Welcome to the Year 1 Class page!!

Here you will find out some information about what we do day to day in class and hopefully you will catch the BUZZZZZ we have for learning!

In Year 1, our curriculum continues to be very practical and hands on, we try to implement some of the amazing provision in our Foundation Stage so the children experience a smooth transition into KS1. We alter our approach to teaching and learning throughout the year working towards more of a formal approach by the Summer Term.

We are very privileged to have an iPad for each of our children in our classroom. We use these daily to support our learning, to build our independence and to further our understanding of new learning. They enable us to build on the children’s Literacy and Maths skills but also to enroll our Computing Scheme using the Purple Mash app which the children absolutely love!

These are the apps we use regularly in Year 1 (they are all accessible from form apart from Accelerated Reader):

As a school we have a passion for reading and we try to bring this alive in our Year 1 classroom. To deliver Phonics we follow “Letters and Sounds”, we deliver this daily and within Year 1 the children range from developing in Phase 2 to secure Phase 5. In Year 1 children undertake the Phonics Screening Assessment in June. At Bransty we ensure the children and parents are familiar with the check and introduce these regularly into our teaching via games and activities. Please click here to see the 2019 paper. The pass mark since 2012 has been 32 out of 40.

In Year 1 we also have a focus on letter names and we encourage the children to verbally spell words using these once they are confident with their phonetic sounds. We use a visual rainbow for the children to follow the letters and we also introduce the vocabulary of vowels and constantans as this supports the new learning of aspects such as split diagraphs.

Alongside our CUSP planning and support (referred to in curriculum section of our class page) we use Talk for Writing strategies in Year 1 to support the children with the planning and breakdown of writing, this reflects practice from our Nursery and Reception classes. This is a very visual process which has great impact on the children and it can be used for both fiction and non-fiction texts.

Maths is everywhere! Alongside our daily Maths sessions we are always on the hunt to introduce Maths through other aspects of our classroom and daily routine, from collecting data of when our birthdays are to subtracting during the register. Also throughout the week we encourage the children to practice their number bonds to 10 in order to gain fluency and a solid foundation as they move through school, this is also encouraged at home as we have lots of different ideas and activities we share with parents and carers.