Year 1 - Discover a wrecked spaceship

Where is this term going? We have only 4 weeks until our Christmas performance which we promise will be a treat for you all. The children have been working hard to learn their lines and songs and we are grateful as always for your support. This really is a team effort.

It is vital we provide the children with an experience before we start any writing as this fires their imagination. A spaceship crashing in the school grounds has certainly grabbed their attention and provided them with lots of opportunities for collaborative work and creative ideas. How did it get there? Who was on board? And what exactly had Mr Phil seen in the playground after school? Year 1 set off to investigate with magnifying glasses, ipads (for photographic evidence) and whiteboards and pens to record clues and make predictions about what had happened.

They have a lot of unanswered questions which encourage imaginative writing using adjectives. We are reading the story of ‘Beegu’ by Alexis Deacon to consider how Beegu is feeling and develop empathy for the abandoned alien. In Learning for Life we are learning to explore and celebrate everyone’s similarities and differences.

The children’s numeracy skills are being developed using a combination of Power Maths and White Rose Maths. The children have been challenged with written number problems and an open ended Maths task which focussed on looking for patterns in number work. The importance of presenting work carefully and methodically has been a challenge for some, though it is an important life skill.

Finally, we would also like to thank all of the parents who came to the Curriculum Evening last Tuesday. It was a really positive evening for everyone and the Gateway Parents worked hard to complete the activities whilst discovering how hard their children work every day. We look forward to seeing you online for the Parent Consultations next week.