Welcome to Green Turtles!

We are the wonderful year 1 and year 2 class at Poolsbrook Primary Academy and we pride ourselves on demonstrating our school values of being safe, being respectful and aiming high. Within Green Turtles’ class, there is Mrs Holland, who is the class teacher, and Mrs O'Neill,  Mrs Marsden and Miss Wilson, who are teaching assistants.

Polite Reminders

Please ensure your child:

• arrives at school at 8.35am 
• has their reading book and diary with them every day.
• has a water bottle with them every day.
• has their name clearly labelled in any uniform.
• comes to school in their PE kit every Wednesday and Friday.

Our Learning Journey

From now until Christmas, we will be focusing our work around answering the enquiry question ‘What can you do today to change tomorrow?' This is a historical based enquiry and will see us learning about the history flight. In addition to this, we will be designing and making our own bag with a positive social message to change tomorrow.

English

In English this term, we will be learning to write the following genres:

• Character description
• Narrative 
• Leaflet
• Letter

Reading

In June year 1 children will complete a phonics screening check which is a statutory assessment. The check contains 40 words divided into two sections of 20 words. Both sections contain a mixture of real words and pseudo-words. Pseduo-words are words that are phonically decodable but are not actual words with an associated meaning. It will help your child to become a fluent reader if they read lots at home.

Children will be bringing home two books; one book will be matched to their reading/comprehension ability and one will be a book they have chosen to read for pleasure. The book for pleasure will be borrowed from our school library and will only be able to be swapped once it has been returned. We will aim to swap reading for pleasure books weekly as part of our visit to the in-school library. Please note, the book chosen for pleasure may be above the reading ability of your child so we would encourage you to enjoy sharing this book alongside your child. The book matched to your child's reading ability will be changed as and when your child has finished reading it. 

Our class story for this term is 'An Alien in the Jam Factory' by Chrissie Sains. The story is about a character called Scooter McLay’s who has cerebral palsy which affects how quickly he can move his body, but his hyper-creative brain is a constant fizz of brilliant ideas. He spends every day inventing top secret recipes and machines for his family’s jam factory. A tiny alien named Fizzbee crashes through the factory window and they team up to save the factory from dastardly neighbour Daffy Dodgy!

Maths

Year 1 children will be focussing upon place value, specifically, numbers up to 10. They will learn to count forwards and backwards and count on from any number. We will also explore addition and subtraction within 10: such as one more or one less than a number. We will also be learning number bonds to 10 as these are key number facts for future learning. Below is a link to a free online game which can help the children practice their skills!

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/apps/hit-the-button

Year 2 children will also be focussing on place value and they will become confident with numbers up to 100. We will be exploring different ways of partitioning and writing numbers in words. In addition to this, children will learn how to skip count in 2s, 5s and 10s as at the end of year children will need to know these times table facts. Children will also learn the column method for addition and subtraction within 100.

Science

In Science we will be learning about the different seasons and the key characteristics of these including weather. In addition to this, we will be exploring everyday materials and how they can change. We will be investigating which materials are waterproof.

As part of this enquiry, we intend for children to learn and retain the following knowledge:

 Number Facts

Below is a table which outlines the key number facts that children will be learning in Key Stage 1. The children should be able to rapidly recall these number facts. 

Look at some of our learning experiences!