Welcome to Year 1!

The fabulous staff in Year 1 are Mrs Eksteen, Miss Longman, Mrs Colledge, Mrs Drinkwater, Miss Bigg, Mrs Yates and Miss North.

Latest News

We have finally had some sunshine at St Richards so to celebrate the end of phonics screening we have enjoyed some delicious ice lollies in the sun! The children have worked so hard during the phonics checks and all the Year 1 teachers are so proud of them all. Well done everyone! 

Summer 2 - Amazing Africa

As part of our topic, we were very lucky to experience an African drumming session with Mrs Sheward. She taught us all about how to use traditional drums and we learnt lots of different rhythms and beats. We also did some singing in Swahili, an African language, and learnt some dance moves to go with our songs. Some of us had a go at leading the drumming and we were so good at listening and copying the beats. 

Summer 1 - Dinosaurs

This half term year 1 have been set the challenge of making a habitat for their own mini dinosaurs. They worked fabulously in groups to think up their own dinosaur. They thought about whether it was a carnivore, a herbivore or an omnivore. Then they thought about what they would need in the habitat for their dinosaur to survive. The results were superb, well done everyone in year 1!

Spring 2 - Down on the farm

To launch our farm topic we were lucky enough to have a visit to Sandfield farm. We saw loads of farm animals including cows, pigs and chickens. Miss Longman's class got to explore the farm and do some pond dipping before lunch. Mrs Eksteen's class took a trip to the wood where they had to make the perfect home for their own farm animal. 

After lunch we got to play in the wood which was so much fun. We were all very adventurous and brave and had a fantastic day. We wish we could go again!

The children in year 1 have leapt into spring in a froggy fashion! Both classes are caring for some tremendous tadpoles! We have watched them grow from frogspawn to tadpoles and we are now waiting to see which class gets the first tadpole with legs! 

Spring 1 - Once Upon a Time

To launch our new topic 'Once Upon a Time', the children had a go at making fantastic castles out of recycled materials. They looked at real life castles first to see their designs and characteristics. They then worked in groups to make their own castle. They showed excellent teamwork skills and creativity and the end product was amazing! 

We have been planting their own magical beanstalks in Science. We carefully planted them in soil and gave them water, sunlight and love. We really hope that they grow as tall as Jack’s beanstalk in the story we have been reading! 

We are keeping a Bean Diary to track the changes in each of our beans so can’t wait to check on them each week. 

To finish our topic we had a fantastic medieval day. We dressed up in medieval clothes. Some of us were princesses, princes, kings, queens and knights. We had a super banquet and danced to medieval music. To top it off we had a knights melee with our swords. 

Autumn 2 - Three Little Pigs

We launched our new topic, The Three Little Pigs, by having a science investigation morning to find out which material would really be the best for a pig house. We worked together to build houses out of straw, sticks and bricks. Suddenly, a big bad wolf appeared! He must have smelt our little piggies and tried his best to blow down our houses. He managed to get two of them, the straw and stick house pigs, but inside our brick house the final pig was safe. The wolf was so angry that he couldn't get the last pig that he ran away, huffing and puffing. 

To finish off our first term the children performed their nativity play. It was a fantastic play where all of the children had a part to play in telling the story of the birth of Jesus. Here is a video of some year 1 children practicing one of the songs from our nativity.

Autumn 1 - All About Me

To launch our first year 1 topic, we brought some very special friends into our new classrooms. Our favourite teddies came to school!

We had a great day with them acting our different stories and writing fabulous descriptions about them. Later on in the week we are going to write stories featuring our special friends as the main characters!

Here are some pictures of us having a great time with our cuddly buddies!

This term in Year 1 something very strange happened. One Tuesday morning we came in to find all sorts of scared vegetables taped up around the classroom and in the shared area. We worked hard to solve the mystery of who did this to these poor veggies!

On Thursday we had our trip to the church to celebrate harvest festival. Our teachers were SO impressed with how sensible we all were. We saw lots of vegetables that had been donated to the church, but still no sign of Supertato...

On Friday we came into our classrooms to find that Supertato had read our writing asking for help. He had freed the poor veggies! Later in the day, Mr Ridlinton was showing round a special visitor. It was Evil Pea! He was angry that we had foiled his evil plan but Mr Ridlinton sent him on his way and told him to never come back.