Year 1
Welcome to the fun and exciting world of Year 1, where we take all the wonderful skills that the children have learnt in Early Years Foundation Stage and develop them as they start to experience the National Curriculum. We make learning as fun as possible, using a range of different teaching styles to make sure that all children are able to access new concepts and succeed in their learning. Year 1 promotes independence, responsibility and hard work - as well as lots of fun!!! Our aim is for the children to deepen their knowledge and understanding in a relaxed, exciting and engaging environment where we set them up to become enthusiastic, lifelong learners.
Year 1 is made up of three classes - Darwin, Earhart and Goodall. Like all classes in The Discovery School, the classes were named after a famous scientist or inventor. Darwin Class is named after the infamous naturalist Charles Darwin who discovered the theory of evolution, Earhart Class is named after Amelia Earhart, an inspirational scientist who studied electromagnetism, and Goodall Class is named after the world renowned scientist and conservationist Jane Goodall. Click on the images below to learn more about the namesake of our classes and what they are famous for.
I am Mrs Boulton, Darwin class teacher. Our teaching assistant is Mrs Downing who will lead PPA sessions on Thursday afternoons and we have Mrs Pylypenko working with us as a specialist teaching assistant.
We are situated in the KS1 end of the school next to Goodall Class.
Earhart Class is taught by Mrs Hook and the teaching assistant is Mrs Moore.
We are located at the end of the KS1 area between Darwin and Newton class.
Goodall Class is taught by Miss Roe, Mrs Catt is the class teaching assistant and Mrs Divall is a specialist teaching assistant in this class too.
We are located at the start of the KS1 area as the first classroom after the small hall.
Meet the Teacher presentation 2024
Below is a link for the Meet the Teacher Year 1 presentation from Monday 16th September 2024.
Communication
The communication between yourselves as parents and ourselves as teachers is paramount, so we thought it would be helpful if you knew when and how to liaise with us. It is best email us any messages. If you feel that you need to speak with us in person, please email to arrange an appointment.
Our email addresses are:
Darwin - Mrs Boulton - sboulton@discovery.kent.sch.uk
Earhart - Mrs Hook - bhook@discovery.kent.sch.uk
Goodall - Miss Roe - eroe@discovery.kent.sch.uk
Mrs Boulton is the Year 1 phase leader, as well as Assistant Head.
Please allow 48 hours for teacher to reply to emails. For all urgent messages or enquiries please call the school office on 01732847000.
Topics
The curriculum at The Discovery School is an enquiry based one in which the children are encouraged to ask and answer questions about a topic.
Through this enquiry based learning, the children will get the opportunities to experience a range of activities which will help to develop further their knowledge and skills of the wider world.
Year 1 Learning experience guarantees 2022-23
Throughout the year the children in Year 1 will be trying to discover the answers to these 'Questions for Discovery':
Term 1 - Family and Feelings - What makes a family?
We will starting this year with a brand new Year 1 topic, 'Family and feelings'. We will getting to know each other, talking about our families, discussing what makes a family and learning about different feelings and how we can manage them.
English - narrative and recounts.
Maths - place value, addition and subtraction.
PSHE - relationships, living the wider world, mental health and well-being
Science – seasonal change and animals including humans
PE
Our PE day for this academic year 2024/2025 will be Monday.
They will also be having 'Forest School' sessions throughout the school year
General information
Reading Books
Reading books will be changed on Monday and Thursday, two school books will be sent home each time. Therefore it is essential that your child’s yellow reading record book AND reading books are in school every Tuesday and Friday. Please record in your child's yellow book that they have read everyday even if it is just with a smiley face or a tick besides the date.
In addition to their regular school reading books, children will be able to chose a 'free choice' book from our class library to take home each Friday. These need to be returned the following Friday so that they are able to chose another.
Phonics
We believe that learning to read and establishing a love of books is an essential part of being a literacy learner. Therefore we value the importance phonics has in the development of early reading and early writing. In year 1 we deliver high quality daily phonics lessons using the FFT publications.
In phonics we want the children:
- To develop a good knowledge of phonemes and graphemes.
- To be able to blend phonemes to decode (read) a word.
- To be able to segment and blend to be able to spell a word.
- To be able to transfer the skills from phonics into everyday learning.
- To be confident with segmenting and blending pseudo (alien/made up) words in preparation for the statutory Year One phonics screen.
For more information please visit our phonics page.
Reading
The Reading Books in KS1 are an amalgamation of different reading schemes, for example; Oxford Reading Tree, Treetops, Rigby Stars and Floppy's Phonics. Reading in Year 1 can take the form of anything and doesn’t always have to be a school book.
You can read:
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Menus
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Road signs
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Maps
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Labels
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Cards
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Non-fiction books…to name but a few
It is important that children understand that reading words is everywhere…not just in their school books and should be enjoyable. We ask that you write in your child’s book every night to record that they have read, even if just with a smiley face or tick beside the date.
Our Homework
Please watch the Key Stage 1 Sway below to find out more about our Year 1 homework.
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