Year 1 Term Overview 

Dear Year 1 Families,

We are extremely excited to have students returning back to onsite learning and want to assure you that we are going to be making sure to have plenty of collaborative learning opportunities, time to rebuild friendships and targeted learning programs to support the growth of your children!

Literacy 

This term in Reading, Year 1 students will revisit non fiction texts to deepen their understanding of non fiction text features, their purpose and how they help us to understand and change our thinking when reading. Students will be diving deeper into comprehending non fiction texts with a focus on analysing the author’s craft and their decisions for including features such as: captions, headings, contents, maps, diagrams and photographs. In order to support the ability to talk about information found, the Year 1 teachers will be explicitly teaching students how to re read facts in a text to help them search for and use information and putting it into their own words. Year 1 students will also be learning about fiction texts in the form of poetry, identifying how author’s manipulate letter sounds, choose specific words to rhyme and how author’s engage the audience. As we close out the year, students will consolidate their understanding and application of the comprehension strategies of summarising, predicting, inferring and questioning.

Writing 

This term in Writing, in connection with our reading, students will be introduced to information reports. They will be investigating the purpose, the target audience, and identifying key features, punctuation and word choices used by authors in order to provide the audience with facts about a certain topic such as a place or animal. Students will build on their ability to add details to their writing by constructing sentences that include: what, what doing, how like and how doing as a means of providing clear information to the audience. Additionally, they will be consolidating their understanding of punctuation at the start and ends of sentences and how this affects meaning. 

During this term, Year 1 students will learn how to write simple poems using their knowledge of word families to help write poems that rhyme, connecting to their reading of different authors who use poetry to tell a story. Students will also experiment with different letter sounds and understand how to flip sounds to support their poetry. 

Numeracy 

This term in Maths, Year 1 students will consolidate their understanding of addition and subtraction, with a larger focus on subtraction. Students will be exposed to a variety of different worded problems and opportunities that involve addition and subtraction to help them identify what strategy they will use and why they are using it. Also, Year 1 students will revisit key ideas around place value, such as using a number line to identify 2 digit numbers, skip counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s to ensure they are able to think about numbers flexibly. During the second-half of the term, we will then be focusing on telling time to the half hour, how this connects with fractions (halves) and re-introduce data representation and statistics (collecting data, displaying and reading data with picture graphs). 

Inquiry

In Inquiry this term, our topic will be Geography and has a specific focus on place and space. The Year 1 teachers will be leading an inquiry revolving around the question: What makes a place special or important? With an emphasis on investigating global places of importance, family places of importance and local places in the community and why we visit them, students will acknowledge their own connection to land and places as well as the traditional owners of the land. During this unit, Year 1 students will also be exploring the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander names for the places inside and outside of our school and will develop an understanding of where names come from, the meanings of names for places and why this is important within our culture. 

Ways to Help Your Child At Home:

Home Reading - Reading is extremely important for your child’s development and underpins all curriculum areas. Schedule a side at least 20 minutes of sustained reading a day and make sure to have a conversation with your child about the book. Here are some questions to ge the conversation started: 

What happened in the text? (fiction) What was the important information? (non fiction)

How did the character feel at the beginning/end and why? (fiction)

What was the problem and solution? Was it a good solution, why/why not? (fiction) 

Why did the author use captions, headings, contents page or diagrams? (non fiction)

What did you already know and what did you learn? (non fiction)

Learning Goals - Your child’s individualised learning goals are listed on Compass. There is a reading goal, a maths goal, a writing goal and an Inquiry or SEL (social and emotional learning) goal for your child. Please have a look at these when you get the notification on Compass and remember to watch the Student Excellence Hub videos for your child’s reading goal that has a clear video of what they need to do and how they need to achieve their goal. 

Hand-washing/sanitising - As we return to school, personal hygiene will be an on going focus. If you can please practice and establish good personal hygiene actions at home, this will be extremely beneficial and safe for your child when they return to school. 

We thank you for your hard work the past two terms and look forward to having the children back on site!

Year 1 Team