Welcome to Year 1

We are pleased to provide you with important information about what your child learns during their time in Year 1.

You will find below a snapshot overview of what your child will learn across the curriculum throughout the academic year  in Year 1. You will also find links to home learning and a curriculum overview for parents, which will explore learning for this term in more detail.

If you would like to find out more about what your child learns in each subject across the school (including exploring our curriculum vision and aims), you can access our curriculum and subject area pages here. 

Good to Know... Our Curriculum

Our St Nicholas Curriculum is designed around our children, our community – our context. We have developed our approach around the vision and aims we devised, which were connected and reflected by what our children want and need.

Learning in Year 1

Good to Know... Learning Enquiry Questions

Many aspects of our curriculum at St Nicholas are centered around a Learning Enquiry Question. This supports us with our mission and commitment to instilling a true sense of intellectual curiosity, awe and wonder! Please do discuss and explore these questions with your child.

Little Wandle Phonics

At St Nicholas, we implement Little Wandle as our approach for teaching Phonics (letters and the sounds they make). This ensures your child recieves a progressive, consistent and high-quality structure for the teaching of reading.

As well as reading books that are sent home to match your child’s reading journey in school, access is also provided to online eBooks (please see link below to the Collins Big Cat eBook Library).

Good to Know... Phonics Screening Check

The Phonics Screening Check is a test for children in Year 1 at St Nicholas. Children take it during June in a one-to-one setting with a teacher. This is usually their class teacher, but it could also be the headteacher or another teacher who knows the child well.

Whilst children learn phonics to help them with both word reading and spelling, the Phonics Screening Check only tests their skills at word reading. This is sometimes called decoding.

During the Phonics Screening Check, children are asked to read (decode) 40 words. Most of these words are real words but some are pseudo-words. Pseudo-words are included to ensure that children are using their decoding skills and not just relying on their memory of words they’ve read before. Because some children may misread these pseudo-words based on their similarity to words in their existing vocabulary, each pseudo-word is clearly identified with an image of an alien. Most teachers and children, therefore, refer to pseudo-words as alien words.

Useful Links for Children

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