Year 1 News

Learning Celebrations 

Wellbeing 

The Year 1 students have had a great start to school! Over the first few weeks we’ve been learning our classroom routines and getting to know one another. The students have loved our team-building games such as “Same Here,” where they passed a ball of string to someone they had something in common with, passing a paper plate around the circle using pegs, and working together to balance marbles. Lots of fun and teamwork already! 

Literacy 

This term in Year 1, we are beginning our Phonics Plus program, a structured and systematic approach to learning how to read and spell. 

Through explicit teaching, students learn the relationship between sounds (phonemes) and letters (graphemes) and how these work together to form words. Each day, students practise blending sounds to read words and segmenting sounds to spell, using carefully selected texts that match the sounds they have been taught. 

Alongside our phonics instruction, we will also be focusing on correct letter formation and handwriting skills to support neat, fluent written work. With consistent routines and regular revision, Phonics Plus helps build strong decoding skills, reading confidence, and a solid foundation for future literacy success. 

We look forward to supporting your child as they continue to grow in confidence as readers and writers throughout the year. 

Text Study 

We have been reading The Boy Who Wants to Shrink His Name, which the students have thoroughly enjoyed. During our discussions, we have explored the main characters, their emotions, and how their relationships develop throughout the story. 

Students have also been making thoughtful text-to-self connections, linking the themes and experiences in the book to their own lives. It has been wonderful to see their engagement and growing understanding as readers.  

Read to Self  

We have launched the concept of Read to Self where students work on their reading stamina. Students have learnt about selecting good fit books and what these should look like. Each week they will select three different genre books for their book tub and will work on reading these through the week. They also enjoyed making their own bookmarks to keep in their tubs.   

Maths  

Over the past few weeks in Maths, we have been placing a strong focus on developing fluency with number facts, helping students to improve both their accuracy and speed when recalling numbers before or after a given number and counting patterns. 

A key area of learning has been bundling and regrouping. Students have been exploring place value, particularly the understanding that ten ones make one ten. Through hands-on activities students have practised regrouping ones into tens using icy pole sticks to bundle. This foundational understanding of place value is essential as it supports more complex mathematical thinking in the future. 

In addition to our number work, we have also been learning about time, specifically understanding that there are twelve months in a year. Students have been practising recalling and sequencing the months in order, building both memory skills and calendar awareness. 

Students have also been introduced to some engaging Michael Minas maths games, including Pairs to 10 and Get Out of My House. These games help to build number fluency and strengthen students’ understanding of number facts in a fun and interactive way. The class has quickly learned the rules and is becoming more confident each time we play. They now know how to play independently and may even be able to teach you the games at home! 

Who We Are  

We have begun our first unit of inquiry, Who We Are with the central idea exploring how the decisions people make influence their relationships with each other. In this unit we are discussing the attributes that can help us learn together and the way our interactions contribute to a harmonious classroom. The students have been looking at the array of emotions and feelings they may display and how to manage these using the Zones of Regulation. They enjoyed acting out the different Zones and making a class collage to display.   

Bonnie (Therapy dog) 

Bonnie visits our classroom to support students’ wellbeing, confidence and engagement in learning, and the children have absolutely loved having her as part of our Year 1 community. Bonnie helps create a positive and supportive atmosphere where students feel safe and relaxed. 

Future Learning  

Literacy 

Phonics Plus 

Introduction of new Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondences (GPC’s): 

‘ee’ as in bee, feet, teeth, sleep, green 

‘ea’ as in sea, eat, read, dream, treat 

‘ie’ as in chief, thief, brief, grief, field 

‘e_e’ as in eve, these, Steve, Pete, complete 

Text Study 

Two Mates by Melanie Prewett 

Grammar and Punctuation 

Revising basic punctuation and identifying nouns and verbs within sentences. 

Maths 

We will continue developing our understanding of two-digit numbers through reading and writing activities. Students will build on this knowledge by practising regrouping (bundling) to strengthen their place value skills. 

We will revise the concepts of “left” and “right” and practise following directions on a grid. We will also revise time and regular shapes. To support and reinforce these concepts, students will learn and play new educational games.