Year 1 Curriculum outline Autumn 2021
Year 1 Curriculum Outline Autumn 2021 What is your superpower? ~ Around the World Play based learning - Continuous Provision Our Year 1 children will continue to learn through a play based learning curriculum as they did in Early Years. There is plenty of evidence that young children learn and develop best through play. A broad and balanced curriculum is offered to our pupils. Your children will have plenty of opportunities to drive their own curiosity and be encouraged to continue being an independent learner through our continuous provision. The Year 1 environments are rich and diverse with resources. There are plenty of hands-on experiences and a close relationship with their teachers and Teaching and Learning Assistants (TLAs) with regular
guided groups to maximise individual learning. Input can be tailored to both support and challenge individuals to cater for their learning needs. Our continuous provision set up enables high engagement and maintains independence in learning.
Humanities - Social Understanding Which continent do we live in? Could you name the five oceans? In the second half term pupils will be exploring geographical skills linked to the new topic ‘Around the world’. They will use their own experiences as well as texts, technicology, and the wonder of Google earth to discover more on towns, villages, beaches and even oceans! Pupils will learn how weather varies and the relationship between the Poles, the Equator and weather. Pupils will learn the importance of climate and influence this has on all the super animals we discover about in the first half term. How can we become Climate Heroes? In our RS work this term, pupils will be learning more about Christianity and Judaism. The children will explore different festivals that each religion celebrates, focusing on Christmas, Harvest, and Sukkot.
Language and Communication In English, pupils are introduced to a range of fiction and non-fiction genres which are thematically linked to provide a meaningful context. Pupils will begin with exploring labels and captions; identifying what they are and understanding their purpose. Pupils have the opportunity to write labels and captions for a range facts from around the world. Our first fiction unit will be fantasy stories related to superheroes such as “Juniper Jupiter” by Lizzy Stewart will encourage a love of listening to and reading stories. Pupils will initially read the story together as a class with the teacher (shared reading). They will then internalise the story (retelling it by acting it out, using puppets, recording themselves retelling it or drawing story maps) so they are confident with the structure, events and language. Through shared writing and modelling with the class teacher, the pupils will have an opportunity to create sentences using their own experiences to consolidate sentence structure including capital letters, spacing and punctuation. The non-fiction recounts unit introduces pupils to facts about the world. This will allow them to become more confident writers in a variety of genres and build on what they have learnt about sentence structure in our first half term. The final unit this term will be poetry. Pupils will read and discuss a range of poems from around the world. They will learn about other cultures through listening and exploring poetry related to places, animals, foods and people. In addition pupils will be following the Read, Write, Inc. (RWI) daily programme which is a robust and fast-paced scheme teaching them to read and use sounds accurately through an
understanding of phonics, underpinned by regular practice. RWI supports development in phonics, reading and writing. The primary focus for Modern Language lessons is on listening and speaking. The pupils will learn through a range of songs, stories, rhymes and games and they will have plenty of opportunities to learn about pronunciation and have a go at tricky sounds. In French, pupils will revise key phrases and numbers. In line with the theme of food, pupils will revise and expand knowledge of fruits and look at food words that are the same or similar in French and English. Pupils will discover French-speaking countries from around the world and look at key greetings used for special occasions. In Spanish this term will focus on revisiting greetings, colours and some numbers. We will learn about family members reading some stories like The Goldilocks and the 3 bears as well as sea creatures reading The Rainbow fish. We will also learn some Halloween vocabulary and we will talk about Christmas traditions in Spain and Hispanic countries.
Mathematical Understanding The first topic is place value (within 10). Pupils will sort, count and represent objects, and compare and order numbers. They will count, read and write, forwards and backwards, from any number between 0 and 10 and count one more and one less. They will be introduced to the language and symbols of equal, more/greater than, less/fewer and look at number lines and how these can be used to deepen our learning and understanding of number placement. The next topic is addition and subtraction (within 10) which will include addition and subtraction facts, finding and comparing number bonds within and to 10, the symbols and language of addition and subtraction. When they look at shape, pupils will be asked to recognise, name, and sort both 2D and 3D shapes and look for patterns in the structure of different shapes. Pupils will then revisit place value but, this time, within 20. Pupils will count forwards and backwards, and write numbers to 20 in numerals and words, look at numbers from 11 to 20, count one more and one less, and compare and order these larger numbers. The final topic will be geometry where pupils will look at position and direction. This will include describing turns such as quarter, half, full and three quarters as well as language associated with directions such as left, right, in between and above.
Physical Education and Well-being For PE this term, the pupils will be taking part in gymnastics, learning about different shapes and balances in which they will then perform a series of routines in front of the class. At Dame Bradbury’s this is known as Big Gym. For their games session, they will be learning multiskills; these lessons will focus on balance, changing direction, catching/throwing and
finding space. After half term, pupils will then be introduced to small sided invasion games to help develop team building, understanding of scoring, attacking/defending and possession. In PSHEE, pupils will have the opportunity to consider what it feels like to be in a new situation and how to cope with that, and to develop strategies for helping people who arrive new to the school. They will develop their own ‘Safety Circle’, identifying trusted adults at home and at school whom they can ask for help and support. They will also learn about and be able to describe what a friend is and does, recognising the diversity in friendship and strategies for coping with difficult situations in friendships. They will also focus on family relationships, identifying who is in their own family and what is special about them, and what they and other family members do to care for each other. The pupils will also discuss online safety and know what to do if they are worried about anything online. This year, we will have a regular, dedicated focus on mental health and wellbeing. Some of these lessons will use the iSpace Wellbeing curriculum. Each iSpace lesson will start with a story which is used as an active teaching tool to explore the topics. This term the lesson topics are ‘The Niggle’ (which looks at worries and how to deal with them), ‘How to Play’ (using our imaginations) and ‘The Bully’ (recognising bullying & how to stop it).
Forest School is a superb way for our pupils to learn holistically through play and exploration, following their own curiosity. Pupils learn to connect with their environment, manage risks and use their initiative to solve problems and cooperate with others whilst developing their resilience, creativity, confidence, and independence skills. This term they will be reconnecting with our Forest School site, establishing boundaries and focusing on what helps us stay safe in the Forest. We will also be visiting a new site for the foundation and getting to know the new environment through the use of nature walks and observation activities. Pupils will be learning fire safety and tool talks, safe use of ropes and discussing how we would like to develop our site over the next term. Pupils will be learning about fruit trees and seeds, and which animals eat the fruit. Pupils will be foraging for edible fruits e.g. elderberries, sloes, blackberries, rose hips and Hawthorne. Pupils will also be using their own “stick” paint brushes and making paint using the berries.
Creative and Performing Arts Superheroes move very fast! . In Create Design and Engineering pupils will be discovering how the use of a ‘slider’ mechanism can make a picture of our superhero move. After exploring and evaluating different books, including those with pop-ups, we shall plan our own design. We will be learning how to use tools safely, measuring, marking out and cutting cardboard to make our own moving pictures. In Learn Plan Do Review pupils have the opportunity to lead and direct their own learning inspired by a skill we have learnt. Over a four session cycle the pupils will firstly Learn an exciting new skill; Perhaps colour mixing, cutting cardboard, threading a needle, or finding out what a rocket really looks like. They then go on to plan how they wish to apply this, which may be digitally via a video or using pictures, words and labels. In the third session, it is Do
day. On this day, the pupils execute their Plan. Often the pupils link their creation to our theme, but it is up to them. Then it is the final session which is the pupils’ Review, this is where they reflect on how their project went, this may be a discussion, a video or a written statement. This helps inform the pupils next Do based on what they may want to learn next. In Music, pupils continue to sing familiar songs as well as extending their repertoire. They will learn the difference between pulse and rhythm, how to tap and feel both, and how to “catch” the pulse of a piece of music. After half term, pupils will learn about pitch, and identify the high and the low notes in a song. Pupils will transfer this knowledge onto pitched percussion instruments.
Scientific Understanding As part of our first half term topic ‘What is your superpower?’ pupils will recognise that our bodies are super. They will learn to identify their body parts and the five senses. We will use first hand experiences to explore what things feel, sound, and smell like. Pupils will also learn to identify a variety of common animals that are carnivores, herbivores and omnivores as well as comparing the special features of different animal types. They will use simple information sources to answer questions.
Digital
The Inner Wheel With the Google apps at the heart of digital curation our pupils use Google Classroom to complete work digitally and hand in work that is produced in a variety of ways. We have identified 7 main apps, our EverGreen apps, that help to showcase our pupils’ learning. An animation, movie or annotated piece of work provides richer feedback for the teacher and ultimately helps to make greater progress.
Explain Everything www.explaineverything.com Green Screen www.doink.com Stop Motion www.cateater.com Strip Design www.vividapps.com/Strip_Designer/ Notability www.gingerlabs.com Book Creator www.bookcreator.com Puppet Pals www.polishedplay.com The Outer Wheel We have a number of apps that we use consistently throughout our curriculum that lend themselves to our creative approach. We avoid apps that are specific to a particular outcome, preferring content free apps that can help to enhance our pupils work and understanding. Some examples are: Minecraft, iMovie, KeyNote, Pages and Padlet.
Coding Another aspect of our digital curriculum is the coding/programming skills that are embedded in all subjects or taught discretely in Years 5 and 6. We have identified a progression of apps that help to develop our pupils’ ability to code. The apps provide variety and challenge and help to develop the computation skills that are crucial learning in our digital work. We combine the coding experiences with physical output. Using Spheros, BBC Micro:Bits and Ozobots provides visual outcomes that bring our code to life. As our pupils develop further they transition on to written code.
Thinking Toolkit
Alongside and underpinning our curriculum we ensure that our pupils are developing as active learners and active thinkers. Throughout each subject area pupils are encouraged to use their range of thinking tools and reflect on when and how they are using them. Pupils are encouraged to reflect on how their thinking tools underpin all aspects of their learning and not just in the more obvious ways. How are they creative in maths? How do they enquire in English? How are they critical in Music? How do they think computationally in PE?
Inclusion This curriculum map outlines the core curriculum for each year group each term but at the heart of our wheel is the individual learner. Each subject area has a progression of skills which enables staff to stretch or support individuals as and when they need a little help, a bit of a push or a just a different way in. Within our classrooms through planning, teacher knowledge and interactions work is differentiated to suit the needs of each individual.