School Year 2025 - 2026

I’m Miss Maksoud and I am so excited to be your teacher this year! Mrs Harris, Mrs Bailes and I can’t wait to welcome you into our classroom and we have been busy getting everything ready just for you.

This term, we’re going on a magical adventure to answer our big question: “What wonders lie in the enchanted wood?” Together, we’ll explore, discover, create and learn through lots of fun activities. 

Please have a look at our overview for the term down below, to get a sneak peak at the nice things we have planned for Autumn term!

Please read the letter below for general housekeeping and important days of the week, this letter will also be sent home in your childs homework book.

Spellings for the term

Here are the spellings for your child’s group for this term. If your child is away on a Friday when the spelling books are handed out, they’ll be given theirs on the following Monday. In the meantime, you’re welcome to use the document above to practise the spellings for the week ahead.

Eco Council and School Council Year 1 Members

Children in Need

In Year 1, we have brain breaks three times a day. On Friday, Pudsey helped us with our brain break so we were moving our bodies and resting our minds while thinking of ways we can help those in need.

Odd Socks day

English

We are now learning how to write a non-fiction information text. We began by exploring a variety of non-fiction books and discussing what we liked about them. We then learnt a non-fiction text about a squirrel and used this to help us create a tool kit. This tool kit tells us everything we may include to write a fantastic spotters guide. Now, we are adapting the squirrel spotters guide to write about another animal... a hedgehog!!

Geography

We have built on our learning of human and physical features and talked about the importance of maps and why they exist. The children have been working hard to draw from a birds eye view and create their own enchanted wood map with a key. They have worked so hard and critiqued their maps to make them even better. Miss. maksoud would love to go to all of these enchanted woods, they are very magical! 

We have started to learn about compass direction and the importance of knowing NESW. We decided the mnemonic Naughty Elephants Squirt Water will help us to remember the four compass directions. We then had a task of locating the 7 magical areas in the classroom using compass directions so that we knew which direction to face and did not get lost.

Maths

We have been working so hard to develop our understanding of addition and subtraction within 10. We love working in partners and using tens frames, part part wholes and number lines to support our understanding.

Art

We have been learning about the artist and sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. Year 1 have explored and discussed pictures of Andy Goldsworthys art, collected their own natural materials and organised these based on material while talking about their colour, shape and texture! Next, Year 1 designed their sculpture, made this and critiqued it ready for the final design this week.

Science

Today we became botanists! We observed and discussed the parts of a flowering plant using magnifying glasses and talked in our groups about what we could see. We also discussed the functions of the parts of the plant and why some of the flowering plants looked different to the others.

Wow Year 1, your science homework was amazing! It was fantastic to hear you name all the different types of leaves you found and even better to see that some of you had collected them to show everyone. 

Talk 4 writing

We have started our very first writing unit of the term! This term, we are learning how to write poems that describe a character, and the fun part is that our friends will then try to guess who the poem is about.

In our writing, we are practising using capital letters at the start of our sentences, leaving finger spaces between our words, finishing sentences with full stops, and remembering to use the personal pronoun ‘I’.  We are so excited to share our poems, our writing is going to be amazing!

We have been busy developing our vocabulary to describe how a character moves and choosing the best words to use in our adapted text map. Together, we created a toolkit full of ideas to help us write our very own character description poem. Using this, we had a go at adapting the Gruffalo poem – but instead of describing the Gruffalo, we focused on a different character from the story.

Can you guess which character we chose?

Handwriting

This week we practiced long ladder letters in rice, we enjoyed using this sensory resource to practice our letter formation.

Read write inc. Phonics QR codes to videos

Help Your Child Shine in Reading and Spelling! 

Please scan the QR codes in the PDFs above to watch Read write inc. phonics fun Set 2 and Set 3 Speed Sounds videos, along with fun Challenge videos. Each video is just 5–10 minutes long and packed with simple, effective ways to boost your child's reading and spelling skills. Watching one video a day will be very beneficial for your childs learning.

Your encouragement makes a big difference!

Thank you for being such an important part of your child’s learning journey. 

DT

This term, Year 1 have been busy learning all about sandwiches! We began by conducting market research by finding out about every teachers favourite fillings. 

We then thought about how to make healthy choices, learning about different food groups and considering how people eat in different ways. Each child designed their own healthy sandwich, choosing bread, fillings and fruit or vegetables.

Finally, the children followed hygiene and safety rules to prepare and make their sandwiches, using tools carefully to chop, grate and spread. They finished by trying and evaluating their creations on our trip to Wyville Woods, a delicious way to put their learning into practice!

Science

In Science, we’ve started our new learning all about plants. First, we discovered what a plant actually is and learned the names of the different parts – like the stem, leaves, flowers and roots – and what each part does.

Then, we put on our detective hats and went on a plant hunt around the school grounds! Working with our partners, we spotted the different parts of plants in real life and talked about how they help the plant to grow. Year 1 were amazing plant detectives and had so much fun exploring the nature all around us.

In science we have learnt about different wild and common plants and we got to spot these on a science walk through Harlaxton. We also learnt the difference between deciduous and evergreen trees and spotted these too.

Trip to Wyville Woods

The children had a wonderful morning at Wyville Woods! To begin, everyone made their own special bracelet so we could enter Sneezy’s Wood. We then tiptoed through the trees, exploring together.

Next, we split into small groups to take on different adventures – some went into the lair, others built fairy homes, and many enjoyed exploring the trees.

At the end of our woodland fun, we all came back together in the shelter to eat our sandwiches we planned and made in DT and enjoyed The Stick Man by Julia Donaldson.

It was a magical morning full of adventure!

Geography

Today in Geography, Year 1 turned into Local Explorers! We set off around Harlaxton on a very important mission – to spot Physical features (the natural things, like trees and flowers) and Human features (the things people have made, like houses and shops).

We wore our special Local Explorer stickers so everyone knew we were busy doing an important job. With our clipboards and pencils at the ready, we ticked off all the features we could see, just like real geographers!

The children loved discovering what was around us and did an amazing job spotting the differences between the physical and human features of our village.

Music

Our first unit in music is Animals, we have developed how we respond to a song with movement, performed a chant using voices of contrasting pitches (high and low pitch) and explored animal sounds in appropriate vocal pitches. We were cows, monkeys, robins, cats and mice!

Core practice 

Every afternoon after lunch, we take part in core practice. This helps us to calm our bodies and minds, ready for our afternoon learning. We love asking each other how core practice makes us feel and sharing our thoughts. Each day, two children are chosen as mindfulness leaders to help guide the session. Together, we listen to calm music and practise deep breathing—breathing in through our noses and out through our mouths.

Links to useful websites:

Purple Mash (login in their homework book)

https://www.purplemash.com/harlaxton

Classroom Secrets Kids - interactive resources on a range of subjects (you will need to create a free account)

kids.classroomsecrets.co.uk

Number Blocks

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/help-your-child-with-maths

Online stories

https://stories.audible.com/start-listen

Nature Detectives - lots of activities to complete outside

http://www.treetoolsforschools.org.uk/menu/?_ga=2.73059734.420977765.1584712954-758495858.1584712954

Some different activities to complete outside

https://www.scouts.org.uk/the-great-indoors/

PE Activities

https://www.nhs.uk/10-minute-shake-up/shake-ups

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/supermovers

Leader in Me

On a daily basis, the children try to demonstrate our core values within school. As we aim to practice them so often, they become good habits that we can use not only in school but also at home too. 

• Habit 1: Be Proactive (You’re in Charge)
• Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind (Have a Plan)
• Habit 3: Put First Things First (Work First, Then Play)
• Habit 4: Think Win-Win (Everyone Can Win)
• Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood(Listen Before You Talk)
• Habit 6: Synergise (Together Is Better)
• Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw (Balance Feels Best)