Year 1

Welcome to Year 1!

We are so happy that you are here and hope that you enjoy finding out about our learning journey along with being kept up to date with important events. Please follow us on 'X'  @LeasowesPrimary for more updates on our learning.

Summer Term

Hello and welcome back Year 1! We are in our final term...can you believe it? The year seems to be whizzing by. This term is extremely exciting because we begin our Explorers and Journeys Unit. This is a History and Geography combined unit of learning and over the weeks we will be learning about significant explorers through History and the journeys they went on through Geography. We will be learning about Christopher Columbus and his voyage to America, Robert Scott and his travels to Antarctica, Neil Armstrong and his discovery of the moon, and Helan Thayer and her journey across the Sahara Desert. In Science, we will be learning about Animals including Humans. This covers the senses, the parts of the human body and we learn about the different categories of animals and how to classify them. PSHE and RE links to friendships. In Art, we will be exploring the work of David McEwon. He travels to remote areas in the world and captures them through his paintings. In English, we will be exploring a variety of texts linked to exploring, adventures, Antarctica and the Sahara Desert.

Spring Term

In Spring 1, we embarked on our history unit 'Fantastic Females' The amount of knowledge that the children learnt about Mary Seacole, Florence Nightingale and Alice Hawkins truly blew us away! In Spring 2, we moved on to geography where we compared our local forest Cannock Chase to the Amazon Rainforest. The children have thought about the physical and human features that we would find in both forests and compared what is similar and different. The children realised that whilst they are both still forests, the location in the world dictates the different climates and therefore the different plants and wildlife there. They couldn't believe that there were pink river dolphins living there! The children have also been learning about the impacts of deforestation and wildfires on the Amazon. They showed such maturity when reflecting on this. Linked to our learning in geography, in English, the children learnt how to write descriptions. This was inspired by our class texts 'Into the Forest' by Anthony Browne and 'The Tin Forest' by Helen Ward. 

In Science, the children worked hard to build on their learning from Reception to learn more about plants. They can now name all the different parts of a tree, can recognise evergreen and deciduous trees and have begun to recognise different types of trees. They can name the structure of flowering plants and the function of some of their different parts such as the stem, leaves, roots and flower. They also learnt a little about Beatrix Potter. Children planted their own beans and looked after them by ensuring they had sunlight, air and water. As scientists, we learnt that even with the perfect conditions, some plants will grow better than others. We enjoyed making observations of our plants over time: practising our working scientifically skills. 

In art, children created some wonderful collages based on Vashti Harrison. In D&T, we loved inviting parents into school for our family learning event to make puppets as part of our textiles unit. Children designed, made and evaluated a woodland puppet and had to decide on their joining methods e.g. sewing, gluing, stapling or using safety pins.

November 2025

Can you believe we are in the second half of Autumn Term already? Time clearly flies when you are learning hard and having fun! The Year 1 children have come back ready to learn and eager to challenge themselves this half term. Our value for this half term is 'courage' and the children have already shown that they are pushing themselves in their work and having the courage to challenge themselves further. 

Over the last couple of weeks we have been writing letters in English. This is linked to the story of Paddington. We have also been learning about money in Maths. If there are any opportunities outside of school for the children to use money in real contexts, that would really help them to secure their recognition of coins and understand their value. In Science, we are continuing with our unit on Materials. This half term, we focus more on enquiry and investigation, after spending last half term recognising materials and their properties. We have investigated waterproof materials and then progressed to the 'Egg Drop' enquiry where children had to try and protect the eggs from cracking when dropped from a height by wrapping it in a choice of materials. In the 'Save the Superhero' enquiry, the children had to investigate which materials would float or sink so they could design a buoyancy aid for their superhero character. 

Below you will find our 'Beyond the Classroom' pages for our educational visit and geography fieldwork.

As always, we are available each morning and evening at the door if you need to speak to us. 

Mrs Till and Mr Edensor

Autumn Term 2025

Welcome back everyone! We hope you have all had a fantastic Summer break and are excited for the year ahead. We cannot wait to welcome you all into Year 1 life. 

Please find attached the Autumn timetable for both classes. We cannot wait to share some of their learning with you on our year group page and on X! As always, we are available each morning and after school at the door if you need to speak to us. 

Mrs Till and Mr Edensor

Snacks

In Year 1, children are able to choose a piece of fruit or are invited to bring in a healthy snack from home for morning breaktime. There is no milk or afternoon snack as in reception. 

The staff for each class this year are:

1T

Mrs Till (Class Teacher)

Miss Harrison (Teaching Assistant)

1E

Mr Edensor (Class Teacher)

Mrs Bailey (Teaching Assistant)

Reading in Year 1

The children in Year 1 will attend a phonics lesson every day with a teacher or teaching assistant from across the KS1 team.

Tuesday: Children receive a new phonics book from their phonics teacher based on the sounds being taught.

Friday: Children return their phonics reading book to school. They have a spelling test in their phonics group based on the sounds learnt in the previous week. Each Friday, new spellings will be stuck in the front of the spelling test book, and the spellings from the previous week will be tested in the back. Please do not use these exercise books to practise at home.

Monday and Thursday: The children will also receive a colour-banded reading book from their class teacher. Reading diaries will be checked by teaching assistants on Mondays and Thursdays. Children are able to change their reading book daily upon request.

Key Information:

PE: Tuesday and Friday

Important dates for your diary: 

Phonics Screening Check: Week beginning 8th June – it can take place at any day within that week

KS1 Sports Day: 24th June 9:15am

The school calendar on website is updated regularly (under Parent News – please check)