Ladybirds Class

Hello and welcome to our special page for year one class, known as the 'Ladybirds' class!

We want your child to be happy and to enjoy learning so if you have any questions or concerns please come and see us! Don't hesitate to get in touch with any question no matter how big or small. Email me at Ladybirds@coppice.derbyshire.sch.uk.

All year we will be working towards meeting the end of year expectations for year one. Please click here to view these.

Meet the Staff

Mr D'Souza - Year One class teacher

Mrs S Fowkes - Teaching Assistant (all day, every day)

Mrs Stafford - Teaching Assistant (every morning covering for Miss Richards)

Mrs Jephson is the Key Stage One Co-ordinator who will be popping in lots to check we are having lots of fun whilst we learn.

Mr D'Souza will have one day out of class on a Tuesday every two weeks for PPA and this will usually be covered by Mr Moreton.

General Information

In a morning the gates will be open between 8.35am and 8.40am. Please say goodbye to your children on the playground and they will walk around to enter the classroom via the cloakroom. Parents are not allowed to accompany them from the playground.

Learning Information

Our topic this half term is ‘Oh I do like to be beside the seaside’. An overview (knowledge organiser) of this half term’s topic can be found by clicking here .

As a key stage, we like to inform parents about the types of things we will be covering in each topic in a little more detail. To access our parents' medium term plan overview please click here.

This half term we will continue to learn through a broad and balanced curriculum. Click here to see our Summer 2 weekly timetable.

PE this half term is on a Tuesday and a Friday. Please wear your PE uniform on these days and make sure that earrings are removed.

As always, homework is set at the start of a half term and is due in the last week of half term. Click here to see this half term’s homework.

Topic Overview

This half term’s topic ‘Oh I do like to be beside the seaside’ is heavily focussed on geography and history. By the end of the unit the ‘sticky knowledge’ we want our children to remember is:

I know the seaside towns have cliffs, ports and harbours.
I know that Skegness is a seaside town
I know that islands are surrounded by water

Below is a brief summary of what we will be learning each week.

Week 1: What happens at the seaside?

What is a seaside? What will you find at the seaside? Have we experienced any seaside days? Shall we plan a beach day? What would we need?

We will begin our topic by thinking about our own experiences and prior knowledge. Then in order to ensure we all have the same starting point of experiences we will have our very own Coppice beach day! More information to follow regarding this.

Week 2: What are the human and physical features of a British seaside?

What did we do at our beach day? What is the seaside like? What things can you do at the seaside? Why do people visit seaside resorts? What are these people called? Have you visited a seaside resort? What is it called?

This week we will be looking at different British seaside resorts through videos and photographs and labelling the human and physical characteristics we can see. We will think carefully about whether things are made by humans or by nature e.g. a cliff is a physical characteristic as it is natural. A beach is a human characteristic as it was made by us!

Week 3: Where can we go on holiday in the UK?

Have you been on holiday? Did it have a beach? Was it a seaside? How did you get there? Was it in the UK?

We will be looking closely at a map of the United Kingdom. We will learn about how many countries make up the UK and learn the names of their capital cities. We will look at compasses and talk about which direction we would travel to get to the coast. We will then map different seaside locations on a map using this knowledge.

Week 4: What were British seaside holiday resorts like in the past?

Do your parents go on holiday? Do your grandparents go on holidays? Have humans always gone on holidays? Have their always been planes? How have holidays changed?

This week we will think back to our learning on toys and castles and how things have changed over time. We will think about how holidays have changed over time. We will look at photographs from the past and look carefully at the clothes, buildings, food and activities. We will then explore a range of information and sort it in to present and past and summarise our findings.

Week 5: What is an island?

What are the four countries in the UK? What is an island? Are we an island? How could you describe an island? How is an island different to mainland? What transport can you use to get to an island? What transport can be used on an island?

This week we will be using atlases to help label islands on a map. We will then think about the differences between an island and mainland and think of positives and negatives for living on each.

Week 6: How are holidays outside the UK similar / different?

Where do people go on holiday? How do you get there? Has anyone ever heard of Africa?

This week we will be thinking about all the places we are able to go on holiday. We will think about our holidays in the UK to one we could go on in Africa. We will think about how they are the same and how they are different. How long do they take to get there? How do we get there? Is the weather the same? Are the activities the same? Are they islands or mainland? What can you do once you are there? Where would we prefer to holiday and why?

Week 7: How can we look after our oceans?

What is an ocean? Why are they important?

This week we will be thinking about our oceans. We will look at issues facing the world due to plastic pollution. We will think of ways we can help.

This term's topic information and IMPORTANT vocabulary

Art / DT	This half term we will be focussing on Design and Technology. We will be creating a range of tasty seaside snacks!	Sweet, savoury, nutrition, chop, grate, mix, cut, safety, product, design, make, evaluate, slice.
Science	This half term our science topic is ‘seasonal changes’. We have already completed lots of work on this in the Autumn term but now we are going to focus on Spring and Summer changes that are happening around us.	Seasons, spring, summer, autumn, winter, changes, weather, temperature, day length, light, dark, warmer,
PSHCE	This half term is ‘Relationships’. We will be thinking about what makes a good friend, what to do if you are worried or unhappy, what to do if you are lonely and starting to think about resisting peer pressure.	Friends, friendship, relationship, kind, caring, honest, open, worried, unhappy, emotions, feelings, lonely, peer pressure.
Computing	This half term we will be completing another purple mash unit ‘Coding’. We will learn what coding means and create unambiguous instructions like those required by a computer.	Coding, instructions, programme, specific, detailed, precise.
RE	This half term we will be exploring the key question ‘What makes some places scared?’ We will identify special objects and symbols found in places of worship and say what they mean and how they are used. We will talk about how stories, objects and symbols in religious places show what people believe. We will be visiting a church. More details to follow.	Church, mosque, synagogue, symbols, sacred, objects, belief, respect
PE	This half term your child will have PE with a sports coach on a Friday and on Tuesday we will be taking part in Forest School activities with Mr D’Souza. Please ensure your child wears the appropriate PE kit according to the weather on these days and has their water bottle in school with them.	Throw, catch, bat, ball, aim, underarm, overarm.
Music	This half term we will be following the Kapow unit Dynamics by the Seaside where we will make links between music, sounds and environments and use percussion, vocal and body sounds to represent the seaside.	Sounds, voice, body, using instruments, body parts, to create music, seaside.
Geography	The children will be naming, locating and identifying the characteristics of the four countries in the UK and its surrounding areas. They will practise naming and locating the world’s seven continents and five oceans. They will use simple geographical vocabulary to refer to physical and human features of a place.	Beach, cliff, coast, hill, mountain, sea, river, weather, city, town, village, farm, house, port, harbour, shop, seaside.
History	The children will be learning about holidays from the past. They will explore changes from within living memory, use common words and phrases related to the passing of time, compare different ways of life from different time periods and understand ways in which we find out about the past.	Past, present, Victorian, holidays, seaside, horse and carriage, bathing machine

Literacy

In Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation (SPAG) this half term we will be focussing on

Adding suffixes – ing -er
Using capitals for the personal pronoun I and for proper nouns e.g. names
Adding the prefix – un
Revising when to use full stops

In Whole Class Reading we will be focussing on texts linked to our literacy lessons.

In these lessons we will focus on a range of skills including:

Reading with expression and using intonation, making sure we use punctuation to support us.
Exploring new vocabulary to use in our writing
Retrieving information from what we have read
Sequencing events that we have read about
Inferring extra information using the clues we have spotted in the text
Predicting what may happen next or the information we will read about under each subheading
We will also be having a big focus on understanding the difference between fiction and non-fiction and looking at all the features we would find in non-fiction books

In Literacy we will be exploring lots of genres and be given a wide variety of writing opportunities.

Week 1 – We will be editing and improving our animal poem. Then we will be sequencing the story of ‘The Enormous Turnip’, then we will retell the story. Next we create our own version of ‘The Enormous Turnip’.
Week 2 we will be looking at poetry about the seaside and using rhyming words, repetition, similes, adjectives and prepositional phrases to make our own seaside themed poem.
Week 3 – we will be writing recounts of our Coppice beach day and thank you letters to Miss Early, Miss Harrison and Squirrel class for letting us borrow their outdoor space and their toys! Then we will start our new book ‘What the ladybird heard’ – we are going to be working on our choice of verbs and adjectives and then using these to innovate an exciting new part of the story!
Week 4 and 5 – The lighthouse keeper’s lunch – we are going to be rewriting the story to practise all our year one writing tools and then we are going to be innovating our own story and writing it. Will it be better than the original?
Week 6 – Flotsam – we are going to be writing character and setting descriptions thinking about our choice of sentence starters, adjectives and verbs.
Week 7 – Poems and Rhymes – A sailor went to see – We will be practising the skills needed to recite a poem from memory and then writing our own poems to perform.

Phonics

We will teach phonics to the whole class together and will run same day intervention sessions for children requiring further consolidation to help them to keep up.

Here are some helpful documents which we have shared before:

Twinkl Phonics Level 5 Information for parents

Meet the Level 5 Twinkl phonics family!

Letter formation guidance

Below we will attach parent information sheets which will explain the learning for each week in phonics so you can support your child at home.

Summer 2 Week 1 adding ing and er
Summer 2 Week 2 are ear saying air
Summer 2 Week 3 unspoken e
Summer 2 Week 4 ore saying or
Summer 2 Week 5 prefix un

Reading

In school we will listen to your child read their reading book at least once every week, please make sure that it is in school every day. Please support your child with reading by listening to them read regularly at home. Just a couple of pages every day makes a huge difference to their confidence. Remember to record on the Go read app or Boom reader website every time you hear your child read. Reading is the most important piece of homework you can do with your child at this age as reading is the key that unlocks all other areas of learning. To be successful writers, children first have to be confident and successful readers so your support is invaluable.

Helping with Literacy at Home

You can help your child at home by:

Practising common exception words - reading and spelling. Click here to view year one common exception words.
Talk about what they are learning in class that week.
Encourage your child to read out any writing they complete at home to check it makes sense.
Read with your child at least 3 times a week.

Please click here to see our year 1 literacy non-negotiables

Numeracy

In Maths our units are ‘Place Value within 100’ ‘Measurement-Money’ and ‘Measurement-Time’. The objectives we will looking at this half term are:

Counting from 50-100
Counting in 10s to 100
Partitioning in to tens and ones
Using the number line to 100
Working out 1 more and 1 less
Comparing numbers with the same number of tens
Unitising
Recognising coins
Recognising notes
Counting coins
Using the language of before and after
Knowing and ordering the days of the week
Knowing and ordering the months of the year
Understanding hours, minutes and seconds
Telling the time to the nearest hour (o’clock)
Telling the time to the nearest half an hour (o’clock)

Helping with maths at Home

Talking about the learning they have done in class.
Practise counting to 20 forwards and backwards
Practising counting in 2's, 5's and 10's
Practise recalling addition, subtraction and number facts to 10 and then to 20.
Encouraging your child to count - add money, count out objects, calculate how many will be left, estimate how many there are etc

Please click here to see our year 1 maths non-negotiables

Our Coppice CARE Values

C stands for: cooperation, committed and considerate

A stands for: accepting, aspirational and achieving

R stands for: respectful, responsible and resilience

E stands for: excellent, empathetic and enthusiastic

Each week we have a new value – 12 in total. The children will have an assembly Monday morning about how to show and give respect to others both in school and at home! We will be expecting this to be demonstrated to all members of our Coppice community. It is important that even when we move onto a new value, the old one isn’t lost.

Children can achieve their bronze, silver and gold awards for the core values awards throughout the year for each core value. We will of course keep you informed about how your child is getting on with this throughout the year.

Each week Mrs Seaton will send out a Newsletter that will reflect the value we are working on so that it can also be supported at home. We look forward to seeing our children bright and early ready to embrace the new weekly challenges!