Year 1 2024 - 2025

Welcome to Year One!

A very warm welcome from the Year One class team at Mersey Vale Primary School

 Mrs Edwards - Class Teacher (Monday - Thursday)

Ms Mather - Class Teacher (Friday)

Teaching Assistants - Mrs Turner, Ms Hoey and Miss Hurst

Thank you for visiting our webpage. This is a good place to find...

• class news
• pictures of things we have done
• examples of work we are proud of
• class display work
• homework information
• key sounds and words to practice at home
• class and school events   
• links to interesting websites we have enjoyed in class 

            ....and lots more

Curriculum Information

Welcome to the second half of our Spring term. During this half term we will be continuing our daily phonics teaching through our Read Write Inc scheme and will be learning new sounds, reading and writing words with those sounds as well as taking part in daily guided reading sessions. Our English lessons are linked to the Literary Curriculum where we will be learning and developing literary skills through brilliant books. This half term we will be focusing on the story "Stanley’s Stick” which links nicely to our history topic of Manchester: local people and places. We will be writing our own version of narratives, retelling stories and writing character descriptions. Our maths this half term will be taught through the White Rose curriculum. We will be learning about place value within 50, moving on to measurements; length, height, weight and volumes. We will continue our daily Mastery Maths sessions. In RE this half term we will be looking at the question how and why do we celebrate special times, with a focus on Easter and Eid. In science we will be looking at the topic of plants as we start the season of spring. In history we will be learning about Manchester, focusing on famous people and places in history; this links well to our Literary Curriculum book of Stanley’s Stick which is based in the North West. We will also take part in World Book Day and have lots of exciting sessions planned for DT, Art, PE, Computing and Music.

Year One Key Information

Start and End of the day

Mrs Edwards or Miss Mather will be at the classroom door ready to receive children from 8.40 am when the bell goes until 8:50 am. If children arrive after 8:50 am then you should take your child and report to the school office on arrival. At the end of the day children are collected from the classroom door at 3:20pm. It is important that the class teacher knows the adult who will be picking up your child so we can ensure they leave with the appropriate adult. If there are any changes to picking up arrangements please let the school office know before 3pm. 

Water and Healthy Snacks

Children should bring in a healthy snack from home to enjoy at morning playtime. We discourage things like chocolate biscuits, crisps, sweets and fizzy drinks. During afternoon playtime children are offered fruit and milk.

Weekly Timetable

P.E and Forest School

All classes take part in weekly PE sessions of gymnastics/dance/games as timetabled. In year one children are expected to change into their PE kits; Mersey Vale kits are available - t-shirt, shorts and PE bag. Children should also have navy jogging bottoms and sweatshirt in cold weather. Please ensure all items of clothing have your child’s name in. We find it most useful for children to bring PE kits into school and leave until half term when we will send it home to be washed. The children will be doing their Forest School session on a Thursday afternoon so will need a pair of wellies brought into school every Thursday, or if you have spares at home they can be left on their pegs.

Class Dojo

Updates about what’s going on in class, particularly related to specific children and their achievements, are also often shared through the Class Dojo website/app. We also love hearing about your exciting news so please keep adding photographs etc to your child's portfolio. Most parents in the class are already signed up to this and are hopefully finding it useful, but please let me know if you’re having any problems with this when you collect your child and I’ll be glad to support you in getting set up. Click here for the Class Dojo login page

Homework

Homework is given to all children in line with our Homework Policy. Homework is given out each Friday to be handed back in their folders each Wednesday. A weekly overview of what we’ve done that week will be on the homework sheet. Additional homework projects, whole school, may be set from time to time and these will be outlined on the ClassDojo website.

Useful Apps and Online Resources

There are dozens of great apps that we use in school. Here’s a short list of a few of the most commonly used apps in Year One:

Oxford Owl  - Click here for online e-books for all ages - Oxford Owl

BBC bitesize maths games

For fun maths games visit BBC bitesize

Island Chase - Subtraction Race

How quickly can you solve subtraction problems? Use your fingers, counting cubes or a number line to work out the answers to these problems. Be quick or your speedboat will fall behind in the race!

Partitioning Fun! 

Can you partition these numbers and add them back together to help splat the ogre? Remember: go for level 1 to begin!

Subtraction Game

Have a go at this fun to test your subtraction skills. Remember: try 'within 5' if you're fin

Phonics play games - for reading key words

We use this game in school to read and recognise key (CVC) words, and match it to the picture shown. Have a go at home!

Splat square! - for counting and recognising numbers

The children use this splat square to count and recognise numbers. Have a go at home!

Espresso maths games - counting, adding and subtracting

These are just some of the maths games we play in class. The children know how to count the actions, objects or sounds. Some of the harder games are adding or subtracting numbers. Have a go at home!