Welcome to Monnow Class
A very warm welcome to our class page!
Please take the opportunity to have a look at our Curriculum Plan which will give you a summary of the topics and subjects that we learn in Year 1.
The topics underpin the stories and events we study, but they are reasonably broad to allow for tweaks and changes according to the children’s interests and passions. In addition, Our core subjects of Maths English and Science are woven throughout the foundation subjects. We also have some golden threads which flow through our curriculum content, these threads are: environmental consciousness, international mindedness, innovation & enterprise.
In Year 1, we really value play-based learning and observe how much children grow in confidence when they learn in this way – not forgetting all those skills they practise as they negotiate and collaborate with each other in their environment. We want this level of confidence to remain high and therefore we still incorporate an element of continuous provision or ‘choosing time’ during our day in Year 1. Obviously, there are many skills that the children do not just ‘happen’ upon, so our approach to learning is to have a whole class input followed by group work. If the children are not involved in an adult directed activity this is when they get the opportunity to learn within Continuous Provision. We also enhance the provision by setting up challenges that the children are expected to complete independently during the week. These challenges are designed to consolidate the learning that we have done with an adult. Every week there is at least one Maths challenge, a reading/writing challenge and a Science challenge.
We are very lucky to have an outdoor area in Year 1. This is a fantastic resource to have and allows for water play, sand and a mud kitchen. So many opportunities for the children to practise language and Maths!
Phonics
In Phonics, we follow the Systematic Synthetic Phonics programme Bug Club. This is a government approved phonics programme that teaches your child in an engaging way to become confident readers and to prepare them for the phonics screening at the end of the year. In addition, it is a digital learning space which contains e-books, quizzes and games to consolidate phonics and the children’s reading skills both at school and at home.
Maths
In Maths, we follow the White Rose Maths scheme which follows a Maths Mastery approach. ‘Maths Mastery’ means that pupils have a deep, secure knowledge of the subject which they can apply to different contexts and other areas of learning. In Year 1 Maths is very practical and hands on, we use physical resources such as numicon, rekenrek, tens frames, counters, conkers, acorns and playdough (!) to help us with place value, addition and subtraction, length and height, shape, multiplication and division!
Science
The National Curriculum Year 1 Science objectives are covered with investigations and working scientifically. There is a wide range of topics covered in year 1 including Plants, identifying and naming plants and looking at their basic structure. Animals including humans, identifying and naming a range of animals and understanding how and why they are grouped (e.g. mammals, birds, amphibians etc) Everyday materials and looking at their properties.
