Year 1 is led by Kath Savage, Gemma Thwaites, Emily Lang, and Lauren Aspinwall, the class teachers. They also have Kirsty Galloway and Kathryn Airey as teaching assistants.

Summer Term

We are excited to begin our summer term, kicking off with stories of Percy the Park Keeper. Percy will introduce our topic of “Growing Plants and Our Environment” which will link together many of our curriculum areas.

Throughout this half term, we will learn to name the parts of a plant, identify different plants found locally, look at plant life cycles and investigate the conditions needed for healthy plant growth.

We will continue to observe seasonal and daily weather patterns and relate this to plant and crop growing in the summer.

We will grow our own sunflowers from a seed and monitor their growth and changes.  We will hear the story of “Camille and the Sunflower” and also study the famous “Sunflowers” painting by Vincent van Gogh and create our own version. We will also look at other artist’s work and create our own artwork inspired by flora and fauna.

Our “Windermere Reflections” project, developed from a lottery-funded Friends of the Lake District project, will help us to understand some important local environmental issues. The characters of Murky Merv, Dermot the Destroyer and Trudy the Intruder will teach children about the negative effects of erosion on the fells, phosphates in detergents and invasive plant species on water quality, the health of the lake and species in this habitat.

We will visit the lakeshore at Millerground to enjoy fieldwork and observation activities and develop our appreciation of this special local environment. We will work together to produce written and video material which will help others to understand their role in nature such as following the Countryside Code and making lifestyle changes with a positive environmental impact.

Through the story of “When the bees buzzed off”, we will learn about the importance of bees and their role in the pollination of plants. We will learn facts about bees to create our own lift-the-flap books and think about how we can encourage bees to thrive in our local environment. We will also investigate and observe the life in our school ponds.

In Maths we will begin to explore the first steps of multiplication and division through repeated addition, counting in 2s, 5s and 10s, arrays (arrangements of objects in rows and columns), doubling, halving and making equal groups. We will also investigate halves and quarters of objects, shapes and quantities.

Linked to our school values of Faith and Hope, we will be creating a dance to the song “How far I’ll go” which we will be exploring in music using our voices and instruments.