YEAR ONE

Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Primary School provides a range of holistic learning experiences to enable students to:

• Participate in the life and mission of the school.
• Deepen their knowledge and engagement with the Catholic faith and tradition.
• Build the capacity to continuously reason, reflectively, logically and critically.
• Embrace interdependence of human existence as global citizens, who are responsible to and for themselves and others.
• Engage in learning in a multitude of ways, through personalised and self-paced learning.

Religious Education

In Religious Education, students will engage in the topics of Easter and Baptism. The Easter Season unit will develop students' familiarity with the Easter story. Students will be exposed to the stories of the Ascension and Pentecost. They will be encouraged to engage with the mystery of God's presence. The Baptism unit will introduce Baptism as a Sacrament of initiation into the Church community. We will look at the key symbols and actions used during the Rite of Baptism. 

English

Our quality literature focus this term will be based on imaginative texts. Students will identify and write texts using the narrative structure with a focus on explicit grammatical teaching. Students will focus on writing correct sentence structure and will be provided multiple opportunities to write their own stories. Our literature texts for this term are, 'March of the Ants', by Ursula Dubosarsky, 'The Very Brave Bear' by Nick Bland and 'Walk of the Whales' by Nick Bland. 

Students will also participate in recount writing and are learning to build upon this area by using time connectives, conjunctions, verbs, adjectives, proper nouns, correct use of punctuation and sentence structure.  

Reading - The students will continue to read decodable texts with automaticity, focusing on self-correcting errors and retrieving words automatically or by sounding out the word in their head instead of blending out loud. Students will continue to develop their skills to comprehend texts by activating background knowledge, vocabulary knowledge and by making connections to the text. 

Phonics and Spelling - Students are engaging with phonics and spelling on a daily basis. Students are explicitly taught different letter/sound correspondences starting by identifying and recording letter/sound correspondences followed by reading and spelling words, reading and writing sentences and reading decodable texts. The focus this term is on the long vowel sounds. 

Handwriting - The students will continue to work on their pencil grip, correct letter formation and writing within the lines.

Mathematics

In Mathematics, students will be grouped within their own classes according to their needs and ability.  All classes will be working through the early part of the Stage One outcomes. Mathematics lessons occur daily for 60 minutes. The topics taught this term are: 

• Combining and Separating Quantities (Weeks 1-2), 
• 2D and 3D Spatial Measure (Weeks 3-4), 
• Representing Whole Number (Week 5), 
• Forming Groups (Weeks 6-8), 
• Geometric Measure - Mass (Week 9)
• Non-Spatial Measure - Time (Week 10). 

Science and Technology

During Term 2, students will be studying the unit 'All Mixed Up'. The unit will enhance student understanding of the properties of materials and the physical changes that occur when materials are combined. They will learn about the concept of matter and the various types of mixtures and their purposes. They will also learn to predict, classify, investigate, observe, document and explore through hands on experiences. 

Geography

This term, we are continuing to learn about the natural and human features of places. The students will describe the reasons places change and identify the active role of citizens in the care of places. Students explore activities occurring in places and how spaces within places can be used for different purposes.

Personal Development, Health and Physical Education

This Term, students will participate in activities organised by the Year 9 PASS students from De La Salle. The De La Salle students will instruct our students on many aspects of the Physical Education Curriculum with a focus on fundamental movement skills and games. The program starts in Week 3 and will culminate in a Fun and Fitness day.  Supervision is provided by all three classroom teachers, LSO’s and the De La sports teachers. The program will take place on De La Salle playground or the Caringbah Oval. 

In sport lessons, they will also be continuing their development of their fundamental movement skills such as running, jumping, balancing, throwing and catching. Students will also be learning some Indigenous games to promote cultural appreciation and awareness.

We will continue with the Open Parachute program. The program aims to provide practical support for students' mental health. The program aims to reduce stigma and generate authentic dialogue in classrooms about the real issues students face. The psychological skills-building exercises aim to increase empathy, self-compassion, self-awareness, mental health literacy, and self-efficacy in students.

Amadeus Music Program

Students will continue their participation in the Amadeus Music Education program, introduced by Sydney Catholic Schools to our school this year.

In music, students perform through music learning experiences, demonstrating a greater awareness of their own capabilities in using their voice and various sound sources to make music.

Creative Arts

In Drama with Mr Parlato , we will be focusing on mime and movement through Rod Campbell’s Dear Zoo. Students will engage with drama through learning warm-ups, using adjectives in the novel to create characters and create their own masks and collaborative  performances. 

Mandarin

Our students continue to enjoy participating in the Chinese language program called the Meg Language Program. The Meg Curriculum is written by the co-author of the Australian Curriculum. All students and teachers will participate in the digital learning platform via Zoom weekly sessions with educators in China.

Homework 

This Term Homework will include reading daily and reviewing spelling words relating to the sounds children are learning in the classroom. Parents are asked to sign the Reading Log each night and it is to be returned to school each day in your child's reading folder. Homework books will be sent home on a Monday and returned on a Friday for marking.  

We look forward to working with you and your child this term. If you have any concerns, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher via a note or by email through Compass.  

Miss Dominique Vuaran (1Blue)

Ms Chonteau Poot (1Gold)

Miss Holly Pooley (1White)

Important Dates for Year 1

Sport Day

Sports days for Year 1 are as follows

1Blue –     Tuesday and Thursday

1Gold –   Tuesday and Thursday

1White –  Tuesday and Thursday

Library

Each week, students will have the opportunity to borrow books from our school library. Please ensure your child brings their Library Bag to school on their allocated day.   

1Blue –    Tuesday

1Gold –    Tuesday

1White –  Tuesday

2024 - School Term 2

Parent calendar available at this link