Class 1
CLASS ONE
Welcome to Class One
Miss Forrest & Mrs Rushton
Our Curriculum vehicle is called ‘Marvellous Me!’ where we will be learning all about ourselves, our families and our local area. Here is a summary of what we will be learning in Class One over the next few weeks.
R.E
Our class Saint is St Francis of Assisi – the Patron Saint of animals and ecology. This half term the children will be introduced to our class Saint and will be learning all about his life and what made him special.
In our first unit of work, we will be learning about God’s Gift of Creation – this unit introduces the Bible to the children as God’s book and teaches them to appreciate their own gifts and talents as God given. We then move on to our next unit ‘People Who Care For Us’.
RHE/PSHE
In RHE (Relation and Health Education) we follow the Ten:Ten scheme called ‘Life to the Full’. The children will be exploring the story of creation and how we were all created by God out of love and for love.
English 
The children in Nursery will have daily phonics session where they will focus on the 7 aspects of Phase One phonics through a variety of different topics such as ‘Ourselves’. To begin with we will be focusing our listening skills to hear and distinguish sounds around us in the environment. We will then focus on body percussion and the sounds we can make with our bodies, and we will also be exploring instruments and the sounds that they can make. We will then move on to exploring rhythm, and rhyme and alliteration. These are crucial skills that build the foundation of being able to read and write.
In Reception, children will have daily Read Write Inc. sessions, where they will begin to learn to recognise and sound out the first set of sounds. They will use these sounds when learning to read to simple decodable words and we will also be learning to read the first set of high frequency words.
In Literacy, we will begin by reading a range of stories based on settling in to school such as ‘Harry and the Dinosaurs’ and ‘The Colour Monster Goes to School’. The other stories we will be focusing on this half term aim to support and develop personal, social and emotional skills, such as ‘Hugless Douglas’ and ‘Only One You’.
Maths
The children in Nursery will be focusing on their understanding of number through a variety of games, songs and creative activities, to allow them to develop their knowledge of numbers and what they mean. They will also be learning about colours, sorting, matching and patterns.
Reception will begin by focusing on recognising, representing and manipulating numbers to 5 to help them gain a deeper understanding of numbers. The children will practise counting groups of objects up to 3, then 4, before then looking at 5. They will learn to recognise and count different representations of numbers up to 5, and use five frames to structure their counting and reasoning. They will then move on to comparing quantities.
Understanding the World
As part of our ‘Marvellous Me’ vehicle, we will be learning all about ourselves! This will include talking about our likes/dislikes; our families and pets; our homes and finding out about where we live. We will also be learning about how to eat healthy and looking closely at how we have grown and changed over time.
Expressive Arts and Design
This half term, the children will be working towards creating their own self portraits using different media, with a view to creating our own Portrait Gallery to share with you all as our vehicle outcome.
They will learn to focus on, and discuss key features and practice mixing colours for a purpose. We will look at a range of famous portrait artists, including Van Gogh and Giuseppe Archimboldo and take a virtual tour of an Art Gallery. 
The children will also be using the Charanga Music Platform as part of their weekly music sessions, which will include lots of opportunities for singing and exploring musical instruments and patterns.
P.E. 
The children will be focusing on fundamental movement skills such as, running, skipping, jumping and balancing this half term by playing a range of fun and active games.
As part of the EYFS curriculum we encourage the children to get changed for P.E. themselves to develop independence so if you could please ensure that all P.E. kit and school uniform is clearly marked with their names that would be really appreciated, thank you. P.E lessons will take place on a Thursday.
We are really looking forward to getting to know your children during the upcoming half term. If you have any concerns or questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Miss Forrest and Mrs Rushton