Welcome to Year 1

A Very Warm Welcome to Year 1

Welcome back to the second part of the Spring term 2026 from all the Year 1 team.
We are really excited to jump into teaching and learning with our amazing topic:

‘What animal are we?’

This half term we will be learning about animals. In Science, this will include identifying and naming a variety of common animals and comparing the structure of these. We will also be looking at animal diet, including carnivores, herbivores and carnivores. In Geography, we will also be learning about animals. This will focus on where animals live in the world, including the continents, seas and oceans. We will also be learning about the hot and cold places in the world and animals in different seasons. To support our topic, we will be visiting Twycross Zoo.

Our focus text this half term will be ‘Meerkat Mail' by Emily Gravett. We will be looking at the narrative and writing letters.

Over the half term, we will also be learning:

• Maths - Place Value to 50, Length & Height, Mass & Volume.
• Science - Animals, including humans.
• Computing - Grouping Data
• Geography - Animals around the world
• Art - Making birds (sculpture)
• RE - Special Books.
• PSHE - Health and Wellbeing
• Music - Football - Progression Snapshot
• PE - Hockey (Mrs Julian) and Tennis.
• Outdoor Learning

Key Dates for Spring 2

PE and Outdoor Learning

In the Spring, PE takes place EVERY Tuesday and alternate Mondays. Please see the following timetable:

As part of our commitment to ensuring all children are fully prepared for PE lessons, we kindly ask that your child brings in their PE kit at the start of each half term. The kit should be placed in a clearly named bag and left on their peg for the duration of the term.

PE kit consists of:

• Black shorts or jogging bottoms.
• White T-Shirt
• Trainers

In addition to PE kit, please ensure your child has a set of clothes for Outdoor Learning. These clothes should be ones that can get dirty and wet, as activities may include gardening, mud kitchen play and other hands-on learning experiences, in varying weather conditions. It's important that these clothes are durable and suitable for outdoor play and include a waterproof coat and wellies, when necessary. Please only send these on Outdoor Learning days and these will be sent home after the sessions.

Homework in Year 1

Reading - We ask that children read at home with somebody FIVE times a week and record this in the communication diary. This will support children to apply their phonics learning and develop their fluency and comprehension skills. Each half term, children will also be sent home with phonics sounds or words to practise.

Phonics support and pronunciations can be found: https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/essential-letters-and-sounds/

Spelling - Spellings will be sent home every Friday in the communication diaries for children to practise. This will support them to apply their phonics knowledge and develop their spelling of tricky words. This will also support their writing.

Maths - Please use Numbots at home to support children's number fact fluency. Logins can be found at the front of communication diaries and you can log in on computers, tablets or phones. This can be accessed using this link: https://play.numbots.com/#/account/school-login/23244

Knowledge Organisers

This is the key knowledge which children will learn in each subject. We will be using these at school to support the children and you can use these at home too.