Year 1

Class 1W is taught by Miss Warley and 1B is taught by Lara Beckett They are supported by Cathy and Angela.

Year 1 teachers can be contacted via year1@earlsfield.wandsworth.sch.uk

Summer Term 2026 Update

The Summer term is finally here and we have much to look forward to this term!

Our Topic covering Summer 1 and 2 is ‘Would you rather live in the city or the countryside?’. This half of the term we will focus on cities, exploring the capitals of the U.K. through learning about famous landmarks, and special features of each city such as food and music. We will also compare U.K. cities with Brazilia and learn about their world famous carnival. This will culminate with designing our own dream cities. After half term, we will then move onto the countryside, learning about some key human and physical features we may find there. We will also give the children an opportunity to experience the countryside first hand with our trip to Box Hill. We will then weigh up the pros and cons of both city and countryside and decide where we would rather live.

In English, we jump into the story ‘Traction Man’ by Mini Grey. We will learn how to make a comic book, creating our very own superheroes and villains and an exciting plot to go with them! We will then move onto ‘The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse’, to link with our Topic, and finally develop our researching skills to find information about animals and write poems about them. We will also continue to have daily phonics sessions either as a class or in small RWInc. groups.

In Summer 1 in Science, we will learn about sound, discovering how humans and different animals can hear, developing our diagram drawing skills and making musical instruments. We then finish the year with ‘Animals.’ We will be visited by our favourite Animal Man, Ranger Stu! He will bring a variety of weird and wonderful animals for us to meet! In lessons, we will learn about the different animal groups, along with different diets and habitats.

In Maths, we start the term counting in 2s, 5s and 10s and then use arrays to make groups and add groups. We will then move onto fractions, exploring halves and quarters of shapes and numbers and then finish the half term with position and direction, where we will be using positional language such as above, below, left and right. After half term, our topics are money and time and we will also be using our place value knowledge to explore numbers to 100. Please remember to continue to use Doodle Maths to support home learning.

We are incredibly fortunate to have lessons taught by our specialist teachers in Music and PE. We will continue to be taught Music by Mrs Hancock in the Music Studio on Friday. AM Sports will also lead our PE lesson each Friday and we will receive specialist gymnastics teaching from David on a Thursday (1W in Summer 1 and 1K in Summer 2).

We look forward to working with you to support the children with their reading development. Group Phonics will continue and we will share reading books and spelling words in your child’s pupil handbook. Please encourage your child to read and practise their spellings regularly.

Thank you to all parents and carers for your ongoing support to your teachers and your children. If you have any questions or queries please do not hesitate to email our Year 1 address

Key Learning

You can find out about our approach to all our subjects through subject specific pages but the headlines for the year group are below.

Reading

Children can understand what they read by:

I can apply phonic knowledge and skills to decode words
I can respond speedily with the correct sound to graphemes for all 40+ phonemes, including alternative sounds for graphemes
I can read accurately by blending sounds in unfamiliar words
I can read common exception words, noting unusual correspondences between spelling and sound and where these occur in the word
I can read words containing 's, es, ing, ed, er, est' endings
I can read other words of more than one syllable
I can read words with contractions e.g. I'm, I'll, we'll, and understand that the apostrophe represents the omitted letter(s)
I can read aloud accurately books that are consistent with their developing phonic knowledge and that do not require them to use other strategies to work out words
I can re-read books to build up my fluency and confidence in word reading

Children develop pleasure in reading, motivation to read, vocabulary and understanding by:

I can listen to and discuss a wide range of texts
I can link what I hear and read to my own experiences
I am becoming familiar with and retelling with key stories, fairy stories and traditional tales
I can recognise and joining in with predictable phrases
I can begin to appreciate and recite rhymes and poems
I can discuss word meanings, linking new meaning to those already known

Children understand both the books they read accurately and fluently and those they listen to by:

I can draw on what I already know or on background information and vocabulary provided by my teacher
I can discuss the significance of the title and events
I can make inferences on the basis of what is being said and done
I can predict what might happen on the basis of what has been read so far
I can participate in discussion about what is read to me, taking turns and listening to what others say
I can clearly explain my understanding of what is read to me
I can check that the text makes sense by correcting what I have read

Writing

Writing

I can write sentences in order to create short narratives and non-fiction texts
I can use some features of different text types (although these may not be consistent).
I can reread my writing to check that it makes sense and make suggested changes
I can use adjectives to describe.
I can use simple sentence structures.
I can use the joining word (conjunction) ‘and’ to link ideas and sentences
I have an awareness of and am beginning to use: capital letters for names, places, the days of the week and the personal pronoun ‘I’, finger spaces, full stops to end sentences, question marks, exclamation marks.

Spelling

I can spell most words containing previously taught phonemes and GPCs accurately.
I can spell most Y1 common exception words and days of the week accurately (from English Appendix 1).
I can use -s and -es to form regular plurals correctly.
I can use the prefix ‘un’.
I can add the suffixes –ing, -ed, -er and –est to root words (with no change to the root word).

Handwriting

I can write lower case and capital letters in the correct direction, starting and finishing in the right place with a good level of consistency.

Greater depth (working above the national expected standard)

I can write sentences in order to create short narratives and non-fiction texts that are consistent in their features and purpose.
I can use a number of features of different text types and make appropriate topic/ subject matter vocabulary choices
I can reread my writing to check that it makes sense and independently make changes.
I can use adjectives to describe (sometimes ambitious beyond the year group).
Can regularly make use of capital letters for names, places, the days of the week and the personal pronoun ‘I’, finger spaces, full stops to end sentences, question marks and exclamation marks.

Statutory spellings

Days to remember

Day	Activity
Monday
Tuesday	Homework handed in via Seesaw
Wednesday
Thursday	Spelling test PE with class teacher/ Gym with David ( Wear PE kit to school ) Homework sent home via Seesaw Hand in reading books and pupil handbook
Friday	PE with AM sports ( Wear PE kit to school ) New reading books and spelling words sent home with Pupil Handbook
Everyday	Home reading (banded reading or books from home) Optional Doodlemaths and English

Other things you need to know

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