Welcome to Class 1

Dear Parents and Pupils,

I hope that you all enjoyed the Easter Break and that you are all refreshed and ready for the summer term ahead.  
 
We have an exciting learning Context to start the summer term – Where we live!  
We hope to visit as many local attractions as possible and will be visiting Tullie House in a couple of weeks, details to follow! 
 
A couple of dates for your diary are – 
Thursday 4th June 2.30pm – Sports day  
Sunday 7th June 2pm – 4pm PTA Summer Fair 
 
In Art – We will explore colour matching, drawing and sketching plants and flowers and creating art in the style of Vincent van Gogh! 
In Design and Technology – We will be tasting and evaluating a range of soups, and we will design and make soup creating our own recipe cards. If time allows we will also investigate fruits and make fruit kebabs! 
In Computing - We will be using Word and searching the Internet to create an E-card. 
In Geography – We will be mapping gardens, locating places of interest in Carlisle and create a ‘Come to Carlisle’ guide!  
In History – We will learn all about the life of Beatrix Potter, and historical places of interest in Carlisle!  
In Science – We will be investigating how green plants grow, we will label parts of a flowering plant and we will investigate how water is transported through the stem.  
In Music – We will sing, explore quiet and loud sounds, we will continue to learn to play the glockenspiels.  
In PSHE - We will explore growing and changing, healthy relationships and celebrating diversity!
In Growing and Changing – We will think about things we can do now that we couldn’t when we were babies, think about how to look after a new baby, label external body parts and veins and find out how to keep privates private! 
In PE – We will learn how to play Cricket with Sam and football and multi-skills with Rowan! 
In RE – We will explore the origin of the universe and look at different creation stories.  
 
Routines  
All the routines will mostly remain the same, with the exception of PE, we will have Cricket on Wednesdays and Football on Fridays. 
Also, as the DFE have changed the guidelines about best practice for children under 5 and eating (preventing choking strategies), this means that children in Class One will have to be seated and in sight of a member of staff when eating. All this means is that the children in Class One can no longer buy snack to eat on the field at playtime, so we will give each child a biscuit or cracker with their morning fruit and milk whilst they are sat in the circle with a teacher. Therefore, children in class One no longer need snack money or purses in school.  
 
Homework and Reading.
Reception children
All children are well into the routine of reading at home every night. I really cannot stress how important reading is particularly at this early stage of learning. Reading feeds into everything else your child does at school. Please remember you do not have to finish the reading book, 5 or 10 minutes of reading the book, talking about the characters and what has happened in the story is the perfect amount of time. 

Year 1 children
All Year 1 children have reading books to read at home each night, and in addition, weekly homework and spellings to learn and practise. We will give out spellings and homework on Monday and ask for both to be returned to school by Friday. 
If any parent is free to come in to school to hear children read, please do speak to me.  
During the summer term some of the Year 6 pupils may come into class and hear our children read, all children concerned love this!

Communication.
Mrs Evans, Miss Simpson, Miss Jackson and I are always available for a chat at the start or the end of any day and we would urge you to come in and see us at your earliest convenience should you have any concerns, or questions about what is happening at school.  

Equally, should you need to speak to us on the telephone, or arrange an appointment to speak confidentially to us, please leave a message with Mrs Lawson and we will contact you as soon as we possibly can. You can email me directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. If there is no one in the main office, please leave a voicemail and we will get back to you as soon as possible.  

We are all really looking forward to the term ahead with your children and hope that they all enjoy the curriculum, visits and other exciting opportunities that we have planned for them. 

Yours sincerely,

Lynn Harrison. 

Headteacher