Year 1 Class News

Living and Learning: MindMate

Posted on Thursday 30 March 2023 by Mr McGriffiths

This half term our Living and Learning lessons are based around the MindMate learning themes of emotions and friendships.

Our first lesson was based around strong emotions and exploring and describing how it feels to be sad/unhappy.

We thought about how others might express feelings of unhappiness and if they did feel unhappy, to practise asking, and listening to, others about what makes them unhappy.

We reinforced that everyone feels sad or unhappy at times and that’s natural.

In our circle time on the same theme, the children suggested some things to do if they were feeling sad.

Would it help if…

  • you talked to a friend or a trusted adult
  • you wrote down how you felt
  • you played with a friend or brother or sister
  • you did something you enjoyed
  • you did some exercise

As part of this lesson, we did two of the mindfulness exercises taken from this website. The children enjoyed this very much and focussed excellently.

In the second lesson, we started by working together to match emotions to the pictures and explaining the choices.

We recognised all the emotions from our own lives and that a person’s facial expressions often say how they are feeling. We also discussed how our bodies might change in other ways when we feel strong emotions (clenched fist, red cheeks etc..)

This video of two friends shows lots of characteristics of a good friendship and a healthy relationship. Friends do have fall outs and we talked about what to say to someone who is feeling upset because they have fallen out with a friend, being teased or is feeling left out.

This was done by putting themselves in their shoes.

Help at home – ask your child to practise what they might say to someone who is being teased or feeling left out.

Design and Technology: food preparation

Posted on Thursday 30 March 2023 by Mr McGriffiths

This week, Year 1 have prepared, eaten and evaluated some overnight oats. This is part of our Living and Learning (healthy eating) and Design & Technology (food preparation) learning.

The children have thoroughly enjoyed it and have used lots of different food preparation skills and techniques.

Then we got to taste it! Yum!

The recipe has been sent home so you can ask your child to demonstrate their cookery skills at home over the holidays!

Smart Money Award 2023

Posted on Monday 27 March 2023 by Mrs Taylor

Today, we welcomed Nicola and Linda from HSBC to our whole school assembly to present us with our Smart Money Award 2023.

This is awarded for financial education lessons which took place in school for all classes last summer as part of our Living and Learning curriculum.

Nicola combined this visit with some more financial education for the children.

 

Big Walk and Wheel – getting active on the way to school

Posted on Sunday 26 March 2023 by Mrs Taylor

It’s been a great start to Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel walking, scooting and cycling challenge this week.

After the first five days, we are currently in 14th place (out of 514 schools) in the small primary category with an average of 90.36% of our journeys to school being active. This is a great achievement and we want to thank families for supporting this challenge.

To keep up with the leader board for the rest of the challenge, it can be viewed here.

Thank you to those families who brought along bikes to the bike register event too. Nineteen bikes were registered at school.

By walking, cycling and scooting to school, you are helping us make a positive change to the school run. With less cars close to the school gates, this is a safer and healthier way to start the day.

The Big Walk and Wheel challenge continues until Friday 31st March so we look forward to seeing our progress over the upcoming week.

A special visitor!

Posted on Tuesday 21 March 2023 by Mr McGriffiths

Today, Year 1 had a special visitor come into class. Our local councillor, Mahalia France Mir, came to talk to us about the letters we sent to her before half term. She was very impressed with our writing and our arguments for improving safety around the shops near school. She explained what her job entails and how she helps the local community solve problems. We asked some great questions!
This followed on from our trip to the shops with the police last Tuesday to hand out warning tickets to local drivers. We are very proud of ourselves for making a difference in our locality.

Well done Year 1!

Active Travel

Posted on Friday 17 March 2023 by Mrs Taylor

Next week sees the start of Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel walking, scooting and cycling challenge. It inspires pupils to make active journeys to school, improve air quality in their neighbourhood and discover how these changes benefit their world.

Join us to take part in this challenge by walking, scooting, biking or park and stride from Marks and Spencers to school from Monday 20th March – Friday 31st March.

As part of this active travel event, we will be hosting a bike register session on Tuesday 21st March. Pupils, parents and family are invited to bring along their bikes to be registered at this bike security marking event at school.

Staying safe online

Posted on Wednesday 15 March 2023 by Mrs Taylor

As a follow up to the recent Safer Internet Day, PCSO Louise delivered an assembly for all classes to reinforce the key online safety messages.

Help at home by asking your child/children how the 4Cs relate to them when they are online.

World Book Day!

Posted on Thursday 02 March 2023 by Mr McGriffiths

Happy world book day to everyone! This morning Year 4 and Year 1 got together to share our love of reading. Every child in Year 1 chose a book and the Year 4 children sat down and read it to them beautifully. The atmosphere in both classrooms was so calm and peaceful and the children loved it!
This is what some of the Year 1 children thought.

I loved that they read the story to us but also let us have a go at reading!

I thought my book was very funny!

 

Well done everyone! Make sure you carry on your excellent reading at home!

Supporting our school charity

Posted on Monday 20 February 2023 by Mrs Taylor

St Gemma’s Hospice is our current school charity chosen democratically by the children.

Today, we welcomed Steph and Stewart from St Gemma’s Hospice for an assembly to find out more about the fantastic work they do in our local community.

Here, two of our junior leaders are presenting them with a cheque for £377 for the money we have raised so far.

Steph and Stewart commented on the impressive behaviour of the children and the intelligent questions they asked.

Our junior leaders are planning a visit to the hospice over the next few weeks to continue this partnership.

Living and learning: online safety and safer internet day

Posted on Friday 10 February 2023 by Mr McGriffiths

Over the last two weeks, Year 1  have been learning about four main areas of online safety (plus lots of other online safety tips too).

  • I know that there are sometimes age restrictions online.
  • I know that passwords are important.
  • I know that some things online may not be true.
  • I know that I shouldn’t share personal information online.

We welcomed Dave from d:side last week to support this learning and this week was Safer Internet Day.

We’ve had lots of discussions about staying safe online. We read the book Chicken Clicking by Tony Ross. In the story a chick gets access to the farmer’s computer and makes a chick friend online. He goes to meet his new friend in the woods… I’ll let your children tell you what happens next.

The children wrote some speech bubbles giving Chicken Clicking some superb advice about how he should have acted differently.

We learnt that the padlock next to the web address tells us this is a secure and trusted site.

We also watched some videos starring Jessie and her friends. In the first video Jessie shares some personal information whilst playing a game with a person who is pretending to be kind. We spoke about how we should always keep our personal information private.

 

On Thursday, we recapped our learning from Safer Internet Day and wrote some excellent reports about what we had learnt. Well done Year 1.

 

Help at home by reinforcing the important messages above but also that if anything worries or upsets your child they should tell a trusted adult straight away.