Welcome to P1!

Our teachers are Mrs Henry, Mrs McKeegan and Miss McCullough.

Our classroom assistants are Mrs McQuillan, Mrs Wilson, Miss Oliver, Miss Parker and Miss McPeake. 

What does your child need?

Please ensure your child has the following items each day:

- school bag

- a healthy break time snack (one item only) plus drink (unless they take milk) in their lunch box.

- packed lunch or dinner money (paid on ParentPay)

- coat with a hood

- homework folder

- P.E. gutties and complete change of clothes (to be kept in school in PE bag)

What will your child be doing this year?

Term 1

Term 1 is a busy time of settling into life in Primary School! The children are getting used to new faces and new routines, with the aim of developing their independence and confidence. Please help with this by working with your child on improving their self-help skills at home. Our class theme for the first half term is called "A Time to Rhyme". We look at a variety of nursery rhymes (Baa Baa Black Sheep, Hickory Dickory Dock, Humpty Dumpty, Hey Diddle Diddle, Incy Wincy Spider and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. We use these nursery rhymes to develop early reading and phonological awareness skills (such as directionality of print, awareness of rhyming words, introducing the concept of syllables and developing a steady beat). We also explore concepts about the world around us through nursery rhymes and develop early numeracy skills (such as counting 1-5, recognising numbers 1-5, sorting items using Venn, Carroll and Tree diagrams, and beginning to compare sets). 

After half term, we move onto our new topic called "Special Baby". With the children's improved independence skills, we think about how they have grown and developed since they were babies. This links in well with the story of Christmas, which we discuss while practicing for our Christmas Nativity. We commence our Jolly Phonics programme, start on reading books and continue to work on numbers 1-5. 

Term 2

This term our new topic is “Helping Hands” - thinking about the jobs people do in our community to help us (e.g. school staff, fire fighters, police officers, doctors, nurses etc). We are always looking for visitors to our classroom to talk to us about jobs they carry out - so if you or anyone you know work within these roles, please do let us know! We enjoy acting out these roles during Play Based Learning and exploring the equipment used. 

After February half term, our topic is "Old McDonald had a Farm" which ties in great with the start of Spring. We think about the produce we get from farms, jobs farmers do, the names of animals (mothers and their babies), and features of the countryside compared to features of a town. 

We continue to progress through the Jolly Phonics sounds - learning the sound each letter makes, learning correct letter formation and blending sounds in words to help us read and write. In numeracy, we start to work on numbers 6-10 and do some work on measures. 

Term 3

In term 3 our theme is "Once Upon a Time".  We will be looking at familiar fairytale stories e.g. Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel. We sequence and retell these stories, write our own sentences about the characters and stories, and discuss what else we can learn from the stories. In PE we hold races in preparation for Sports Day, which is always great fun! We try to make the most of the good weather by doing some gardening and enjoy plenty of outdoor play. We learn to read numbers 11-15 and work on simple addition (add one). We learn to tell o'clock times, so this might be the ideal time to buy your child their first watch - however please make sure it is an analogue watch (one with two hands, not digital).  

Please take some time to look through the P1 Parent Guidance sheets. These documents detail the Numeracy and Literacy that your child will cover in P1. Please use these to support your child with their learning at home.

Thank you,

Mrs Henry and Miss McCullough