Curriculum

Reading

As a school we have a passion for reading and we try to bring this alive in our Year 1 classroom. To deliver Phonics we follow “Letters and Sounds”, we deliver this daily and within Year 1 the children range from developing in Phase 2 to secure Phase 5. In Year 1 children undertake the Phonics Screening Assessment in June. At Bransty we ensure the children and parents are familiar with the check and introduce these regularly into our teaching via games and activities. Please click here to see the 2019 paper. The pass mark since 2012 has been 32 out of 40.

In Year 1 we also have a focus on letter names and we encourage the children to verbally spell words using these once they are confident with their phonetic sounds. We use a visual rainbow for the children to follow the letters and we also introduce the vocabulary of vowels and consonants as this supports the new learning of aspects such as split diagraphs.

Alongside our CUSP planning and support (referred to in curriculum section of our class page) we use Talk for Writing strategies in Year 1 to support the children with the planning and breakdown of writing, this reflects practice from our Nursery and Reception classes. This is a very visual process which has great impact on the children and it can be used for both fiction and non-fiction texts.

Writing

Alongside our CUSP planning and support (referred to in curriculum section of our class page) we use Talk for Writing strategies in Year 1 to support the children with the planning and breakdown of writing, this reflects practice from our Nursery and Reception classes. This is a very visual process which has great impact on the children and it can be used for both fiction and non-fiction texts.

Maths

Maths is everywhere! Alongside our daily Maths sessions we are always on the hunt to introduce Maths through other aspects of our classroom and daily routine, from collecting data of when our birthdays are to subtracting during the register. Also throughout the week we encourage the children to practice their number bonds to 10 in order to gain fluency and a solid foundation as they move through school, this is also encouraged at home as we have lots of different ideas and activities we share with parents and carers.

The organisation of our yearly overview is as follows:

We teach Phonics, English and Maths daily

Science, P.E, PSHE, Music and R.E weekly 

We teach 3 lessons of Computing, History and Geography on a 3 weekly cycle (e.g. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday we have computing sessions, the following week on those days we would focus on Geography)

We also introduce the spoken language of French in Year 1. This is not introduced into the National Curriculum until Year 3 however we learn aspects such as greeting, months of the year and numbers in Year 1 and the children really engage in it and we encourage the use of this in any daily opportunities we can.