St. Joseph's Catholic Primary School

Admissions

IS YOUR CHILD DUE TO START SCHOOL IN SEPTEMBER 2021?

We have made a short video to show you some of the wonderful aspects in our school, looking particulary at Class 1. We hope you enjoy it. 

Please log into Class Dojo in the event your child is not able to attend school due to self isolation, illness or school closure.

Click here to visit our Home Learning Zone for links to additional resources. 

Class 1

EYFS

EYFS Framework Early Adopter

 We have decided to be an early adopter school of the new Early Years Foundation stage (EYFS) framework.

We see the link and letter below for further information. 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-adopter-schools-eyfs-framework

If you wish to know further information relating to the curriculum in Class 1 please do not hesitate to speak to Mrs Honeyman and Miss Naylor, the class teachers,via Class Dojo.

Literacy (speaking, listening, reading, writing).

 We continue our theme of ‘Growing’ in Literacy to begin with, we will be looking at some wonderful books including ‘Oliver’s Vegetables’ and ‘Pumpkin Soup’.  The seeds that the children planted a few weeks ago are doing really well and are now lovely little seedlings! As soon as the frosty mornings are gone we will be planting beans, peas, sunflowers and pumpkins out in our garden. This leads nicely into our main topic of ‘Minibeasts’- the children will enjoy some outdoor investigation and observation- looking for and describing ‘minibeasts’ and thinking about the sorts of habitats they like best. We will think about which minibeasts we might welcome to our vegetable patch, and which we might not. . . We will read stories about bees, ladybirds and worms.

During Term 2 the children moved on from developing their fine motor skills onto letter formation; working hard on curly caterpillars, one-armed robots, zig zag monsters and ladder letters. In Term 3 we will continue to work on this, putting letters together to make sounds and words of a reasonable size and working on spacing

The children will continue to enjoy a phonics session each day. We will be completing our revision of Phase 3 sounds and then moving onto Phase 4 clusters. Most importantly, we will continue to practise, practise, practise the skills of blending to read and segmenting to write. Children are also busy learning their ‘Tricky Words’- there are plenty more to add to their repertoire!

Now that the children have a good grasp of phonics and letter formation, writing becomes a firm focus in Term 3- we encourage children to write at every opportunity- lists, cards, instructions, labels, messages and notes- both in short weekly guided sessions and throughout our indoor and outdoor provision. At this stage we just want the children to enjoy using their phonics and knowledge of tricky words to have a go. Spelling at this stage has to be phonetically plausible rather than correct- every effort at independent writing is celebrated.

Maths

 We will extend the children’s understanding of number into numbers up to 20. We will introduce them, in a simple way, to the idea that teen numbers are a group of 10 plus another number. Addition and subtraction are explored and understanding developed through practical application.  We will record and represent numbers too, continuing to practise our written formation of numbers to master those tricky ones that are often reversed – 3, 7, 5! You can support your child’s learning at home by counting day to day for example:- count as you climb the stairs, count backwards as you come down, count how many things you pick up when tidying up. Develop the counting beyond 10 to 20, some of those teen numbers are tricky to say! In shape, space and measure we will compare amounts and use the right vocabulary to describe- eg heavier, lighter, longer, shorter. . .

R.E.

Our RE focus this term is ‘New Life’. Before the holidays the children learnt the key events of the Easter Story. We now focus upon the events that followed the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Day; how He appeared to Mary Magdalene and then to His friends before going back to His Father in heaven.  We will continue to introduce the children to prayers- they now know our Morning, Lunchtime and End of the Day prayers so we move onto the Lord’s Prayer (some very tricky words in there!)

Physical Development

As the weather improves the children will use the outdoor area of our classroom and access the activities set up to develop them physically.

In our PE lessons we work on developing our fundamental movement skills of running, hopping, jumping, throwing and catching. We will challenge the children to develop more coordination and control of their bodies in movement; for example, ‘When my arms are doing this what are my legs doing? Can I move parts of the body in sequence and to specific goals?’ 

How can you help at home?

As we have said before, we have been delighted by the way you have all engaged with us and supported your child’s learning this year. It was never more important than during last term’s remote learning and we were astonished by how hard many of you worked at home to ensure the continued progress of your child’s learning. 

As we move into this final term- the message remains the same. Reading, reading, reading! All the children now have individual reading books that they bring home every day to read and/or re-read (very important to develop fluency and confidence). Try to listen to your child every day- it will come as no surprise that there is a very strong correlation between parental engagement with reading and reading progress. On the days when they are a bit tired- share the book- ‘you read a page, I’ll read a page’ or get a favourite teddy to ‘read’ every other page. They could read to grandparents, childminders, older brothers and sisters or even to you and a baby brother or sister to show off their new skills. Try different times of day- as soon as they get home with a drink and a biscuit, snuggled up in bed or even at breakfast time. Please continue to read to your child too; share as many stories as you can; read them in your home language; read the same ones again and again; talk about what you are reading, what is going to happen next? Share non-fiction books too- about trains, different countries, dinosaurs, favourite animals. . .

Towards the end of this term we will begin to prepare the children for their transition to Year 1 or Year 2 for our current Year 1s (I know!) There will be more information about this after half term.

We’d love to hear from you on Class Dojo if you can share any ‘Wow moments’ with us- things that your children say or do at home that make you think ‘Wow!’- a snapshot moment that shows something new that they have learnt- it might be something they say using a word they haven’t used before, or an observation they make about the environment that links to some learning in class or a fact about a person or a place that they have remembered. It might be something physical- a movement or a task that they couldn’t do before. Please share these moments with us.

We look forward to another happy term in Class 1 full of smiles, sunshine, playing and learning.

Exploring Class 1

Our Class 1 children have been busy exploring the indoor and outdoor learning areas. 

EYFS – Home/School Learning Opportunities to Promote Communication and Language. The PDF below contains suggestions for activities to help with communication and language skills for reception children. 

Please click on the link below to download a copy of -What to expect, when? Guidance to your child’s learning and development
in the early years foundation stage.

EAL ( English as an additional language) RESOURCES for parents

Below are a few of the learning activities we took part in last year.

Class 1 Stay and Play

The children in Class 1 had lots of fun showing their parents the what they do in school.

Chickens

Class 1 had some exciting visitors when Mrs Irons brought some of her chickens into school.  We had the opportunity to see these birds up close and observe them, and even had the chance to stroke their lovely soft feathers. 

Class 1 Assembly - Jonah and the Whale

Class 1 led an assembly based on the story of Jonah and the Whale, attended by the whole school and their families. They worked very hard  learning their lines , singing a song and saying a prayer using sign language.

Baptism with Father Firth

Father Firth visited the school to show the children what happens in a Baptism.  He performed a mock Baptism on our class doll  and the children chose the name Elijah.  Class 1 and 2 children had a wonderful experience learning about this special sacrament.

Long Term Planning

Planning

Please find below an outline of the topics covered in your child's class. 

If you wish to know further information relating to the curriculum in Class 1 please do not hesitate to speak to Mrs Honeyman and Miss Naylor, the class teachers.