Ranked 49th out of 16,783 in The Sunday Times Parent Power league tables of the best primary schools in England. The ranking is based upon average scores in English, grammar and maths.
Ranked 49th out of 16,783 in The Sunday Times Parent Power league tables of the best primary schools in England. The ranking is based upon average scores in English, grammar and maths.
Latchmere School

Year 1

SPRING TERM

We hope that you had a lovely Christmas break. Welcome to the spring term where we look forward to the continuing partnerships between home and school.

Reading

Our goal is to create confident, fluent, independent readers. We prioritise reading at Latchmere School and have very carefully chosen the texts your child will study this term. We focus on word reading to develop fluency and encourage the whole class to join in through strategies such as choral reading (the whole class read together) and echo reading (the teacher models the reading and the class echo back). We also have the Latchmere Reading skills. These are based on comprehension skills such as retrieval, inference, summarising, making links, prediction and vocabulary.

n Year 1, our main topic for this half term is ‘Once Upon a Time’.  We have lots of exciting lessons and activities planned and look forward to sharing our learning with you. We will be studying fairy-tales including:


We will be continuing to embed the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds phonics programme. This involves daily teaching of phonics and three reading sessions per week for every child focussing on decoding, prosody and comprehension.

Please see the phonics page on the website for further information.

Maths

Our curriculum is based on the White Rose Maths programme. This research-based initiative ensures that the skills and concepts children taught are fully embedded before moving on. The children are taught strategies such as bar modelling and have plenty of opportunities to use ‘manipulatives’ such as counters and dienes all the way through the school.

This term we will be focusing on Addition and Subtraction within 20, and Place Value within 50.

Children in Year 1 also use the Numbots program to help embed the core maths skills of subitising, number bonds, addition and subtraction.

We look forward to working in partnership with you to ensure that your child enjoys a happy and successful term.

 

Thank you in advance for all of your support

                

Curriculum Highlights

This term, we will be developing ball skills and introducing yoga in PE, to continue the focus on developing key skills in this subject. In Science, we will be classifying animals by what they eat; carnivores, omnivores and herbivores. Queens is the topic for history, focusing on the lives of 3 famous queens; Elizabeth I, Victoria and Elizabeth II. This half term, we will have a Kings and Queens day where the children dress up as kings, queens, princesses, princes, knights, dragons etc. More information on this to follow.

You can find out more information about the spring term learning by looking at the overviews and programmes of study on the website.

Key dates

Purple class assembly – Thursday 16th January 2025

Blue class assembly – Thursday 30th January 2025

Kings and Queens Day - dressing up day. Thursday 6th February 2025. More information to follow. 

Updates and Reminders

Beginning and End of Day Arrangements

All children should arrive in school between 8.40am-8.50am ready for the start of the school day and be picked up at 3.20pm. Please remember to speak to the class teacher or use the message book on the class notice board to record when alternative arrangements have been made for your child at the end of day.

Buddies

All the children in Year 1 will be given two year 4 buddies this half term. They will be given opportunities to meet their buddies throughout the year for buddy reading and shared learning activities.

 

School Uniform and snack pots

Please ensure that everything that your child brings to school is labelled including: your child’s school uniform, P.E kit, water bottle, snack pots, hats, gloves, scarves and coats.

Homework grid

We will be sending home a grid with optional homework for your child to complete at home to support their learning.