Autumn Term 1

We have had such a wonderful first half term in Key Stage 1! We are so proud of all the children for settling into their new classes and starting the year off so positively. In English we have been focusing on descriptive writing, sentence structure, nouns and adjectives. We loved using the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for inspiration where we described the Inventing Room and then designed, made, described (and the best part, ate!) our very own Willy Wonka chocolate. We then explored the book Pirate Pete by Kim Kennedy where we followed Pirate Pete’s adventures to different islands, describing them along the way. We have also incorporated letter formation focus time into each English lesson and have made a strong start to our Phonics and Spelling learning. In Maths, we have started the year by focusing on place value, which will provide us with a solid foundation for our future number work.

Autumn Term 2

We love this half term in Key Stage 1! It has been very busy but also very exciting. We have worked hard on our nativity ‘Baarmy Bethlehem’ - learning our lines, actions and songs ready to perform in front of our families. We hope that you enjoyed watching it as much as we enjoyed performing it!

Across the curriculum, we have been learning about the geography of our school and about our school’s history. We have been very lucky to have two special highlights as part of our learning. The first was having special visitors come in and talk to us about what our school was like when they went to school here and how it has changed over time. The second was dressing up in Victorian clothes and taking part in our Victorian workshop day, where we learnt about what it would have been like to be a child in Victorian times. We enjoyed exploring mechanisms this half term too - creating sliders, levers and wheels to make moving parts. We then used our new-found knowledge to create our very own special project, which will hopefully be a lovely surprise for our families at home this Christmas! We also had a fabulous time visiting and exploring our Forest Schools area and then enjoying our visit to the Pantomime (oh yes, we did!) both of which helped us with our recount writing.

Overall, it has been a wonderfully creative half term of learning and we have been so proud of all our KS1 children for embracing all the activities this half term!