnivores or omnivores. We will compare domestic pets (and how we look after them) and wild animals (and how they survive in the wild). We will be developing our 'facts vs opinions' knowledge and using this to help us create our own animal fact files! It's going to be an amazing term!
28.11.22
Apologies for the lack of updates, we have been experiencing a few technical issues.
Over the past 2 weeks, the children have been thoroughly enjoying yoga and learning new football skills. They have been listening to their bodies and gaining more control over their movements.
We have had lots to celebrate as the children have been working extremely hard with their reading, writing and phonics.
Well done to Leo, Millie, Ben, Nico, Lucius and Teddy on receiving certificates!
7.11.22
Well done to the children who received certificates on Friday! It was an absolute pleasure to award Milliana, Gyan and Siddiq their certificates for all of their hard work, consideration of others and admirable behaviour. All of you should be extremely proud. Thank you for bringing a smile to everyone’s face last week. 
Tuesday - A polite reminder to complete the permissions form for our morning out to John Leigh Park on Tuesday, and don’t forget to inform us if you will be joining us.
Wednesday- We will be holding a Phonics workshop for parents. More information will follow.
We look forward to the week ahead where we will explore through the Seasons and our Senses to support our writing and imagination!
21.10.22 - Half-Term Sponsored Read
To celebrate and encourage a lifelong love of reading at home and school, we are running a sponsored read over half term 22/10/22-30/10/22.
The project is being organised in conjunction with our local Usborne Partner, and all the money raised will go towards brand new books for our school. In addition to the sponsorship money, Usborne will also donate up to 60% of the total raised in EXTRA FREE BOOKS to the school. So, for every £600 raised, we will get an extra £360 in FREE Usborne books!
We always aim to beat our last year’s target which was £1000 in sponsor money with Usborne donating an additional £600 of books for free if our target is met. This will give us a total of £1600 to spend on new books and resources for our children.
Please help us to enhance our reading resources for pupils by encouraging your child to spend a small amount of time each day either reading to themselves, to others, or being read to. They can read books, comics, magazines, newspapers, menus, websites, recipes, poems, leaflets, instructions – anything with words! For younger children in EYFS they can listen to the adult read their books and that still counts.
The class who have the most recorded minutes will win an extra free book and a small treat! All children will receive a certificate for taking part.
If you are able to support our sponsored read, please find on the reverse a sponsorship form and an extra reading log for your child if they wish to use it to record their reading. Please send any money in a named envelope with the class name and the amount raised alongside the forms by Friday 4th November.
17.10.22
As we enter the final week of our first half term back, I would like to say how proud I am of all the children in Year 1. They have worked exceptionally hard this term and transitioned well into KS1. Thank you to all of the parents and children who have been accessing our new phonics scheme through Ed Shed's decodable books. The consistent approach between school and home really does make a difference to the education and confidence of our children.
A MASSIVE CONGRATULATIONS to the children who received their certificates on Friday. It was such a hard decision to choose this week as many of our children have gone above and beyond, especially when it comes to respectful behaviour which has been our focus this half term.
Annabelle was awarded the Reading certificate for her continued efforts towards her reading and the application of her phonetic knowledge into her writing.
Rocco was awarded the Citizen certificate for his kind natured behaviour towards his peers and teachers and for ALWAYS being helpful, kind and respectful.
Hannah was awarded the Well Done certificate for persevering when faced with challenge and demonstrating a can-do attitude. She has overcome many challenges this week and done so with a smile on her face and support from her friends and teachers.
Dates to remember for the week ahead:
Tuesday- Harvest festival
The children are invited to bring in items for the Harvest and we will be attending an assembly hosted by G-Force.
Friday- Halloween Fancy dress
The children are invited to wear Halloween Fancy dress and asked to bring £1 donation.
Good luck to our friends in Class 1SC for their assembly on Friday. We know how busy you have been and we cannot wait to watch you in your assembly!
10.10.22
A HUGE CONGRATUALATIONS to the children who received their certificates on Friday.
Millie was awarded the Reading certificate for reading all of her decodable books over the past few weeks.
Ben was awarded the Citizen certificate for ALWAYS setting a fantastic example, having beautiful manners and for consistently making good choices.
Joshua was awarded the Well Done Certificate for continually trying his VERY BEST in all that he does and most recently applying new phonetic sounds and high frequency words into his spelling and writing.
These will be awarded each week on a Friday afternoon so keep checking here for the winnners :)
30.9.22
A very big thank you to all those parents who attended our Curriculum Evening this week.
We hope you found the information useful and will pass it on to others who couldn't make it. The PowerPoint is available in the Downloads section.
We have seen a big increase in the number of children now using the online Ed Shed reading books... it would be even better for this to continue to increase though! Thank you for your continued support with this, reading really does open the door to the rest of the curriculum.
Have a great weekend everyone :)
23.9.22
Just a quick note to remind everyone that the children's reading books are available online via Ed Shed. These are part of the English homework set in Y1 and are specifically chosen to fit with the phonics sounds your children have been learning in school and the sounds they will use in their spelling words that week. They will be available all weekend for further practise and are very helpful to aid your child to become a more confident reader and writer. There will normally be 4 books set per week, each focussing on a different sound. They are only short and and have nice comprehension questions to ask at the end. Please support your child's learning by reading a short book with them and talking about it each night. If you have any issues at all logging in then please let us know as soon as you can and we will help... we can see who is reading :)
20.9.22
BEESTON CASTLE!
We had a wonderful time on our trip. The children learnt many new facts and pieces of information surrounding castles and the lives of those who would have lived in them.
A HUGE thank you once again to the Friends of the School for their generous contribution.
We hope you like our pictures!
16.9.22
Homework
Children have brought home their first homework with them today, along with a letter explaining how this works. Simply put though, they will receive:
1. English each week (which is their online reading books and learning their spellings, for which there will be a test each Friday).
2. Maths each week, which will be on a sheet.
3. Chatterday- optional, extra activities. This will be linked to our topic and given at the start of each half term with enough ideas to keep the little ones going throughout the half term.
Homework will come home in the children's reading folder each Friday, and can be returned the same way each Wednesday.
Login for Ed Shed: Each child has a unique login for Ed Shed where they can access their spellings and reading books. This has been stuck in the back of their reading record/diary. (Please also practise writing the spellings on paper though as this is how they will be tested.)
The letter explaining all about this is available in the Downloads section. Any queries, just email me at year1sc@oldfield-brow.com or catch me at the door.
Thank you in advance for helping support your child's learning at home. Have a great weekend everyone :)
9.9.22
We will soon be uploading some information about reading days, homework, etc. but all of this will take off properly next week, once the children are completely settled in. Please see below for PE information and just ask us if you have any queries.
We sent children home today with a book and a letter explaining how phonics and reading will work this year. Please take the time to read this letter (it can also be found in the Downloads section) and if you have any queries then please just ask us.
We will regularly upload pictures of the children and keep you updated about our activities on this blog so please keep checking back here. Also, please ensure you have granted or denied permission for pictures of your children to be shared on the website or Twitter, according to your preference.
Miss Guy, Mrs Reddy and Mrs Smith-Bernand
