Autumn 2 2022

Welcome back Year 1! We hope you have had a lovely half term, spent with your family and friends.

This half term the children have chosen “Home and Away” as their topic. We have lots of exciting learning planned, based around our book “Dear Polar Bear”. Take a look at our class newsletter for details of our topic.

Collective Worship

Week 1
This week our virtue for Collective Worship has been “Prayer”. During collective worship each day we have reflected on why we pray, who we pray to and what we say when we pray. We have joined together in prayer and collective worship to observe the Holy Day of Obligation on November 1st, All Saints Day. We reflected on and spent some time thinking about how we can honour the Saints.

Week 2
This week we have focused on remembrance. Throughout the week we have been thinking of those who have fought for our country and continue to do so today. We have given thanks to God for looking after those people and their families. On Friday at 11am we took part in a 2min silence to remember those who have lost their lives.

Advent 

This week we have began advent. We have explored the ways in which we count down and look forward to Jesus’s birth. The children talked about their chocolate advent calendars and how many sleeps it was until Christmas day. We then explored another way of counting down through the advent wreath. We learnt what each coloured candle represents and the order in which they are lite on each Sunday of December and then on Christmas day.

 

 

RE

This half term our topic is “Mary our Mother”.

We have started our learning journey by reflecting on what we already know about Mary from our work on “God’s Family” in FS2. The children recalled that Mary was Jesus’s Mother and that God was Jesus’s Daddy. They also understood Joseph’s role as Jesus’s earth daddy.

The children also knew that Mary was visited by an angel to tell her that she had been chosen by God. They also remembered that Mary was there when Jesus died on the cross.

From this we revisited Angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary and consider how she may have felt after his visit. To support us with this we did some hot seating that helped us to understand Mary’s perspective.

This week we read Luke 1: 39-45 and learnt about Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth. The children listened carefully and we discussed what a promise was. The children then answered questions about the Bible story in order to further their understanding. This learning included making their own promises to God. It was fantastic to hear so many children make promises linked to looking after God’s world and those within it.

Today we turned our focus to the Christmas Nativity story from the Bible and Mary’s crucial role in it. The children have been working hard on their nativity performance “Woops a daisy angel” and have used this to help develop their understanding of the true meaning of Christmas. The children have enjoyed sequencing the story and re-telling it in groups along with writing about each section, identifying the important people and their roles. 

English

Reading for Pleasure

We are encouraging the children to develop a love of reading and encouraging them to explore a range of different authors and poets. This half term, our key author is Michael Bond, who wrote the Paddington stories. The children are enjoying the quiet space and enjoying reading stories in our Author Corner!

We are learning some facts about Michael Bond and the children were impressed with the fact that he wrote every day from 9 o’clock even on Christmas day!

 

 

Our key poet this half term is A.A. Milne and we are practising reciting the poem Now we are Six.

Our English Learning Journey

We have started our English learning by really getting to know our book – Dear Polar Bear. We have listened to the story and made predictions about what might happen next. This also linked to our Geography learning about the Artic and Antarctica. Using our Word Aware approach, we explored new vocabulary and decided on our worthy words. We have also explored the characters in the books and the key events, through drawing, role play and hotseating!

The children are making us so proud with their attitude towards their learning and applying all the skills that they have been taught. We are aiming for writing in the past tense as well as the present tense, so we have been had some active Burn to Learn sessions understanding how to turn regular verbs into the past tense by adding an -ed suffix. The children have shown a lot of resilience to try to understand this tricky SPAG concept! We practised matching verbs to their past tense version. Also, we went outside and listened to a present tense sentence such as “I am hopping across the playground” then we acted it out in present tense. When we got back to the fence, we said the sentence in the past tense “I hopped across the playground.” It was great fun and fabulous to be active and burn some energy during out English lesson! We hopped, jumped, skipped, walked and sprinted across the playground – some of us are very competitive! We then practised writing the past tense sentences on whiteboards.

In preparation for writing their diary entries the children have also been exploring adjectives to add detail to their writing. We have played B2L games where the children have had to sort nouns and adjectives and then use them to write silly sentences. The children have then begun to apply this in their own writing.

This week we have been planning our diary entries. First we drew what we would want to do if all our bear friends came to visit us. We then put this into a three part plan that we will use next week to write our diary entry.

 

Maths

This half term we are focusing on addition and subtraction. We are starting our learning by focusing on number bonds to 10. This week we focused on knowing all number bonds for all numbers between 1 and 10. We did this practically before recording it in part, part whole models. Once we are confident with this fluency aspect of our learning we will move on to varied fluency, exploring how number bonds can be represented in different ways.

This week we have been furthering our understanding of number bonds, solving problems with number bonds for numbers 0-20. This has required perseverance and resilience to take on new challenges and succeed.

 

We revisited doubling from FS2. We recalled what we had learnt in FS2 and then extended our learning, getting confident with our mental arithmetic skills.

Our learning journey has continued and we have been practising halving. We have done this with concrete objects and mentally in Burn 2 Learn sessions. We are trying hard to understand the relationship between doubling and halving.

 

Science

This half term, our learning in Science is all about animals! We have been exploring the groups that animals are classified into and discussing the definitions of these groups. The animal groups we learned are; mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, insects and amphibians. We were active in our learning and worked together to classify pictures of animals into the groups. We showed resilience and had interesting discussions about some of the animals, showing excellent reasoning and hypothesising skills. For example;

“I think a penguin is a mammal because it hasn’t got feathers.” 

“I think a penguin is a bird because it’s babies come out of eggs.”

“This must be a mammal because it drinks it’s mummy’s milk – I’ve seen it at the farm” (talking about a piglet)

 

Reading around the subject

As you can see from the photos below, we have also been reading around the subject of animals and finding out lots of interesting facts in books! The children were extremely enthusiastic about this task and showed that they are developing their lifelong love of reading and developing their understanding of the importance of books to find out information.

Classification of animals

Year 1 have been learning the characteristics of each animal group, using this very fun song! As you can see, the children love it and it’s really helping them remember the animal groups as well as characteristics of the animals in each group.

have fun teaching animal classification song – Bing video

Animal Groups

We have continued our learning about animal groups by classifying different pictures and photographs of animals. We linked our maths skills with science, by making a giant bar chart of the animals after we had sorted them. We then counted them in 1s and 2s and practised writing the total. The children are now really good at classifying animals into their groups. The children then applied their knowledge by working to sort their own pictures. This linked with DT, as the children cut out their pictures to practise cutting skills.

Topic

Art

This half term we are focusing on the work of Henri Matisse, a French artist who is famous for both is paintings and collages.

This week we had an introduction to Henri Matisse’s life and work. We made connections to our French learning that the children began last half term. I was very impressed with how confidently the children have picked up key French phrases as part of this learning and facts that they already knew about Paris where Matisee was born. The children then looked at Matisee’s work, commenting on the colours and shapes. They then gave their opinions on his works, stating what they preferred and why.

Today we focused on collage, Henri Mattisse is famous for his collages that he started later in life after initially preferring paintings. The children learnt how to collage using ripped up pieces of paper and arranging them together to create an image. To practice this skill the children created collage poppies linked to remembrance day.

Now the children have had experiences of collage, they are going to begin to think about creating their own linked to our focus book “Dear Polar Bear”. The children have each carefully thought about the colours, shapes and design that they are going to create and put it into a design plan ready to create next week.

This week the children have created their arctic inspired collages. The children carefully chose their materials linked to their plan and used their collage skills to create their image. The children thoroughly enjoyed creating their own collages and showed fantastic concentration and pride in their work.

To complete our art project for this half term the children have evaluated their art work, considering things they may change in their pieces of art if they were to do them again and giving their opinions on their favourite aspects.

Computing

This half term we wil be focusing on coding. We will use Scratch Junior to do this, creating characters and settings in which the children can put instructions in to bring the stories to life.

The children have shown excellent understanding of the app Scratch Junior. We began by recapping online safety. We discussed how to turn the iPads on, how to handle them carefully and how to find the correct App. Once we had all loaded up the app, we met our first little character – the cat! We learned what coding is and how to give the cat an algorithm. We all practised and then found it very funny when our cats moved across the screens, went up and down and even some of them seemed to do a little dance! We then learned how to add a different background to our screens in Scratch, so we had cats in space, cats at the farm, cats playing basketball! The children showed a lot of resilience when they couldn’t make the cat do what they wanted it to and also took turns, shared and encouraged each other in their learning.

Our learning journey has continued by adding more detail to our backgrounds and characters. We worked in pairs and gave each other feedback on how to make our animations better!

 

Geography

To begin our Geography learning this half term, we have been exploring photographs that our parents have kindly sent in from home, of our first hand prior experience of Wetherby, Leeds and the Yorkshire Dales. Our learning is focusing on exploring places and looking at the similarities and differences between the places. Here’s some photographs of us sorting our pictures and enjoying sharing our own experiences with our friends. We were active in our learning and discussed the photographs with lots of enthusiasm!

Our learning journey has continued and we have been using the geographical enquiry skill of interpreting maps and globes. We were very excited to find the Artic circle and Antarctica on a light up globe and we couldn’t believe how small the UK was! We then located the equator and discussed how the countries near the equator have hotter climates than the Artic and Antarctica. We completed a reading around the subject session to find countries that were near the equator.

 

History

To launch our history learning this half term, we went on a trip to Ilkley Toy Museum. We investigated a large range of toys and explored the museum. We completed a picture quiz and had a toy handling session. This was a great first hand experience for all of us! A wonderful link from our Geography to our History learning, was a game that we found in the Toy Museum – a game called Au Pole Antarctica. We learned about Roald Amundsen who reached the South Pole in 1911, just a month before Captain Scott.

 

Back in school, we have used our prior first hand experience from the toy museum, as well as investigating toys that our parents and grandparents played with (that we have brought in from home). We have compared toys from 100 years ago to toys now and we have been learning to understand why toys have changed. We have learned that in the 1920s, children played with toys that were linked to war: aeroplanes, trains, soldiers and horses. We have been placing pictures of these toys on a timeline and learning the meaning of chronological order.

 

Music

Our song this half term links to our prior learning in RE about the story of Noah, our learning in Maths about addition and our Science learning about animals. We have been learning the song “The Animals went in 2 by 2”. We are learning to remember the words to the song, the order of the animals and we have been practising clapping, patting and tapping a steady beat. The children have been showing a lot of enjoyment when warming up their voices and joining in with all the words to songs.

We have continued to learn to sing the song and are trying hard to remember all the words! We are learning some new words in music. These are;

dynamics                         pitch

We have been clapping the beat and then we used instruments to add play the beat, using different dynamics. It was lots of fun! We have also been learning how to play and sing at different pitches – high and low.

Our music learning has continued, with a focus on beat and rhythm. We have been practising playing the steady beat of our focus song, including speeding it up and slowing it down. We have learned that the beat of a song is the pulse, like a heartbeat that goes all the way through the song and doesn’t change. We have then compared this to the rhythm and practised playing a short section of a rhythm to begin to understand the basics of rhythm. We worked in pairs to draw the instrument we wanted to play, to a short section of the song, then we practised singing and playing the rhythm. The children love playing instruments and are really stepping up to the challenge in year 1 of playing short rhythmic patterns, rather than exploring instruments like they did in FS2!

 

 

 
 

 

MFL

Following on from our greetings song where we heard the numbers 0-5 in French last half term, we have been focusing on learning all numbers 0-10. First we practiced saying them individually before applying them into a song.

Today we continued to develop our confidence naming numbers 0-10 in order. We counted both forwards and backwards and had a go at naming the numbers in French out of number order.

We have continued our learning journey with numbers in French and recapping greetings. We had a fun and active Burn 2 Learn session where we said the number in French, opened the advent calendar flap and then practised saying hello and goodbye in French – greetings that we have previously learned. We then cut out numbers, said them to a partner in French, out of sequence and then stuck them on a Christmas tree! We then tested our understanding and sang the French numbers song, pointing to the numbers on our Christmas tree as we sang!

 

PSHE

We have revisited Pants are Private and then linked this to our learning about Good Touch, Bad Touch. The children were active in their learning, learning about ‘personal space’ and practising saying “no, I don’t like it’. We learned about what to do and who to talk to if something happened to us that made us feel uncomfortable or unhappy.

Road Safety

We enjoyed a fun and interactive road safety workshop. We took part in rhymes, songs and poems to learn how to keep safe when walking near a road and cars. We revisited the important messages of wearing a seatbelt when we’re in the car, holding an adult’s hand when we’re on a pavement/road and making sure that we;

STOP, LOOK, LISTEN and THINK

Visit from Wetherby Fire Brigade!

We had a visit from the fire fighters at Wetherby Fire Station to learn about fire safety, what to do in a fire emergency and how to reach the emergency services. We learned that fire fighters will fit smoke alarms in your house and the importance of smoke alarms. We learned about STOP, DROP, ROLL if our clothes ever catch fire and practised! The firefighters show us their specialist equipment that they use in fires and in smoke. We discussed that men and women can be firefighters and how to become a firefighter! We also had great fun exploring the fire engine and squirting the hose!

Visit from the Mayor of Wetherby

We had a visit from the Mayor of Wetherby, Neil, who came to talk to us in school about his role as Mayor, how he became the Mayor and the important things he does to support the town of Wetherby through the town council. Mayor Neil talked to us about he became the Mayor and told the children that he was elected and appointed Mayor during the pandemic which meant he was brought in as Mayor over zoom, and his wife had to place his chains on him, instead of having this done during a ceremony with the council. The Mayor talked to us about democracy and inclusion in the local community. He shared that he is passionate about making a difference and shared that he knows that the children at St Joseph’s are also passionate about making a difference too. The children asked lots of thoughtful questions and were extremely interested. Some questions they asked were:

  • What do you like best about your role?
  • What does your role involve?
  • How much do you get paid for this very important job?

The children were shocked to learn that being a Mayor is a voluntary role meaning he doesn’t get paid anything for this very important role. In fact, the Mayor also has another job that he gets paid for where he works hard to keep children safe. The Mayor shared that he most enjoys going out in the community, especially visiting schools because he believes children are the future of our community. The Mayor shared that because of covid, he wasn’t able to carry out his work in the local community, so his term has been extended for one year, which is very rare. The Mayor shared how pleased he was that he was able to do this and that his term will end shortly after the Coronation of the King, something that he is really looking forward to.

Our school councillors then had an opportunity to speak to him further, ask him any questions they had and even try on his Mayor chain. This visit supported our learning about the British Values, about democracy as the Mayor is voted for and elected, about Individual Liberty – having the freedom of choice and how the Mayor can support this in our town and so much more! It was an exciting morning to welcome such an important member of our local community into our school. Thank you to our Mayor of Wetherby for visiting St Joseph’s! We look forward to welcoming you back to our school in the future.

Anti Bullying Week: Reach out

This week in school it has been Anti–Bullying week. We kick started the week with odd socks day to emphasise our school saying of “We are all the same but we are all different”. We also had an Anti–Bullying assembly where we introduced the theme for this year which is “Reach out”. We explored what bullying is using STOP: Several Times on Purpose and emphasised the importance of telling others STOP: Start Telling Other People. We looked at different bulling scenarios both in person and online and explored what was happening and what could be done about it. We also explored Protected Characteristics, learning what they are that it means that it is against the law to discriminate against any of them.

Protected Characteristics: Gender

We have been learning about the Protected Characteristics and equality. We discussed various statements such as:

Boys can only be firefighters

Shorts are for boys

Girls can only use nail polish

The children impressed us with their understanding of fairness and equality, showing good understanding of what is right and wrong. We then created posters to show our understanding!

Y1 Live Simply Eco Project: Bird Feeders

Today we had a very exciting workshop with Mrs Phillips! Mrs Phillips came to share with us our whole school Live Simply eco project to help our local environment. In Year 1 our focus is on supporting local birds, particularly in the winter months by creating bird feeders to our gardens and school grounds. The children learnt about the different types of bird seed and what birds like at certain times of the year and their importance in seed growth.

The children then learnt a range of new skills, including measuring wool, threading a needle and how to sew a pattern in order to decorate the bird feeders. The children showed fantastic concentration, resilience and perseverance as many of them learnt brand new skills. We were so impressed!

British Value: Rule of Law

We have continued to learn about the different British Values and this half term we have focused on the ‘rule of law.’ We have learned why it is important that we follow the rules in our school and we understand the consequences of our actions. We have looked at why everyone should live by and obey the rules that are in place in society. As part of our learning, during Inspiring You week, we had a visit from a Police Officer, who talked to us about why it is important to follow the rules that are in place and how his job is to enforce the law to keep everybody safe. 

 

 

 

PE

This week we have been focusing on our football skills, specifically passing a ball with accuracy. To warm up the children worked in pairs, copying each others movements and then stretches. Once warmed up the children passed their ball to a partner with the side of their foot, aiming to hit the cone.

This week we have been focusing on our control of a ball. The children worked in pairs to travel with a tennis ball and then throw underarm and catch it with  partner at various distances. The children had to think about the force at which they threw the ball depending on distance and making sure that they threw it with accuracy so their partner was able to catch it.

Inspiring You Week!

This week the children have enjoyed a dance workshop as part of Inspiring you week. Kayleigh from Flex came in to speak to the children about her love for dance, the different types of dances she does and what dance has done for her throughout her life. The children then enjoyed a street dance workshop where they learnt a routine and performed it to music. 

Autumn 2 2022

Welcome back Year 1! We hope you have had a lovely half term, spent with your family and friends.

This half term the children have chosen “Home and Away” as their topic. We have lots of exciting learning planned, based around our book “Dear Polar Bear”. Take a look at our class newsletter for details of our topic.

Collective Worship

Week 1
This week our virtue for Collective Worship has been “Prayer”. During collective worship each day we have reflected on why we pray, who we pray to and what we say when we pray. We have joined together in prayer and collective worship to observe the Holy Day of Obligation on November 1st, All Saints Day. We reflected on and spent some time thinking about how we can honour the Saints.

Week 2
This week we have focused on remembrance. Throughout the week we have been thinking of those who have fought for our country and continue to do so today. We have given thanks to God for looking after those people and their families. On Friday at 11am we took part in a 2min silence to remember those who have lost their lives.

 

 

RE

This half term our topic is “Mary our Mother”.

We have started our learning journey by reflecting on what we already know about Mary from our work on “God’s Family” in FS2. The children recalled that Mary was Jesus’s Mother and that God was Jesus’s Daddy. They also understood Joseph’s role as Jesus’s earth daddy.

The children also knew that Mary was visited by an angel to tell her that she had been chosen by God. They also remembered that Mary was there when Jesus died on the cross.

From this we revisited Angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary and consider how she may have felt after his visit. To support us with this we did some hot seating that helped us to understand Mary’s perspective.

Week 3
This week we read Luke 1: 39-45 and learnt about Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth. The children listened carefully and we discussed what a promise was. The children then answered questions about the Bible story in order to further their understanding. This learning included making their own promises to God. It was fantastic to hear so many children make promises linked to looking after God’s world and those within it.

English

Reading for Pleasure

We are encouraging the children to develop a love of reading and encouraging them to explore a range of different authors and poets. This half term, our key author is Michael Bond, who wrote the Paddington stories. The children are enjoying the quiet space and enjoying reading stories in our Author Corner!

We are learning some facts about Michael Bond and the children were impressed with the fact that he wrote every day from 9 o’clock even on Christmas day!

 

 

Our key poet this half term is A.A. Milne and we are practising reciting the poem Now we are Six.

Our English Learning Journey

We have started our English learning by really getting to know our book – Dear Polar Bear. We have listened to the story and made predictions about what might happen next. This also linked to our Geography learning about the Artic and Antarctica. Using our Word Aware approach, we explored new vocabulary and decided on our worthy words. We have also explored the characters in the books and the key events, through drawing, role play and hotseating!

The children are making us so proud with their attitude towards their learning and applying all the skills that they have been taught. We are aiming for writing in the past tense as well as the present tense, so we have been had some active Burn to Learn sessions understanding how to turn regular verbs into the past tense by adding an -ed suffix. The children have shown a lot of resilience to try to understand this tricky SPAG concept! We practised matching verbs to their past tense version. Also, we went outside and listened to a present tense sentence such as “I am hopping across the playground” then we acted it out in present tense. When we got back to the fence, we said the sentence in the past tense “I hopped across the playground.” It was great fun and fabulous to be active and burn some energy during out English lesson! We hopped, jumped, skipped, walked and sprinted across the playground – some of us are very competitive! We then practised writing the past tense sentences on whiteboards.

In preparation for writing their diary entries the children have also been exploring adjectives to add detail to their writing. We have played B2L games where the children have had to sort nouns and adjectives and then use them to write silly sentences. The children have then begun to apply this in their own writing.

This week we have been planning our diary entries. First we drew what we would want to do if all our bear friends came to visit us. We then put this into a three part plan that we will use next week to write our diary entry.

Maths

This half term we are focusing on addition and subtraction. We are starting our learning by focusing on number bonds to 10. This week we focused on knowing all number bonds for all numbers between 1 and 10. We did this practically before recording it in part, part whole models. Once we are confident with this fluency aspect of our learning we will move on to varied fluency, exploring how number bonds can be represented in different ways.

This week we have been furthering our understanding of number bonds, solving problems with number bonds for numbers 0-20. This has required perseverance and resilience to take on new challenges and succeed.

 

Today we revisited doubling from FS2. We recalled what we had learnt in FS2 and then extended our learning, getting confident with our mental arithmetic skills.

 

Science

This half term, our learning in Science is all about animals! We have been exploring the groups that animals are classified into and discussing the definitions of these groups. The animal groups we learned are; mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, insects and amphibians. We were active in our learning and worked together to classify pictures of animals into the groups. We showed resilience and had interesting discussions about some of the animals, showing excellent reasoning and hypothesising skills. For example;

“I think a penguin is a mammal because it hasn’t got feathers.” 

“I think a penguin is a bird because it’s babies come out of eggs.”

“This must be a mammal because it drinks it’s mummy’s milk – I’ve seen it at the farm” (talking about a piglet)

 

Reading around the subject

As you can see from the photos below, we have also been reading around the subject of animals and finding out lots of interesting facts in books! The children were extremely enthusiastic about this task and showed that they are developing their lifelong love of reading and developing their understanding of the importance of books to find out information.

Classification of animals

Year 1 have been learning the characteristics of each animal group, using this very fun song!

have fun teaching animal classification song – Bing video

Topic

Art

This half term we are focusing on the work of Henri Matisse, a French artist who is famous for both is paintings and collages.

This week we had an introduction to Henri Matisse’s life and work. We made connections to our French learning that the children began last half term. I was very impressed with how confidently the children have picked up key French phrases as part of this learning and facts that they already knew about Paris where Matisee was born. The children then looked at Matisee’s work, commenting on the colours and shapes. They then gave their opinions on his works, stating what they preferred and why.

Computing

This half term we wil be focusing on coding. We will use Scratch Junior to do this, creating characters and settings in which the children can put instructions in to bring the stories to life.

The children have shown excellent understanding of the app Scratch Junior. We began by recapping online safety. We discussed how to turn the iPads on, how to handle them carefully and how to find the correct App. Once we had all loaded up the app, we met our first little character – the cat! We learned what coding is and how to give the cat an algorithm. We all practised and then found it very funny when our cats moved across the screens, went up and down and even some of them seemed to do a little dance! We then learned how to add a different background to our screens in Scratch, so we had cats in space, cats at the farm, cats playing basketball! The children showed a lot of resilience when they couldn’t make the cat do what they wanted it to and also took turns, shared and encouraged each other in their learning.

 

Geography

To begin our Geography learning this half term, we have been exploring photographs that our parents have kindly sent in from home, of our first hand prior experience of Wetherby, Leeds and the Yorkshire Dales. Our learning is focusing on exploring places and looking at the similarities and differences between the places. Here’s some photographs of us sorting our pictures and enjoying sharing our own experiences with our friends. We were active in our learning and discussed the photographs with lots of enthusiasm!

Our learning journey has continued and we have been using the geographical enquiry skill of interpreting maps and globes. We were very excited to find the Artic circle and Antarctica on a light up globe and we couldn’t believe how small the UK was! We then located the equator and discussed how the countries near the equator have hotter climates than the Artic and Antarctica. We completed a reading around the subject session to find countries that were near the equator.

 

History

To launch our history learning this half term, we went on a trip to Ilkley Toy Museum. We investigated a large range of toys and explored the museum. We completed a picture quiz and had a toy handling session. This was a great first hand experience for all of us!

Music

Our song this half term links to our prior learning in RE about the story of Noah, our learning in Maths about addition and our Science learning about animals. We have been learning the song “The Animals went in 2 by 2”. We are learning to remember the words to the song, the order of the animals and we have been practising clapping, patting and tapping a steady beat. The children have been showing a lot of enjoyment when warming up their voices and joining in with all the words to songs.

We have continued to learn to sing the song and are trying hard to remember all the words! We are learning some new words in music. These are;

dynamics                         pitch

We have been clapping the beat and then we used instruments to add play the beat, using different dynamics. It was lots of fun! We have also been learning how to play and sing at different pitches – high and low.

 

 

MFL

Following on from our greetings song where we heard the numbers 0-5 in French last half term, we have been focusing on learning all numbers 0-10. First we practiced saying them individually before applying them into a song.

Today we continued to develop our confidence naming numbers 0-10 in order. We counted both forwards and backwards and had a go at naming the numbers in French out of number order.

 

PSHE

We have revisited Pants are Private and then linked this to our learning about Good Touch, Bad Touch. The children were active in their learning, learning about ‘personal space’ and practising saying “no, I don’t like it’. We learned about what to do and who to talk to if something happened to us that made us feel uncomfortable or unhappy.

Road Safety

We enjoyed a fun and interactive road safety workshop. We took part in rhymes, songs and poems to learn how to keep safe when walking near a road and cars. We revisited the important messages of wearing a seatbelt when we’re in the car, holding an adult’s hand when we’re on a pavement/road and making sure that we;

STOP, LOOK, LISTEN and THINK

Visit from Wetherby Fire Brigade!

We had a visit from the fire fighters at Wetherby Fire Station to learn about fire safety, what to do in a fire emergency and how to reach the emergency services. We learned that fire fighters will fit smoke alarms in your house and the importance of smoke alarms. We learned about STOP, DROP, ROLL if our clothes ever catch fire and practised! The firefighters show us their specialist equipment that they use in fires and in smoke. We discussed that men and women can be firefighters and how to become a firefighter! We also had great fun exploring the fire engine and squirting the hose!

Visit from the Mayor of Wetherby

We had a visit from the Mayor of Wetherby, Neil, who came to talk to us in school about his role as Mayor, how he became the Mayor and the important things he does to support the town of Wetherby through the town council. Mayor Neil talked to us about he became the Mayor and told the children that he was elected and appointed Mayor during the pandemic which meant he was brought in as Mayor over zoom, and his wife had to place his chains on him, instead of having this done during a ceremony with the council. The Mayor talked to us about democracy and inclusion in the local community. He shared that he is passionate about making a difference and shared that he knows that the children at St Joseph’s are also passionate about making a difference too. The children asked lots of thoughtful questions and were extremely interested. Some questions they asked were:

  • What do you like best about your role?
  • What does your role involve?
  • How much do you get paid for this very important job?

The children were shocked to learn that being a Mayor is a voluntary role meaning he doesn’t get paid anything for this very important role. In fact, the Mayor also has another job that he gets paid for where he works hard to keep children safe. The Mayor shared that he most enjoys going out in the community, especially visiting schools because he believes children are the future of our community. The Mayor shared that because of covid, he wasn’t able to carry out his work in the local community, so his term has been extended for one year, which is very rare. The Mayor shared how pleased he was that he was able to do this and that his term will end shortly after the Coronation of the King, something that he is really looking forward to.

Our school councillors then had an opportunity to speak to him further, ask him any questions they had and even try on his Mayor chain. This visit supported our learning about the British Values, about democracy as the Mayor is voted for and elected, about Individual Liberty – having the freedom of choice and how the Mayor can support this in our town and so much more! It was an exciting morning to welcome such an important member of our local community into our school. Thank you to our Mayor of Wetherby for visiting St Joseph’s! We look forward to welcoming you back to our school in the future.

Anti Bullying Week: Reach out

This week in school it has been Anti–Bullying week. We kick started the week with odd socks day to emphasise our school saying of “We are all the same but we are all different”. We also had an Anti–Bullying assembly where we introduced the theme for this year which is “Reach out”. We explored what bullying is using STOP: Several Times on Purpose and emphasised the importance of telling others STOP: Start Telling Other People. We looked at different bulling scenarios both in person and online and explored what was happening and what could be done about it. We also explored Protected Characteristics, learning what they are that it means that it is against the law to discriminate against any of them.

Protected Characteristics: Gender

We have been learning about the Protected Characteristics and equality. We discussed various statements such as:

Boys can only be firefighters

Shorts are for boys

Girls can only use nail polish

The children impressed us with their understanding of fairness and equality, showing good understanding of what is right and wrong. We then created posters to show our understanding!

Y1 Eco Project: Bird Feeders

Today we had a very exciting workshop with Mrs Phillips! Mrs Phillips came to share with us our whole school eco project to help our local environment. In Year 1 our focus is on supporting local birds, particularly in the winter months by creating bird feeders to our gardens and school grounds. The children learnt about the different types of bird seed and what birds like at certain times of the year and their importance in seed growth.

The children then learnt a range of new skills, including measuring wool, threading a needle and how to sew a pattern in order to decorate the bird feeders. The children showed fantastic concentration, resilience and perseverance as many of them learnt brand new skills. We were so impressed!

 

 

 

PE

This week we have been focusing on our football skills, specifically passing a ball with accuracy. To warm up the children worked in pairs, copying each others movements and then stretches. Once warmed up the children passed their ball to a partner with the side of their foot, aiming to hit the cone.

This week we have been focusing on our control of a ball. The children worked in pairs to travel with a tennis ball and then throw underarm and catch it with  partner at various distances. The children had to think about the force at which they threw the ball depending on distance and making sure that they threw it with accuracy so their partner was able to catch it.