A huge welcome to Tawny Owls and Barn Owls!

We are so looking forward to an exciting year ahead.

Information for parents

PE days:  Tuesday and Thursday. Please wear PE Kits to school.

Please make sure earrings are taken out or covered and long hair is tied up.

Homework

Daily Tasks

Reading and Keywords

Spelling practice

Counting forwards and backwards to 20

Purple Mash remote learning

Rocket Phonics Reading

Children also have Merton Missions set every half term. These can be found on our topic newsletters. 

Summer 1 - Amazing Animals

Amazing animals is a great topic to explore the world around us and become scientists, geographers, explorers and animal lovers!

We have a visit from Zoolab as our landing for this topic where the children will have the opportunity to hold and explore a variety of different animals which will strongly support their learning, giving the children a chance to recall facts learnt in Geography and Science, where the children will be learning all about the different animals, where they live and what they eat. The key person they will learn about is the Great Steve Irwin, who was known as "The crocodile hunter", was an Australian Zookeeper, conservationist, television personality, a wildlife expert and environmentalist!

In literacy, our key text is Elmer by David McKee.

Spring 2 - Fire! Fire!

We hope you all had a lovely Half Term break. This term the children will be learning about The Great Fire of London! The children will be looking at London and the fire services from 1666 and comparing them to today. 

We will be kicking off our literacy this term by reading the illustrated books put forward for the 2025 book awards where the children will then vote for their favourite book! 

The artist of the term is Wassily Kandinsky who was a Russian painter from 1866, a pioneer to abstract art.

Year 1 will also be presenting Merton's Easter Play this term so we look forward to seeing you there!

Spring 1 - We're on the move!

This term the children will be learning all about Transport and Amelia Earhart while we take a dive into the past to research the beginnings of transport and how it has grown over the years. We will go as far back as the use of the sedan chair which was used in China 4000 years ago!

Our key text of the term is "The Naughty Bus" and the children will be learning all about nouns, verbs and adjectives and how they can be used in a text, whereas, in maths we will be using out number bonds knowledge when solving one step problems and we will also take our first look into time so be prepared for a lot of time related questions at home.

We will also have a fantastic trip to Brooklands museum of transport on the 12th February 2025.

Autumn 2 - Once upon a time

This half term we will be exploring traditional tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Our chosen story for literature this term is Jack and the Beanstalk. For the launch of our topic the children will be watching the Disney classic Shrek which introduces many fairy tale characters. We have plenty of D&T this term as children will be creating their story box settings, if you have any spare shoeboxes we would appreciate them here in school. Our Artist of the term is the queen of patterns Orla Kiely before we begin our countdown to Christmas!

A visit from an Artist

On the 15th November we were lucky enough to have an Artist called Holly Parkhouse come to work with the children at our school. Holly is a surface pattern designer and illustrator who creates colourful illustrations using different mediums such as gouache paint, marker pens and lino printing.

Holly works with Hobbycraft and provides many of their workshops and Holly a number of Holly's pieces of art in the form of patterned fabrics alongside other pieces are sold in the Hobbycraft stores.

Holly worked with each class on a personalised art workshop with a focus on patterns. The children were able to create their own Christmas wrapping paper using their pattern making skills learnt both in class this term as well as with Holly.

Autumn 1 - Out and About

In this first half term we will be exploring our local area and using our geography skills to look at the human and physical features in Popley. We will also be exploring the history of our school comparing the school now to when it was opened in 1969.