Year 1 2025 - 2026

Mrs Marshall

Mrs Bailey

Welcome to the Year 1 Homepage!

The Year 1 team are Mrs Marshall, Mrs Bailey and Mrs A Davies.

jennifer.marshall@oldfield.cheshire.sch.uk nikki.bailey@oldfield.cheshire.sch.uk

Here you will find out everything you need to know about what Year 1 are getting up to in school.

Autumn Term

FOREST SCHOOLS - FIRST FRIDAY OF THE TERM

We are looking forward to seeing everyone in a couple of weeks.

Our new Year 1 children will participate in Forest School on our first Friday of the term - Friday 5th September.

Please ensure your child comes to school on the 5th September dressed appropriately to spend the day outside:

- Leggings or jogging bottoms (not shorts or jeans)

- Outdoor shoes or wellies to wear outside and trainers to wear indoors (footwear that they can put on / off independently and fasten independently wherever possible)

- Long sleeved t-shirt and plenty of layers (it is always cooler in the forest school area)

- Waterproof coat and waterproof trousers if you have them

- Hat and gloves / sun hat and sun cream applied before coming to school

Please also ensure that if your child has long hair they have it tied back.

Forest School takes place in all weathers so children should come prepared!

It is essential that the children wear long sleeved tops and long trousers, along with waterproof shoes or wellies (a spare pair needs to be brought in to wear inside) as they will be outside all day in long grass and wooded areas.

PE DAY: WEDNESDAYS AND FRIDAYS

Please send your children into school in PE kit on Wednesdays (House of Dance) and Fridays (PE with Mrs Bailey - Yoga this term). It is important that earrings are taken out prior to children coming to school unless they have been recently pierced in which case they should be covered with tape before they come to school. This is for everyone's safety.

The term

In English ****

Although the children won't be bringing home spellings, they will continue to develop their spelling knowledge in school.

Please listen to your child read their banded book (brought home on a Wednesday) at least 3 times in a week. Please note the dates you have read with them in their yellow reading records. This will make a huge difference to their reading ability and it will help to promote how important reading is at home as well as in school. We thank you for your continued support with this.

In Maths, **

In science we will be observing changes across autumn and winter, including weather patterns and variations in day length. Children will be encouraged to be curious, ask questions, use simple equipment for observations and evidence and use observations to answer questions. Our science work links closely with our Geography work this term, where we explore the seasons and how these relate to the months of the year, describing the features of each of the seasons using appropriate vocabulary to describe weather patterns. Over the year we compare the four seasons, focusing more on spring and summer later in the year.

We will also be learning about plants and their basic parts this term. Our learning will involve identifying and naming common wild and garden plants, including deciduous and evergreen trees, the basic structure of flowering plants and trees. Again, children will be encouraged to ask questions, be curious, observing closely, classifying, and gathering data to suggest answers to questions.

We will be starting this learning during our outdoor Forest Schools learning day on the 5^th September.

Our forest school outdoor learning day launches our science and geography focus for this term, providing valuable hands-on experiences that naturally align with key learning objectives in both science and geography.

We are looking forward to learning about toys past and present in our history topic this term. We start with what the children know – what they like to play with themselves, what they have seen those younger and older than them playing with and then we extend this to explore what their parents, grandparents, school staff etc played with.

We gather information from a range of sources to help us compare old and new objects including looking at examples of toys (real items and images), books, using the internet and talking to each other and adults in our family and in school. Through this we get a greater understanding of what is the same and what is different about toys the children play with today and those that older generations played with. This topic is usually very popular with our Year 1’s!

To start off our topic we are inviting our Year 1 children on Friday 19^th September to bring into school a toy that they enjoy playing with (not their most precious toy in case it gets lost or broken and not one that is valuable). They will have the opportunity on that day to tell us about it – what it does, how it works, what they like best about it, where they got it from etc. Please support your child in preparing them for this. It would be helpful for them to practice what they will say at home to increase their confidence. We will encourage and reassure them as they do this.

If you would prefer to send in a photograph of the toy your child can bring the photograph in, or you can email it to the year one team (Nikki.bailey@oldfield.cheshire.sch.uk) and we will display the photograph on the classroom screen as the children share on the 19^th.

To support the children in getting a greater understanding of toys from the past, we would warmly welcome any parents / grandparents/ aunties/uncles to talk to the class about what they enjoyed playing with when they were younger. You would be welcome to come into school on Friday 3^rd October or Friday 17^th October in the afternoon. Alternatively, if you would like to share with the class but are unable to attend in person on those afternoons, you may like to film yourself talking about the toy / s that you played with when you were younger. If you email the clip to the year one team, we will share them with the class.

Please get in touch if you would be interested in supporting us with this and we can chat about it further. Your support would be really appreciated, the children learn so much from hearing people talking about their own experiences and being able to ask questions, it really helps to bring our learning to life.

Over the year, we will be working through the My Happy Mind modules. This term, we extend the work started in Reception, with the modules: Meet the Brain and Celebrate.

Meet the Brain module - this module introduces children to how their brains work and why caring for them is essential.

Key Concepts:

The brain helps us with many jobs—thinking, feeling, learning, and decision-making.
Looking after our brain helps us be our best selves.
When we learn something new, our brain remembers it for next time—this supports a growth mindset.

Children meet characters like Berty and Betty who explain brain functions in a fun, relatable way.

We explore different breathing strategies to develop mindful techniques, all of which help children to manage their emotional states and care for their brain. We link this directly to our emotion coaching work using the Zones of Regulation approach. Each week we will be practising different strategies to develop our own toolbox of ways that help us.

We will start by recapping on some strategies we used last year, including Tunnel Breathing, wall pushes, counting colours, having a drink / snack and drawing / colouring.

Throughout the week we build in reflection time to appreciate how our brains helped us during the day.

Celebrate module - this module focuses on helping children discover and appreciate their unique character strengths.

Key Concepts:

Every child has special traits that make them who they are.
Recognising and celebrating these strengths builds self-esteem and confidence.
Children learn to value their individuality and the strengths of others.

This module helps to build a positive self-image, feel more confident in ourselves, encourages children to be proud of who they are and lays the foundation for empathy and appreciation of diversity.

We look to build this into our school day by pointing out children’s strengths in everyday situations and encouraging them to talk about what makes them feel proud.

Our PSHE sessions link well with our My Happy Mind and emotion coaching approach. This term, Year 1 children are exploring the theme of Relationships, focusing on building caring friendships, understanding emotions and respecting others. Through stories like Elmer and My World, Your World, and guided lessons from the No Outsiders (“No Outsides in our school: Everyone different, everyone welcome” by Andrew Moffat (Speechmark, 2020), children learn how to make friends, share feelings, recognise special people in their lives, and understand the importance of respecting differences. They also begin to understand personal safety, including which parts of their body are private and why it's important to speak up if they aren’t feeling comfortable about something. These lessons help children develop empathy, confidence, and a strong foundation for healthy relationships.

In music this term, children will be developing their musical knowledge and creativity through singing, movement, and rhythm games. They will learn some songs by heart, understand what each song is about, and begin to recognise the sounds and names of different instruments. Through activities like dancing, marching, and pretending to be animals or pop stars, children will explore how music makes them feel and how they can express themselves through movement. They’ll also discover that music has a steady pulse, like a heartbeat, and learn to create rhythms using words, such as their names, favourite foods, and animals.

In RE we will be exploring the question: What does it mean to belong? and later in the term exploring why and how Christmas is celebrated by Christians.

Our PE days will be Wednesdays (House of Dance) and Fridays (PE with Mrs Bailey) so please send children into school in PE kits on these days.

For safety reasons please can children with long hair have their hair tied back on PE days and children with earrings take their earrings out at home before they come to school. Anyone with newly pierced ears should come to school with tape over their ear rings.

School uniform - please remember to clearly label clothing (including PE kit, hats, coats etc) so items can easily be returned to the children if they go missing. Please send your child into school every day this half term with a suitable coat for the time of year. We go outside for breaks when it is raining so the coat will need to be waterproof.

Please use the tabs above to find out more about what your child is learning about in English and in Maths and for some educational games. Also, using the links above you will also be able to access key information linked with how to contact us and a reminder of what your child needs to bring in each day.