Welcome back and Eid Mubarak! Today the children enjoyed a delicious feast to celebrate Eid – thank you to all parents who helped cook and decorate the school.

We are now into the final term of Year 1 and it promises to be a busy one!

Scientist in Residence

This week Linda, our new Scientist in Residence came into Year 1 to introduce our learning on Animals. She talked about the different categories of animals before the children played a game of charades and made their own mammal mask!

What we have been up to

In Maths, we are looking at volume and capacity with today’s lesson was all about predicting how many cups of water would fill various receptacles and containers.

We began our new book, The Monkey Puzzle by Julia Donaldson, in English. At the beginning of the week we chose an animal to describe and write about and we then thought about how and why words rhyme before coming up with different rhyming words for different animals.

In RE this term we are looking at Judaism with this week’s lesson looking at the different religious festivals.

In Geography, we recapped our learning about the seven continents as part of the introduction to our topic on Peru in South America.

In Relationships and Health Education we are thinking about Being My Best – you can find the knowledge page for this term attached. This week we chatted about all the different foods we need eat to keep us healthy and strong.

Finally in Art, we looked at the work of Clarice Cliff and then replicated one of her ‘plates’ by painting concentric circles in primary colours. We then added black paint which we blew through a straw to create a tree in silhouette.

Have a lovely weekend!

Mrs Hayes

Happy Easter! We can’t believe it either but there is now only one term left of Year 1! The children have worked super hard this term and this week is no exception. We’ve enjoyed lots of Easter festivities to get us all in the mood for the break, such as the wonderful Easter Church Service this morning. But of course, the real highlight has to be the Easter Bonnet Parade! We were yet again amazed by all of the dazzling creations your children wore!

Homework this week

There will be no spelling homework sent home over the Easter break. However, all children will receive a book bag book as normal. The children have also received a pack of Phonics resources for you to read with your child over the Easter holidays. These are designed for you to read a few words a day to keep practicing your child’s Phonics skills over the break. We will be having a mock Phonics Screening in the first week when we return to school so it’s very important the children do keep practicing their reading over the holiday.

We have also set some optional Mathletics work for over the holiday for those who would like to complete it.

What we have been up to

As you can imagine, there’s been a lot of talk of Easter the week. English was no exception! This week we were revising putting words in the present tense by describing what the Easter Bunny was doing in a picture!

In Maths, the children completed an end of term assessment in both Arithmetic and Reasoning.

In R.E., the children learnt about the events of Easter Sunday. The children then decorated an Easter egg by drawing a picture of their favourite part of the Easter story.

In Relationships and Health, the children learnt about money. They thought about all the different ways money is spent in a home.

In Geography, the children completed an end of unit assessment all about their topic At the Farm

We wish you all a wonderful two week break, and a very happy Easter.

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

What a wonderful week it has been- the children have been working really hard on their learning and enjoying this warmer weather!

Easter Bonnet parade

Mr Schumm reminded the children today that the Easter bonnet parade is on Tuesday (26^th March), so now is the time to start getting creative and whipping up a fabulous Easter hat!

Homework this week and over the Easter holiday

Please can we ask that all children return both their homework and reading books on Tuesday 26^th of March so that we have enough time to prepare the books for the Easter holidays.

There will not be spelling or Mathletics homework over the Easter holiday. We will, however, send home a pack of Phonics resources for you to complete with your children over the break.

What we have been up to

In English we have continued our work all about Goldilocks and the Three Bears. On Monday, we wrote apology letters to the bears from the point of view of Goldilocks. We then read Me and You by Anthony Browne, which is an alternative retelling of the classic story. In Me and You we learnt why Goldilocks was in the Bear’s house. We then thought of our own reasons why and wrote exciting stories!

In Maths, we have been learning about mass this week. We used scales to compare the mass of objects and cubes to measure the mass of different objects.

In R.E., we learnt about the Good Friday story and why crosses are such an important symbol to Christians.

In Art, the children did printing using Lego to explore primary colours.

In Computing, the children were digital artists. They created their own paintings on Busy Things and then signed the artwork with their signature.

Just four days to go of this term!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

What a fantastic assembly! Miss Hana, Miss Rachel and I couldn’t be more proud of all the children. Several teachers have told me how impressed they were with all the children for their confidence, their energy and for remembering so many facts! Thank you for all your hard work in helping the children learn their lines, we hope you enjoyed the show!

Easter Bonnet parade

Mr Schumm reminded the children today that the Easter bonnet parade is a week on Tuesday (26^th March), so now is the time to start getting creative and whipping up a fabulous Easter hat!

What we have been up to

In Maths, we began and finished our short unit on measurement thinking about using centimeter rulers to measure objects and then talk about objects being longer or taller and shorter.

In English, we began the traditional tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The first lesson was a comprehension, introducing the idea of inference and prediction. We then thought about using sentence starters with commas for instructions to make porridge. Finally today’s lesson focused on the past tense for irregular verbs.

In Geography, we made compasses! We discussed how and when we might use them before looking at real compasses and working out where North was.

In RHE, we thought about the importance of looking after things. We talked about all thew ways we can look after a new plant and then drew a picture of something we would look after and wrote about how we would do it.

Finally, in RE we continued to look at the Easter story with this week’s lesson focusing on the Last Supper and its importance to Christians.

Have a lovely, restful weekend, let’s hope this spring sunshine continues.

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

What a fantastic trip to Hyde Park! The children did brilliant listening and all really enjoyed learning about different trees and plants in the park. Hopefully you all now have a planted seed in an eco flower-pot to look after and nurture.

Huge congratulations to all parents and carers that helped produce some of the best World Book Day costumes we have seen! The children looked magnificent and really enjoyed the day. The highlight was when Year 5 children came with their hand made pop-up books to read with the children. Both classes seemed to really enjoy the experience.

Assembly

Please do have one last practise of the assembly script at home. The children have clearly worked very hard but now need to remember when to come on!

What we have been up to

This week, to celebrate World Book Day, English was based around a lovely book called On Sudden Hill. The children thought about how Burt was feeling in the book and then designed a toy they could make out of recycling materials. Today, after our trip, the children made their creations using boxes, milk cartons, newspaper and other materials.

In Maths we have finished our learning about place value to 50 and will begin looking at measurement of length and height next week.

In Art, we continued to think about primary and secondary colours. Inspired by Jasper Johns painting Numbers in Color the children painted their numbers 0-9 in primary colours and then merged them to create purples and greens.

In Geography we thought about what happens on a farm in the different seasons and then made a a seasons wheel, drawing pictures in each season.

In RHE, we thought about all the amazing places in our school and then discussed why we have to look after and respect our school.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

Rehearsals for our assembly are in full swing! Please can we ask once again that you practise your children’s lines with them and help them remember when to say them! Don’t forget to teach them to be loud too! I have sent out the costume list today on Parentmail – please can all costumes be in for Thursday/Friday next week.

Homework

Sorry for the confusion – no comprehension books were sent out this week as we have been doing assessments. Your child only has spellings for next week but can write some sentences with these words if they would like too.

Royal Academy Young Artists Competition

There is still just under a month left to enter your artwork into the Royal Academy Young Artists Competition. The artwork can be in any medium you’d like: painting, drawing, sculpture or even performance art!

The deadline for entries is 5pm March 27th. Please visit: https://youngartists.royalacademy.org.uk/ to find out more and enter your child’s artwork.

If you have any questions about the competition please email Mrs Allen: e.allen@ststephensce.lbhf.sch.uk

What we have been up to

The children have written some truly amazing descriptive writing pieces in English, based on our brilliant book We’re Going to Find the Monster! They included some brilliant adjectives and exclamation sentences – we can’t wait for you to see them during our book look drop in in a couple of weeks.

In Maths, we have been thinking about our numbers to 50. Today’s lesson was putting numbers on number lines up to 50 but we have also been grouping amounts into tens as a simpler and quicker way of counting larger numbers.

In Art, we learnt about primary and secondary colours and had great fun mixing paint, play-dough and pastels to create different colours.

We thought about the ideas of ‘grace’ in RE specifically understanding how God showed forgiveness by sending a rainbow at the end of the story of Noah’s Ark. We discussed when we have been given second chances and drew pictures of the rainbow.

We finished our learning on plants this week in Science by taking an end of unit assessment.

In Geography, we looked in more detail at life on a farm. We identified the different farm buildings before drawing posters encouraging people to visit our farms (if we had them!)

Finally, in Relationships and Health Education, we talked about how we can be more helpful and kinder to others. We each wrote a ‘promise’ on a piece of paper of something we are going to try and be better at. Lots of children said, ‘helping with the dishes’, so watch this space!

Don’t forget it is World Book Day next Friday with the theme of friendship. It is also Mums & Chums breakfast on Friday.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Kind regards,

Mrs Hayes

Week 2 spelling Mrs Allen Week 2 spellings Miss Joanna Week 2 spellings Miss Kerri Week 2 spellings Miss Lowrey Week 2 spellings Mrs Hayes

What a wonderful start back to the new term we’ve had! Of course the highlight has been today’s Lunar New Year festivities! The children absolutely loved the Collective Worship this morning and found the dancing absolutely brilliant. They then had a wonderful time in the Dragon Dance Workshop this morning. The children were excellent following the leader to bring the dragon to life. We also continued our celebrations into the afternoon through Art. We made beautiful cherry blossom paintings by dabbing cotton buds! The artwork looks amazing!

Life Bus

Another highlight of the week was the visit from Coram Education and the Life Bus. The children enjoyed helping Harold the Giraffe sort out his feelings and came up with loads of great ways to cheer him back up.

New playground equipment

As you have probably spotted- we have had new playground equipment built over the holidays! The children are absolutely loving exploring the new area. But don’t just take our word for it- have a look at this video to see what they have to say:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C3mgFNVv6mF/

Class Collective Worship

As you know, we’re beginning to rehearse our wonderful Class Collective Worships. McNaughton’s Class Collective Worship will be on Thursday 14^th March at 9am. You should have now received a copy of the script with your child’s lines. Please help your child this weekend to learn their lines.

What we have been up to

In Maths, we finished our learning about addition and subtraction. We found the missing number using number lines. We also began our new unit all about place value within 50. Today we had to order numbers correctly between 20 and 50 and created a giant number line!

In English, we began our new unit on the book We’re Going to Find the Monster. The children loved imagining what their own monster would be. The highlight was walking around school and imagining all the different places a monster could be hiding!

In R.E. we began learning about Noah’s Ark. This week we listened to the story and then had to order the key events.

In Science, we carried out our own plant dissection! We split the flowers into their different parts and labelled them.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

Week 1 spelling Mrs Allen Week 1 spellings Miss Joanna Week 1 spellings Miss Kerri Week 1 spellings Miss Lowrey Week 1 spellings Mrs Hayes

It was lovely to see so many colourful scarves in school today to mark Children’s Mental Health Week. Miss Bill led a collective worship this morning talking about the importance of all children having a voice and being able to express themselves. She then asked some children to talk about their scarves and why they represented them.

We have now come to the end of another busy half term – the children have been as hard working as ever – and we look forward to having them back ready for our class assembly and another fun school trip next term!

Book Cover

In your child’s reading folder you will see a blank template from Winkworth’s. If your child draws a book cover and returns it, completed, to the estate agents on the Uxbridge Road, they will receive a book voucher and the school will receive £5 to spend on new books!

Assembly Scripts

Please do try and help your child learn their lines for the collective worship. The more they practise now the easier it will be after the half term. As mentioned some of the songs are long so these may be cut down.

Phonics Screening Check Past Papers

As you know, we will be having a Phonics Screening Meeting for all the Year 1 parents/carers at 6pm on Tuesday 20th February, taking place over Zoom. Over the holidays, feel free to take a look at some of the papers from the past. They are available from the government website here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum-assessments-practice-materials#phonics-screening-check-resources

What we have been up to

The children wrote their own poems based on our book Mr Magnolia. They included ‘ing’ words, adjectives and words with the ‘oo’ sound and created some very funny lines for a poem!

In Maths we have continued thinking about subtraction but today we also looked at related facts, so working out the inverse addition and subtraction sentences based on Part Whole models.

In History, we finished our learning on Old Toys and set up our own toys museum!

In computing, we created a book blurb and cover for the brilliant book Toys in Space by Mini Grey.

We went into church on Monday morning to hear all about what Denis and the church does for the local community. This was to finish off our RE unit on the Christian Creation story and to understand how God would like all Christians to help one another.

In Science, we finished thinking about plants by discussing the difference between deciduous and evergreen trees.

Finally the children made some beautiful stained glass crosses in Art to mark the beginning of Lent. These will be displayed in our class until Easter so do look out for them.

Smart Phones in School

Always ahead of the curve, St Stephen’s has already instituted a ban on smartphones for children in school, and is strongly promoting collective move action by parents to not give their primary aged children smartphones at all. There is now a strong and growing movement to persuade government to take the issue of smartphone addition and the mental health damage it can cause children, more seriously – have a listen to this very powerful, short radio discussion from earlier in the week. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0h9h4nt. Let your Class Rep that you will join the No Smartphones Moratorium, if you haven’t already.

Have a wonderful, restful half term.

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

Can you believe we’re almost at the end of the half term! It’s really raced by with all the fun activities we’ve had!

Wear your SCARF day

On Friday 9^th February, it will be Wear your SCARF day in honour of Children’s Mental Health Week. On this day, the children can come into school wearing their favourite scarf in addition to their normal school uniform.

What we have been up to

In English, we’ve started a new unit based around the book Mr Magnolia by Quentin Blake. We’ve noticed how the book uses loads of words with an ‘oo’ sound in them! The children have had a go at coming up with their own ‘oo’ words and writing their own silly sentences using them!

In Maths, the children have been learning about addition within 20. For the final lesson of the week, the children practiced finding doubles and even tried finding near doubles.

In Science, we continued learning about plants. This week, we learnt to identify different wild plants.

In History, we continued to learn about toys from the past. This week we compared and contrasted toys from the past with toys from the present day.

In Computing it was Coding Day! We enjoyed playing Rodocodo- a game all about coding.

In R.E. we learnt thought about different questions we would like to ask God about the world. For example, why do zebras have stripes and why do we sleep?

Finally, in R.H.E., we discussed how to stay safe online especially when sharing pictures.

Have a great weekend!

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

Week 4 spellings Miss Kerri Week 4 spellings Mrs Hayes Week 4 spellings Miss Lowrey Week 4 spellings Miss Joanna Week 4 spelling Mrs Allen

More than one child commented that Thursday was “the best day ever!” Mainly because we spent the whole afternoon making windmills for DT and later tested them in the playground by running around to check the turbines were spinning. The children did brilliantly at creating and assembling these quite tricky structures!

Spelling Tests

As I’m sure you know, the weekly spelling tests provide the children with a great opportunity to practice and revise the Phonics sounds taught the previous week. As a result, it is vital that the children are learning their spellings confidently. Please can we ask that you continue to practise your child’s spellings with them throughout the week. We understand that some of you like to finish the homework at the weekend and hand in the homework books but if that is the case, please go over the words each day so that the children are prepared for their spelling tests on Thursday morning. In order to help with this, we will now upload all the spellings with this blog each Friday under the name of the phonics teachers.

What we have been up to

In Maths this week the children completed an assessment on Place Value to 20 before beginning their learning on adding numbers within 20. Today’s lesson was helping the children to understand how to count on when adding.

English this week has been so much fun! Our focus has been learning about non-fiction books and the children used the Ipads on Wednesday to discover facts about Mars. Today they wrote their own fact sheets about Mars and we were very impressed with their knowledge!

The children talked about how to look after the planet in RE. Following on from last week’s lesson on God’s creation, the children created posters telling people to recycle and reuse, to stop pollution and pick up litter!

In Science, we continued learning about plants and looked at naming some common garden flowers and trees.

As mentioned in a Parentmail, we talked about good and bad touches in Relationships and Health Education and the importance of talking to a trusted adult if any child ever felt uncomfortable about anything.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Hayes

Week 3 spelling Mrs Allen Week 3 spelling Mrs Hayes Week 3 spellings Miss Joanna Week 3 spellings Miss Kerri Week 3 spellings Miss Lowrey

It has been another great week in Year 1 and the children have been working really hard!

Royal Academy Young Artists Competition 2024

The Royal Academy Young Artists Competition has opened again this year! Children can enter with any art they have made, be it at home or at a club. The winning entries are displayed at the Royal Academy of Arts in central London! The deadline for entries is the 7^th of March. To find out more about the competition, or to enter your child’s artwork, please visit: https://youngartists.royalacademy.org.uk/

If you have any questions about the competition, please email Mrs Allen (e.allen@ststephensce.lbhf.sch.uk)

St Stephen’s Instagram: Who has spotted the new Instagram account?

Do take a look using the links below and follow us to keep an eye on what’s been happening here from day to day.

Children whose parents have given consent will appear anonymously, unless specific permission has been obtained when pupils’ names will be included.

This supersedes the X / Twitter social media account, now dormant.

ststephensce_w12

https://www.instagram.com/ststephensce_w12/

What have we been up to?

In Maths, the children have continued their learning about place value within 20. This week, they have compared numbers within 20 and found one more and one less of numbers within 20.

In English, the children finished their learning on Toys in Space. This week, the focus has been on imagining what Hoctopize’s planet is like! On Friday, the children wrote brilliant descriptions of Hoctopize’s planet using brand new and exciting adjectives such as ‘vibrant’!

In Science, we started our new unit on Plants. For our first lesson, we used the IPads to take photographs of all the different plants we could spot around school.

In Computing, the children learnt about online safety. Our key message from this lesson was that if the children come across a page they are worried about or they don’t know what to do, they should ask a trusted adult.

In RHE, we talked about what happens to our bodies when we are nervous. We then spoke about who could help us when we’re worried about something.

In History, we carried on learning about the history of toys. This week, we looked at different toys from the past and described them. We then compared them to how toys are now.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

As it is the first week of term I think we can still get away with starting with Happy New Year! Having said that the week has flown by and it feels like the children have been back for weeks! It’s been a fun start to the term – the highlight being the trip to BBC Park yesterday as part of our science learning. It was freezing but the children enjoyed the opportunity to have a run around on a Thursday afternoon.

Start of the day

A gentle reminder that all children need to be in school no later than 8.55am which us when the register takes place. Adults should dismiss the children at the door and let them come into school on their own. It is really important for building up their independence and confidence as they move up the school.

Library books

Your child will have come home with a new library book this week, please do read this book over the weekend and next week but remember to return it before next week’s session on Thursday.

What we have been up to

In English we have started our new book Toys in Space by Mini Grey. In the first two lessons, the children predicted what they thought the book would be about based on the pictures and title of the book. They then wrote sentences beginning “I predict that…” and explained why. We then thought about how Hoctopize was feeling based on the pictures of him.

In Maths, we are now focusing on Place Value to 20. The children have practiced counting and writing numbers to twenty and also thinking about how we can represent these numbers with counters and tens frames and our dienes (tens and ones).

The History topic for this term is Old and New Toys and in our first lesson we all chatted about our favourite toys. The children then drew the toys and thought of some good describing words for how they look and feel.

In RE we are learning about the Creation Story. We read the story and then discussed it as a class before colouring and cutting out a creation wheel retelling the different parts of the Creation.

We are focusing on DT this term and this week’s lesson was designing a windmill for a mouse! We talked about the different parts of a windmill before decorating our structures. Next week we will be assembling them and checking to see if our sails can turn in the wind.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Hayes

My goodness, we’ve made it to the end of the first term of Year 1! What a busy term we’ve all had, but the children have settled in brilliantly and are already making amazing progress. We’d like to start our blog this week by thanking you all for your incredibly generous gifts for Christmas.

Homework this week

Over the Christmas Holidays, there will be no spelling or Mathletics homework. We have, however, sent home a Reading Book to be read over the break.

PE the first week back

As you know, Monday the 8^th of January is an INSET day so the children will not be in school for their P.E. lesson. The children will have PE instead on Friday 12^th of January. On Friday, the children will need to wear their PE kits to school. Gymnastics will be on Tuesday as usual.

What we have been up to

As you can imagine, this week has been all about Christmas! And we’ve been busy with all sorts of Christmas tasks, like decorating biscuits to look like snowmen, designing Christmas wreaths and doing some Christmas themed block printing. The children, of course, also enjoyed an afternoon of dancing and party games on Wednesday!

In English, we embraced the Christmas spirit after the children received a letter from Santa! First, we wrote Santa back telling him all about the nice things we had done this year. Then we wrote Santa another letter asking him very politely for Christmas presents.

In Maths, we revised our 2D shapes and made Christmas pictures using them. We also practiced our number bonds to ten!

Have a wonderful Christmas for all those who celebrate, and a Happy New Year!

See you in January!

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

What super stars your children are! They were absolutely brilliant in the two Nativity performances yesterday so thank you for all your hard work helping them learn the songs and moves! We are very much coming to the end of term as this week we have been finishing off units and doing assessments, the children will definitely be in need of a break by next Thursday.

Homework this week

This week we have sent home some Red words for the children to learn. We do ask that both reading books and homework books are returned to school on Tuesday next week so that we have enough time to prepare them for the Christmas Holiday.

Church Service

Please do join us for a Christmas Service in the church on Thursday morning, straight after drop off.

What we have been up to

In Maths, the children have been working very hard on our end of term assessments. On Tuesday they took an Arithmetic test and yesterday was a Reasoning paper. We are very pleased with the progress all your children have made this term.

English this week has been based on the 2019 John Lewis advert about the dragon Excitable Edgar. The children began by coming up with questions (and using question marks) about where Edgar had come from and how far he could fly etc. The children then described different parts of his body before ending the week writing they own descriptive paragraph about him.

We have finished our History learning about transport with a lesson on the first moon landing. We talked about astronauts and what they do before chatting about where we would like to visit if we could go anywhere in the world.

We rounded off our RE topic by ordering the story of the Nativity by cutting and sticking the pictures in the correct order.

Finally we had a fun crafty time today in Art making Christmas cards! The children used their knowledge of 2D and 3D shapes to create cards with Christmas trees on and decorate them!

Have a lovely weekend whatever you are up to.

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

We’ve not got long left of this term and the Christmas excitement is well underway. The highlight of the week was a visit from the HS2 engineer today. The children loved learning about all the different types of engineers who work on HS2. They had a great time building bridges, tunnels and bug hotels!

The Nativity

As you will be aware there are two performances of the Nativity show on Thursday 14^th December, one in the morning at 9.30am the other in the afternoon at 2pm. There is no need to book. Thank you to all parents who have brought in their child’s costumes. If you have not brought them in yet, they need to be in on Monday morning ready for our first dress rehearsal.

On Monday, Wednesday and Thursday we ask that all children with long hair come into school with their hair tied in a low pony-tail. This way we can ensure that their headdresses fit comfortably on their heads.

The children have all worked really hard and are looking really excellent! We’re excited to see as many of you as possible at the performances on Thursday!

Christmas Jumper Day

Next Wednesday the 13^th of December, it will be our annual Christmas Jumper Day. The children should come into school in their normal school uniform with a Christmas Jumper instead of their usual school jumper.

What we have been up to

In Maths we finished our learning about 2D and 3D shapes! We learnt how to match and sort different 2D and 3D shapes and created repeating patterns.

In English, we finished our learning about our Snowman Poem by writing our own poems about Snowmen. Our poems were brilliant and some of the children even had a go at using rhyme!

In History, we continued to learn about transport. This week the children learnt about the invention of the aeroplane and had a go at making paper aeroplanes!

In R.E., the children learnt about Herod and how he reminds us of the classic Christmas character- the Grinch!

Have a wonderful weekend,

Mrs Hayes

It is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas! Especially because yesterday we had two special visitors: Rocky and Sid, the donkeys! The children loved meeting them, brushing their manes and stroking them.

The Nativity

As you will be aware there are two performances of the Nativity show on Thursday 14^th December, one in the morning at 9.30am the other in the afternoon at 2pm. There is no need to book. Thank you to all parents who have brought in their child’s costumes. Just to reiterate it is white top and white bottoms or a white dress. We really don’t want anyone buying anything especially, so perhaps if you know you have spare white clothes you could communicate that with the class and share them out.

Engineering with HS2!

As part of the school’s ‘cracking careers’ programme we have an engineer from HS2 coming in to talk to the children next Friday (8^th December). They have requested a few things to help with the sessions so please can you start collecting and saving the following: cardboard (cereal boxes, paper towel/loo rolls etc are perfect), empty milk cartons and old newspapers.

What we have been up to

In English we are looking at poetry and have been learning a poem called Great Big Snowman. We began the week by learning the poem before making and decorating our own Snowmen which we then described. Today we also thought about all the different words we could think of to describe snow.

In Maths, we finished our learning on addition and subtraction with an end of unit test. We have now moved on to shape – bother 2D and 3D – looking at how many sides, corners and edges different shapes have.

In Science, we looked at the suitability of certain materials and discussed why some materials were better than others. We had great fun thinking of a world with paper tables, stone pillows and glass footballs!

We continued to learn about the Nativity in R.E. This week we focused on the importance of The Shepherds in the story. We discussed why Jesus is sometimes referred to as the Good Shepherd and then talked about what the angels told the shepherds.

The children designed their own cars in History. We learnt about the first car and the differences between old and new cars before drawing our own vehicles which we then labelled.

Finally, in Art the children have been busy perfecting their Christmas craft to sell at tomorrow’s Christmas Fair and we look forward to seeing many of you there.

Have a lovely weekend.

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

Can you believe we’ve started rehearsing for the Nativity now! Christmas (and the end of the half term) is really approaching fast! Details of the costumes required for the Nativity will be sent to you via Parentmail today so be sure to look out for that.

Gymnastics next week

Gymnastics next week will be on Wednesday for both classes. So both classes need to wear their PE kits on Monday and Wednesday next week.

What we have been up to

In English we finished our unit of work based around Little Red and the Very Hungry Lion. The final piece of work the children did was write their own versions of the story coming up with their own characters. It was so amazing to see the children use all of their learning to come up with such imaginative stories!

In Maths, we finished our learning on addition and subtraction! We practised using number lines to help us subtract and compared different number sentences. Next week, we’ll start our new unit of learning all about shapes!

We continued to learn about the Nativity in R.E. This week we learnt about Mary and Joseph’s role in the story and discussed what sort of people they were to be chosen by God.

In Computing, we continued to learn about algorithms. The children took turns to be ‘the robot’ and give directions about how to get around the room. They had to do a log of debugging to be successful!

The children loved their History learning today. This week we looked closely at trains and how they have changed over time. They then took part in a carousel of train related activities, including comparing trains of the past and present.

Finally, in Art we finished our unit on drawing and mark making. For our final piece, the children completed an observational drawing, looking carefully and what marks and lines they should add to make their drawing realistically portray a piece of fruit.

Enjoy your weekend and see you all next week.

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

The highlight of the week was, of course, the London Transport Museum. Despite the long journey and some very sleepy children on the way home, we all had a wonderful time! We particularly enjoyed our work shop with ‘Joe Clough’ one of London’s first bus drivers. He took us on a whistle stop tour of how buses and transport have changed through the ages, talking about how Liz Viner made history as the first female bus driver in 1974 and then explaining all about ‘fluffers’ on the tube: the men and women who clean the tracks! As always, the children were really well behaved and engaged and did St. Stephen’s proud.

Library books and Reading Cloud

Our library is linked to an online portal called Reading Cloud. We thought it would be great for all families to have access to this, so inside of your child’s yellow Reading Record you will find a barcode and a four digit number underneath it. This four digit number is both their username and password for the website. If you log on to www.readingcloud.net and put in the same number into both username and password and then select the school by writing the postcode (W12 8LH) your child’s account should come up and you can see whether they have a library book at home and if so what it is called.

Phonics Sound Mats

In your child’s homework folder yesterday there was an A5 piece of paper with our Read Write Inc sounds on them. We mentioned these to many of you at Parents’ Evening but they are a great tool for the children to have when writing anything at home. They should use them to help identify sounds in a word before spelling them and writing them out.

What we were up to

In English we began reading Little Red and the Very Hungry Lion by Alex T Smith. This book is an entertaining alternative version of the classic fairy-tale. The children firstly compared the two versions of the story before thinking about how the characters were feeling at various points in the book. Finally we learnt about when to use because and when to you and in sentences.

In Maths, we continued to look at subtraction and working out a part when you know the whole. We then practised writing subtraction number sentences for Part Part Whole models remembering to always start with the whole.

We have turned our attention to the Christmas story in RE and will spend the next few weeks looking at various characters in the story. This week were learnt about Angels and thought about their important role in the story.

The children loved our computing lesson this week which was all about instructions and understanding that is what an algorithm is. The lesson started with trying to get the children to give clear instructions to their ‘robot’ teachers for making toast which was very entertaining!

Finally, in Art we continued looking at mark making specifically at trying to draw fruit and vegetables by adding in different types of lines and shading.

Enjoy your weekend and see you all next week.

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

We have had another brilliant week in Year 1. We of course have to say an enormous WELL DONE to all of the children who represented our school so beautifully when we had our visitors earlier in the week- they really did themselves so proud! It was brilliant to see and they were all so confident when the visitors came round to see our learning.

PE next week

To make up for the PE lesson that was missed this week, the children will have an extra PE lesson on Friday next week.

Donaldson class will therefore need to wear their PE kit to school on Monday, Tuesday and Friday next week.

Book Look Open Morning Tuesday 14^th November

We wanted to remind you that there will be an open morning for the parents to come and see the children’s books on Tuesday at 9am ahead of our Parents’ Evening Appointments next week.

Upcoming school trip

We are looking forward to our upcoming school visit. Please check Parentmail for any details.

Parliament Week

This week, we celebrated Parliament Week. To mark this occasion, we were joined by MP for Hammersmith and Fulham, Andy Slaughter, who spoke to the children about our British Values and the importance of democracy. The children asked a variety of probing questions which sparked a healthy debate.

What we were up to

In English this week we read Little Red Riding Hood. We thought about the character of the Big Bad Wolf and came up with different synonyms for bad to describe him. Finally we created our own Wanted posters looking for him!

In Maths, we finished our learning on addition and have started our learning about subtraction. We used pictures to help us find how many are left.

In Science, we loved having a visit from Mercedes our Scientist in Residence. She helped us to run experiments to test the properties of different materials.

In R.E., we finished our learning on the Saints. We learnt about different saints and chose our favourite one to draw and write about it.

We started our History unit all about transport this week! We looked at different vehicles from the past and present and compared how they used to be to how they are now!

In Computing, we designed costumes for characters in Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Finally, in D.T. we absolutely LOVED making our own delicious smoothies. We used our cutting techniques to help us prepare the fruit ready to taste the final product! Thank you to all those parents who very kindly donated fruit for us!

We were also very touched as a staff for the many cakes and treats given to us today, and we’d like to thank you for your ongoing support and kindness.

Have wonderful (and restful) weekends!

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

The children have come back to school with a spring in their steps! As we start the second half of term it is amazing to see how much they have grown up already. They are now used to the Year 1 pace and timetable and managing to do some fantastic work.

Book Look

Thank you to all those who have booked in Parents Evening slots for the 14^th and 15^th November. Hopefully you will have also see the email encouraging you to drop in a have a brief look at your child’s books on the morning on 14^th November. This will give you an opportunity to look at their work ahead of our catch-ups.

PE

You will have seen a message about PE in the coming weeks. Due to some football tournaments for KS2 next week, Year 1 will have no PE on Monday afternoon (or at any other point next week). We are trying to secure an extra make-up session the following week and will be in touch once this is confirmed.

Coffee Morning

It was great to see so many of you for coffee and cake this week (sorry if you couldn’t make it). Having spoken to Mr Schumm afterwards we are hoping to make this a more regular event so you can chat to teachers and support staff about any questions or suggestions you might have.

What we got up to

This week the children have made a Leaf Man (thank you for the leafy donations!). This was to introduce our unit on instructional writing. We have discussed the importance of sentence starters in instructions and the children ended the week writing their own instructions.

In Maths, we have been using Numicon to look at number bonds within ten. We have also been looking at different addition number sentences and comparing the answers using our greater than, less than and equal to symbols.

In Science we have finished learning about our senses with a very fun lesson on taste. The children had five different foods to taste – including lemons and olives – which they described with words such as sour, sweet and salty.

In Geography we finished our leaning on Where Do I Live? by revising our knowledge of the continents, the countries in the United Kingdom and then talked about the difference between ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ areas.

In RHE this term we are ‘Valuing Difference’ so this week’s lesson was all about comparing ourselves to our friends and thinking about all the things that are the same about us and all the things that our different

We have continued to look at where food comes from in DT. We learnt that fruits grow on trees and vines whereas some vegetables grow under the ground and some grow on the ground.

Next week we are lucky enough to have some sessions with Miss Mercedes, our Scientist in Residence, so hopefully the children will have another exciting week.

Have a lovely weekend.

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

My goodness, can you believe we are already finished with the first half term of Year 1! Time is really flying and the children have all made so much progress already. This week has been another brilliant and busy week celebrating Black Voices Week, finishing with Show Racism the Red Card today! The children looked lovely in their red outfits supporting the cause.

Black Voices Week

Black Voice Week really was the highlight this week. On Monday, the children learnt about Floella Benjamin and wrote adjectives describing her. In the words of Year 1, she really is “fabulous”! We then created some artwork inspired by Trinidadian artist Cynthia Mclean. We designed beautiful vibrant houses inspired by the bright colours and stunning scenes depicted in her work. But the real star event of the week had to be making our own hand puppets ahead of the live puppet show called Anansi & the Lost Sun.

Maths Evening

Thank you to all of those who joined us for our Maths Evening on Wednesday. We hope you found it useful. We have shared the slides with you via Parentmail, and if you do have any questions about it, please feel free to get in touch.

What we got up to

In English, we finished learning about The Shopping Trip by John Burningham. The children absolutely wowed us with their writing using ‘and’ describing their own shopping trip. It really is amazing how far they’ve come already!

In Maths, we continued our learning about addition, and practiced using different methods such as Part-Part-Whole models and bar models to write addition sums to match them. After half term, we’re starting to learn our number bonds to ten so it would be great if the children could get a head start learning them over the half term break.

In Science, we went on our brilliant trip to BBC Park and looked at lots of different leaves we could see and tried to spot some animals. We will be repeating this trip throughout the year to monitor how the park changes throughout the seasons so we’re excited to see what it looks like later this year!

In RHE, we thought about what makes a good friend and created our own friendship flower.

Have a wonderful week off and we look forward to seeing you next half term!

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

The highlight of the week was definitely Hispanic Day! The children loved their dance workshops in the church and they all looked amazing dressed in their Spanish outfits. We spent the day learning about La Tomatina – the tomato festival in Spain where everyone throws overripe tomatoes at each other. No tomato throwing in Year One, although the children loved rolling up balls of red tissue and throwing them at each other instead! In addition, we completed some lovely craft including playdough tomatoes and tomato paper plates.

Homework

Hopefully you will have seen the Parentmail about homework moving forward. All the words and sentences are now linked to our phonics learning in class with books and words matched to their new phonics groups. Any questions, please do get in touch.

Maths Evening

Don’t forget we will be running a Maths Evening on Wednesday 18^th October at 6.30pm. Do come along to hear about how we teach Maths in Year One and to ask any questions you might have about how best to support your child. If you can’t make it, we will be happy to share the presentation afterwards.

What we have been up to

In Maths we completed an end of unit assessment on place value and the children have demonstrated a good understanding of the topic. We have now moved on to addition and subtraction beginning with looking at Part Part Whole models, where two parts are added together to great the whole.

In Geography, we learnt about the seven continents. As well as practising naming the continents, the children had to label them on a world map.

We learnt all about Salah – or prayer – in RE and heard about how Muslims prepare to pray before entering a mosque. The children then decorated their own prayer mats remembering not to include animals or people

In English we started reading a very funny book called The Shopping Basket by John Burningham. We looked at writing numbers as words and using s or es for plurals.

In Relationships and Health Education we talked about our special people and how although all our families look different, there are still people who care for us and who we can talk to if we are feeling sad or anxious.

Enjoy the last weekend before the half term break!

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

It’s been another busy and exciting week in Year 1! The children have been working incredibly hard on all of their learning and they’re really getting into the swing of things.

Next Week

Next week is jam-packed with fun and different activities.

On Wednesday, it will be our annual Hispanic Day! It’s always an exciting and fun filled day that the children love. This year, Year 1 will be learning about the Tomatina Festival in Spain! On Wednesday, the children should come into school in either traditional Hispanic outfits, or the colours of the country they are learning about (red and yellow).

On Thursday, we have our in school Movie Night! The children will be dismissed from their classroom as usual on Thursday at 5pm if they are attending Movie Night – tickets need to be purchased in advance on Parentmail.

On Friday, we have individual and sibling photographs. The children need to be in their full winter uniform, ties and jumpers included, and I’m sure you’ll want them to look lovely and smart on the day!

Dropping off in the morning

As you will have seen in our Parentmail yesterday, we are asking that parents/ carers do not enter the school building in the morning during drop off. We feel that this creates a calmer environment for the children to enter school with, and reduced the number of tearful mornings we have. We’re very grateful to those parents who followed this this morning, and we hope we all agree it was a much more settled start to the day.

What we have been up to

In English, we finished our learning about Little Pea. This week we edited sentences paying careful attention to where the finger spaces should go. We also had a go at creating our own story maps of the story and wrote sentences describing how the characters were feeling. We learnt some brilliant words for happy and sad!

In Maths, we continued our unit on Place Value, which we should finish next week. We were introduced to the greater than and less than signs and used them to compare both objects and numbers. The children all really grasped this concept brilliant and we were super proud of their learning!

In Science, we continued learning about the senses – this time focusing on touch. We had to feel a mystery object in a bag before describing how it felt. We then had a guess about what it could be!

In Geography, we continued learning about the United Kingdom. This week we revised the four countries of the United Kingdom, but also learnt their capitals and flags. This is a really challenging topic for Year 1, so if you do get a chance to practice at home it would really benefit the children.

In RE, we continued to learn about Islam. This week we learnt about Aqiqah, which is how Muslims celebrate new babies being born. We had to create our own Aqiqah card!

We began a new unit of Design Technology all about designing and creating smoothies. This week we looked at different fruits and vegetables and had to determine whether they were a fruit or a vegetable. We were really surprised by some of the answers!

Finally, in RHE we thought about the different feelings we might have in a day. We talked about what we could do if we ever feel sad or worried and then cut out and stuck a picture of how we were feeling on that day.

We also chatted to the children about appropriate language to use in school as unfortunately we have been hearing some unkind and grown-up language being used. Please do reiterate this at home.

Have a wonderful weekend enjoying what might be the last of the warmer weather this year!

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

The children have worked exceptionally hard this week and are getting used to our more structured learning in Year 1. We are still making plenty of time for play and choosing but have been impressed how quickly and happily the children are settling into the new routine.

Property

Please can we ask that you talk to the children about looking after their belongings. We have noticed that a lot of children are getting to the end of the day without jumpers and cardigans and with no idea where they are! As you can imagine, it is tricky for us to keep to keep track of thirty children’s belongings and we want to encourage the children to be responsible for their own belongings and begin to build their independence. In school we encourage them to put their jumpers straight in their bags or on pegs if they want to take them off but I suspect many of them end up in the big playground after PE or are dropped on the floor rather than being carefully placed inside of their bags. We feel as though a chat from home about looking after belongings and valuing our things may help the children to be a little bit more responsible with their jumpers!

Books

A big well done on returning the homework, reading books and library books! We (and Mrs Pereira) were extremely impressed with how many were returned – keep up the good work! Just to reiterate; homework (green books) should be returned on Wednesdays to go out on a Thursday, library books should also come back on a Wednesday in time for library on Thursday and reading books need to come in on a Thursday to be changed and ready to go out on a Friday.

Hispanic Day

Hopefully you have all seen the email about Hispanic Day. This will take place on Wednesday11th October and Year 1 are Spain. On this day, the children can come dressed in the colours of our country’s flag (so red and yellow) or a traditional Hispanic outfit.

What we have been up to

This week the children wrote some lovely sentences in English about what fruit and vegetables they like and don’t like to tie in with our book Daisy Eat Your Peas. We also began a new book called Little Pea – a similar theme but about a little pea who hates sweets! The children enjoyed designing their own sweet and then thinking of adjectives to describe them.

In Maths, we learnt about one more and one less than a number. To help us, we used counters to represent the original number before adding one more counter or taking one away.

Art was an amazing lesson this week! We were thinking about colour and using different media and materials to colour. First the children drew around some 2D shapes, making sure they overlapped. They then coloured them in using paint pens, colouring pencils, charcoal and pastels. The results are brilliant!

In Science, we are continuing to look at My Body with a focus on the senses. This week we looked at sight and the children enjoyed looking at a picture very carefully and recording information about it.

In Geography, we are learning about the four countries of the UK and their capital cities – quite tricky learning for Year 1, so any opportunities you get to chat about the different countries would be very helpful.

In RE, we read some traditional Muslim stories and thought about their messages. We then drew a picture from our favourite story and said how they made us feel.

Finally, we have reiterated the importance of being kind friends in Relationship & Health. Some children are still struggling to share or play nicely so we read some books and thought about the importance of kind words. There does seem to be a bit of ‘play fighting’ happening at break times so please do chat to your children about how this is not allowed in the school in case someone is hurt accidently.

We hope you all have a lovely restful weekend.

Kind regards,

Mrs Hayes

It really feels like we’re in the swimming of the year now, especially as autumn has well and truly arrived! We’ve had a great week in Year 1, and the children are settling in brilliant! Of course the highlight was our walk around Shepherd’s Bush on Wednesday- even if we did come back to school a little bit soggy! It was great to see the landmarks of the place we live, like Westfield! Thank you so much to all the parents who kindly donated their time to come with us for our walk!

Reading Books and Homework Books

The children are now in the swing of getting reading books and homework books each week! We just want to remind you that these books are not due back on the same day of the week so that you have a full week for both at home.

Homework books are returned to school on Wednesday and new homework is given out on Thursday.

Reading books are returned to school on Thursday and new reading books are issued on a Friday.

This week Mathletics has also been set for the children to complete. The children will have two on Mathletics to complete each week. The children’s login details can be found stuck on the inside front cover of their homework books.

Poem

Every term, each year group must learn and recite a poem. As our class is named after Julia Donaldson, I have chosen a poem called Noisy Garden which is just one verse long (with some interesting vocabulary!). Please do read it aloud to your child and see if they can learn the lines over the course of the half term. Next week, we will be listening to the children reciting the poem and there will be house points for anyone who knows their whole poem!

Autumn 1 poem The Noisy Garden by Julia Donaldson

What we have been up to

In English, we continued our learning about Daisy Eat Your Peas. We learnt what plurals were and had a go at recognising words that were plurals by spotting the ‘s’ at the end. We also practised using full stops and capital letters this week!

In Maths, we continued practising our counting to twenty including completing number tracks. We absolutely loved challenging ourselves to complete harder and harder number tracks! We also continued to practise our number formation, this week focussing on 6, 7 and 8!

In Art, we continued exploring line. This week, inspired by Zaria Forman, we created giant underwater pictures in teams. We used different types of lines to create beautiful wave patterns.

In RE, we continued to learn about Islam. This week we focussed on learning about the Qur’an and discussed how Muslims show respect to their Holy Book.

In Science, we continued to learn about the body. We carried out different actions like waving to a friend or hopping on one leg and discussed what part of the body we were using!

Have a lovely relaxing weekend.

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

Despite being a full week of school, the children have remained positive and happy, so you should all be very proud!

Reading Books

You will see a Book Bag reading book in your child’s bag today. Miss Hana and I have read with all the children this week and chosen appropriate reading levels as a result. These books need to be returned by Thursday of next week.

Homework

Homework was sent out yesterday in green homework books. This week homework is learning common exception words (red words). Please return homework books to school on Wednesday next week. There won’t be a spelling test on these words but please do practise them with your child. As mentioned yesterday, Mathletics hasn’t been set this week but will be up and running for next week.

Poem

Every term, each year group must learn and recite a poem. As our class is named after Julia Donaldson, I have chosen a poem called Noisy Garden which is just one verse long (with some interesting vocabulary!). Please do read it aloud to your child and see if they can learn the lines over the course of the half term. Autumn 1 poem The Noisy Garden by Julia Donaldson

Library Books

You will have seen a library book in your child’s bag this week. Please return these on Wednesday each week so they can take out a new book next Thursday.

Playground Rules

Today, we talked about our five main playground rules: Play nicely with your friends, Respect all equipment, Talk through any problems, Tidy up promptly, line up quickly and quietly. We chatted about the importance of the whole school adhering to this rules and always playing kindly and respectfully.

What we have been up to

In English, we have started our unit on the book Daisy Eat Your Peas by Nick Sharrat and Kes Gray. Firstly we acted out the story before ordering different pictures and telling the story to one another. We then looked at correcting sentences about the story by adding in missed off capital letters and full stops.

In Maths, we continued practising our counting to twenty and also focused on counting and drawing objects to match numbers. This half term, we will be focusing on our number formation so any work on this at home would be very useful. We have uploaded a copy of the school’s number formation sheet for you to print out and use.

How to form Numbers

We began our Geography unit on Where do I live? Looking at a maps on the local area of Shepherd’s Bush. We then used IPads to find out information on the area’s key landmarks.

In Art, we focused on line. Using Bridget Riley’s paintings as inspiration we practised making lines with string on card before drawing six different types of lines in boxes.

We welcomed a special visitor to help with our RE learning this week. Mrs Ghoul spoke to the children about what it means to be a Muslim to start this term’s topic on Islam.

In Science, we started learning about My Body. We named different parts of our bodies before reading labels and sticking them in the correct place on a giant picture of a body.

Have a lovely relaxing weekend.

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes

Welcome back! We have had a wonderful first few days back getting to know all of your wonderful children. They have settled really well into Year 1 and are already doing some brilliant learning. What a fantastic start of term!

Reading Books

This week we have decided not to send home any reading books with the children in order to give us time to listen to every child read to ensure they have a book at the accurate level. From next Friday, every child will have a reading book to take home with them for the week so it is super important the children are bringing bags into school.

PE, Gymnastics and Dance

For Donaldson Class, P.E. will take place every Monday afternoon and the children will have Gymnastics on Tuesday mornings. For the first half term, the children will also have a Dance lesson on Tuesday afternoons. On these days, the children will need to wear the PE kits to school with long hair tied up.

What we have been up to

This week we have talked a lot about what we did over the summer as well as what we are looking forward to doing in Year 1.

In English, we came up with some rules of our Year 1 classroom and thought about how rules help us to learn. We also helped our teachers to get to know us better by writing about something that we love. Finally, we strengthened our fine motor skills by completing a carousel of activities to help us do this, such as playing with playdough!

In Maths, we practised our counting to 20 and completing missing number tracks. We also counted different objects and practised some of our skills from Reception. This half term in Maths, we will be focusing on Place Value within 20 before moving on to learning about addition and subtraction.

In Art, we were excited to receive brand new sketchbooks! We created a front cover for these books that showed off not only our artistic skills but also the things that we love!

From next week, each class will be following their usual timetable. You can see a copy of our class timetables on this page.

If you have any questions please feel to get in touch. I can be contacted via my email: v.hayes@ststephensce.lbhf.sch.uk

Have a wonderful weekend enjoying the last of this gorgeous summertime weather!

Kindest regards,

Mrs Hayes