Year 1 have ended the year demonstrating the core values of Larchfield School; safe, responsible and respectful. We had a truly splendid day at Ruislip Lido. A big thank you is owed to Mrs Kearney and the office for organising the visit and to the many adults who accompanied us.  I am so very proud of each and every one of your children.

To the many parents who have sent messages, cards and gifts, I am deeply touched by your kind words. Have a wonderful summer with your families and please do come and tell me how your children are doing as they continue their learning adventures. 

Don't give up. I believe in you all. A person's a person no matter how small.

Love

Mrs Sugden

5.7.2024

Year One have really risen to some challenges this week. We have consolidated our understanding of division, using concrete apparatus and everyone feels more confident today than they did on Monday! We have learned a poem off by heart and so please ask your child to perform it to you! We have also used this poem as a scaffold for writing our own poems. I have attached a sample of them for you to enjoy. In RE we have explored how different people around the world view God and celebrated how we don't all believe the same thing. I was delighted that so many more people had read their reading book four times this week. As the weather was so wet today they will get their extra 5 minutes break on Monday!!

28.6.24

Despite the heat, Year 1 children have worked so very hard on their end of Year assessments. I am proud of each and every one of them and the progress they have made over this academic year. We have been learning about the country of Kenya and in doing so the children have found out that many children around the world miss school and have to walk for miles every day to collect water. When this is collected it is not clean and leads to many children becoming ill and sadly dying. They have talked about what they could do to help and I drew their attention to the work of Water Aid. They chose to dress up in their pyjamas for an hour in school and read most beautifully in the library. For the privilege of this task they paid £1 and I am pleased to say that I will be sending £30 to Water Aid this evening. Well done everyone!

13.6.2024

We joined Reception and Nursery finding out about how some of our families celebrate Eid ul Adha. We made cards and created a model of the Kaaba. This is the holiest site for Muslims and is a place they gather during the festival. We thought about how it would feel to have 3 million people gather in one place from all of the countries around the world. We marked this with multi coloured finger prints around our model of the Kaaba. We were so fortunate that Ilyas' Mummy and Layla's Mummy came and talked to us about how they celebrate Eid. They brought us some delicious fruit kebabs, cakes and party bags. A true celebration!

7.6.2024

A very busy week consolidating Phonics before the Phonic Screening begins next week. It was super to see how many children had read their phonics book four times. This week has been a little bit different because the children have been in charge of some of their learning. We have been finding out about being a child in Kenya and Year One were fascinated that Naresiah spends much of her time walking to a pump to collect water and then carrying it back to her home. We discussed different ways we could help children like Naresiah. I then showed them the work of Water Aid and they created different ways we could raise money for the charity. We voted and the clear winner was to bring our pyjamas into school on Thursday 27th June and spend the afternoon reading and enjoying our favourite books. To do this each child will bring in £1 or as Chase suggested, "loose change!" As a class we wrote to Mrs Kearney asking her permission and then Cora, Scarlett, Chase and Sebastian took the letter and discussed our plans with Mrs Kearney. The four children then reported the "Good News" to the rest of the class that Mrs Kearney had agreed the event could run!

We are really looking forward to our Celebration Day next Thursday where we will learn about Eid Ul Adha and of course there is the Father's day Scavenger Hunt on Friday. Life in Year One is never dull!!

24.5.2024

I am so very proud of these children who were able to correctly name all the continents of the world. I wonder how many continents they will visit over their life time ? Year One have worked incredibly hard over this half term and really deserve a week of sunshine, fun and relaxation. I cannot quite believe that I only have 8 more weeks of them before they move up to Year Two!

3.5.2024

Huge 'Pride in the Badge' today for how well Year 1 and Year 2 represented Larchfield when they visited Wellington Country Park. Their exemplary behaviour on the coach and at the market made all the staff very proud. The rain may have poured but we rode on a train, slid down slides, fed goats, sheep, alpacas and climbed up and down climbing equipment until exhausted we travelled back to school. Have a good rest Year 1 and we will talk about n=it lots and lots in the weeks to come.

26.4.2024

This week we really enjoyed Layla sharing her extensive knowledge of countries and flags! The children are still loving our new phonics scheme and many are reading their phonics books four times a week. We are all learning that multiplication is like repeated addition and we loved using the numicon to make 5 towers. I have given all the children TTRockstar log ins so that they can practice their x2,x 5 and x10 tables.

I can see those children who have already managed to log in!! 

Phonics, phonics and more phonics! We have begun our fabulous new Phonics Scheme, ELS. The children have loved learning the routines of the the lessons; recognising phonemes, robot arms, pointy reading fingers and writing. Today we partner read our books and your child will have brought home their first new phonics book. This they need to read 4 times before next Friday. We have also set up our own travel agents outside the classroom and talked about the continents of the world. The challenge has been set to learn the continents and name them correctly by half term. It was so lovely to meet many of you personally and discuss your child's progress and how best to support them. I think I have now spoken to everyone by phone who was unable to attend but please remember my door is always open if you have any concerns or delights that you wish to share with me. Together, we make a great team to help your child be the best they can be!

28.3.2024

The Easter Bonnet Parade was a fabulous end to a long and busy term. I am so proud of the progress all of the Year 1 children have made. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the parents and carers for your fantastic support. Together, we make a real difference to the children. I hope that you all have a wonderful break and that the children are refreshed and excited to return to school in April.

22.3.2024

Every week I sit here on a Friday and wonder how we managed to pack so much into school. It is certainly true of this week!Year 1 really enjoyed their fieldwork at Desborough Park. They found lots of positive features of the park with different sports pitches and several benches to sit down. They appreciated the host of golden daffodils but thought there should be other flowers for later in the year. They did notice 4 dog bins but sadly not everyone is using them. The children decided to design posters to encourage people to use the dog bins and then they wrote to the local MP to tell him what they had discovered. Today the children have completed our unit on The Bog Baby by Jeanne Willis. They wrote their own version of the story, using their tricky words and phonic word building skills to spell words. Today they have designed and made their own hand puppets. It was lovely to see how proud they were of the final product. Today we said goodbye to Miss Thandi and Miss Tavares who have completed their practice. They are set up to visit next term and Miss Thandi is kindly volunteering some time later in the year.

15.3.2024

Spring has really sprung in Year 1 as in Science we were looking at the signs of Spring in the outside world. We recorded the weather, far too much rain but a few glimpses of Spring sunshine did appear! We danced our away through different weathers and learned how to count the beats in the music. We are very lucky to have two student teachers working in our classroom at the moment and the children are loving the extra adult support. We have begun to explore and prepare for our visit to Desborough Park next week. The children have located the school on Google earth and then found a simple route to follow to walk to the Park. They have drawn simple maps and tried to give an aerial view. I do hope we can use these maps to get us safely to the park.

8.3.2024

Goodness me! Book week has been a busy one for Year 1. Mrs Cookson came to read us a story. We dressed up On Friday in our book character costumes. I am sure I have never seen so many Florence Nightingale's in one room! Thursday afternoon was very special as it was our Mother's day tea. The children have used the story Mum, by Anthony Browne as a scaffold to create their own Mum stories. I am sure you will agree this made a very precious card to keep in the memory box.

1.3.2024

I was so very proud of each and every member of Year 1 as they shared their learning in our Assembly this week. I know how hard they all worked to speak clearly and project their voices to the back of the hall. I am sure they convinced you that being in Year One, at Larchfield ,is the best place to be! We were joined this week by Miss Thandi and Miss Tavares who will be completing a block placement, from Reading University, in our class until the 22nd March. They are a huge asset, giving extra support to the Year One children. 

23.2.2024

We were so pleased to be back in school. We are very busy preparing for our Sharing Assembly next week and are looking forward to showing you how amazing we all are. We have been looking at the primary evidence of Florence Nightingale's life and making simple judgements about her contribution to the world. It was wonderful to see so many pieces of Home Learning coming into school. The children were proud to stand up and share what they have discovered and made.

This week culminated in the children organising a Toy Exhibition. They shared their non- fiction writing and decided how to group the toys and display them. It was wonderful to see and hear them explaining the exhibits to the Reception children and to so many parents who did attend.

It means a great deal to the children to support these events. I hope that you all have a wonderful half term break and that the children get some down time. We have so many events in the next few weeks to look forward to. 

Sharing Assembly 9am on the 29th February

Mother's Day Tea  7th March at 2.15 pm

2.2.2024

I have absolutely loved being back in the classroom. The children's welcome and the super work they have done has really helped me feel better! We have found out the main features of non - fiction texts this week and are very excited to be preparing writing for our Toy Exhibition. This will happen next Thursday at 3.15pm and I know the children are looking forward to sharing all their hard work. We have also discovered the work of Kandinsky. I wonder if your child can remember a fact about Kandinsky to share with you? Please make sure your child continues to read every night to you and that they learn their spellings. Every day writing is so much better than a hurried go on Tuesday evening! Please let me know if you are having difficulties with this and I can reinforce the message with your child.

12.1.2024

We have packed so much in to our first full week of school, for 2024! Year 1 have begun a dance unit based on toys. Some super wooden soldiers, aeroplanes and ballerinas were seen. The children gave good feedback to one another to help improve their moves. We are now writing our answers to our Guided Reading sessions. We explored different materials and debated whether wood was a suitable material for a car. Today we have tried to recreate colour mixing in the style of Mark Rothko. In ICT we learned what an Algorithm is. I wonder if your child remembers? In maths we are consolidating our understanding of numbers between 11-20. We identified how many tens and ones are in each number. Full stops are our big campaign in English. Ask your child to show you how they create a sentence orally and use the action for a full stop, before writing it down. Finally, Sam chose to make the Titanic!!

Spring Term 2024

Welcome back! Wishing Year 1 families a very Happy New Year! Year 1 have come back brilliantly; super focus and learning to become more independent as we raise our expectations.

Christmas

Despite coughs and colds and all sorts of germs, Year 1 had a fantastic Christmas at Larchfield School. Thank you to the PTFA for helping with the Christmas party!

Happy Diwali! We have had the most fantastic day!! We have joined with Reception and Nursery to tell the story associated with the festival. We have made Rangoli patterns, Diva lamps and Diwali Cards. 

10.11.2023

I am sorry for not posting for a couple of weeks. With the new server there seem to have been a few gremlins in the system! I am delighted we seem to be up and running once more.

This week the children have been learning the story Rama and Sita, ready to share with Nursery and Reception children on Monday. We are very excited about our Diwali Celebration day and I am look forward to seeing everyone in their celebration clothes. In Maths we have learned about Number families eg: 6+ 3 = 9

                                           3+ 6 = 9

                                           9 = 6+ 3

                                           9 = 3+ 6              small + small  = big            big = small + small

I would love to see the children trying this at home. 2 house points if any are brought to me. We continued the story of Guy Fawkes and welcomes to student teachers who will be assisting once a week in Year One. Most exciting of all was an afternoon making clay sculptures. Topped off with a shower of rain and a double rainbow. Exciting times are always had in Year One.

I am very grateful; to all the parents, who gave up their time to come and talk to me about how well their child is doing. Working as a team will ensure the very best outcomes for your child.

16th October. - National Week

Goodness me! What a busy start to National week! "It was incredible" reported Scarlett. 

6.10.2023

Another week has flown by and Year 1 continue to impress me with their great learning behaviours. This week we have begun drawn a story map for our Paddington bear story and learned actions so that we can order the key events. Everyone's handwriting is steadily improving and we have begun to write our Paddington Bear story. I am very pleased that more children are reading books on bug club. This huge online library is a fantastic resource that helps our phonics and reading skills. Make sure your child is logging on and reading all the books that are allocated to them. It was great to see some of you at the Maths workshop this week. If you were unable to make this and have any queries, please come and find me.

30.9.2023

Year 1 are really rising to the new curriculum challenges that are being set before them! We have been writing letters and taking part in our daily phonics and handwriting lessons. You will see in the school newsletter how we have been using concrete apparatus to support our understanding of 1 more and 1 less of a given number. In Science we have sorted animals according to what they eat. New words - omnivore, herbivore and carnivore. We are encouraging the children to log in to the ipads by themselves to access their reading bug books. Any extra practice that can be done at home, would greatly support your child in the classroom.

22nd September

Year 1 are really rising to the challenges in Year 1! They have been learning to log in to the ipads and access their reading bugs books all by themselves. We have been writing instructions for Paddington so that he can make marmalade sandwiches. I wonder if your child can remember the features of instruction writing? In mathematics we are counting 1 more than a given number. New word this week - Numeral.

The photographs are from our Science lesson. Here we were comparing the features of 2 animals. Can they fly? Do they have fur? Do they eat meat? How shall we sort them?

This week something very exciting has happened in Year 1! Just outside our classroom, a magical egg has hatched and a tiny blue dragon has joined our classroom. This dragon is going to help us learn about how to be use the best learning behaviours in our school day. We have also begun our Science unit on animals and a very tame pigeon joined us briefly and helped us discuss what all living things have in common. 

What a wonderful first day Year 1 have had. We sang songs, played games and shared news from the summer holidays, whilst sitting in the shade. We drank plenty of water and it was lovely that nearly everyone remembered their own water bottle. We have listened to a story in our new carpet area and begun to explore our classroom and outside learning areas. Every child has brought home their, 'All about Me' bag and I simply cannot wait until next Monday when you bring them back and talk to the class.