Year 1
Autumn 2025
Welcome to our Year 1 webpage! This is where we will be posting important updates, dates for your diary, homework information and photos of what we’ve been learning in school.
Class 1B’s teacher is Miss Beardsmore and Class 1G’s teacher is Mr Gillin. We are lucky to have the support of our wonderful LSAs, Miss Harris, Miss Serridge and Mrs Graham, across the year group too.
Phonics Family Learning Event – Friday 10th October
Downloads of each resource in the booklet are available below:
Little Wandle Programme Progression
Year 1 handbook
Click here to download our Year 1 handbook, with useful information included.
What are we learning?
Click here to download this term’s learning overview.
PE Lessons
Our PE days are Wednesday and Thursday each week. Please therefore ensure your child comes to school in their PE kit on these days. Thank you!
Belongings
Children should bring the following into school every day:
– a coat and bag (labelled clearly with their name)
– a water bottle (labelled clearly with their name)
– their school reading book and reading record
As we are focusing on developing the children’s independence and sense of responsibility, please remind your child that they are responsible for looking after their belongings. We thank you for your continued support with this.
Homework in Year 1 consists of three parts.
Reading. We encourage your children to read with a grownup as many times as possible throughout the week. Please let us know how your child is getting on, including any sounds or words they struggled with, in their reading record. The phonetically decodable books are specially designed to rehearse and practise sounds that they already know. This might mean they appear slightly ‘easy’. This is a good thing! This means that your child is confident with blending their sounds and will lead to quick and efficient reading later down the line. Our intention is not to rush your children through phases or bands, but to ensure that they are thoroughly competent and fluent readers.2
Spelling. Every week, your child will be tested on 10 spellings linked to patterns as part of the Spelling Shed curriculum. Related activities will be available on the Spelling Shed app or website, available on phones, tablets and laptops. As with reading, the more they play these games, the more confident and competent they will be in their independent writing. You can download an overview of word lists for the entire year here.
Wider Curriculum ‘Menu’. This is a choice of more ‘creative’ projects that will enhance your child’s knowledge and understanding of subjects such as history, geography, science and RE. Our suggestion is that children complete one every two weeks from a range of subjects. Click here to download the Year 1 Wider Curriculum Autumn Homework Menu
Times Tables are not tested until Year 2.
Useful links
Phonics
Click here to learn about our Little Wandle Letters & Sounds Phonics Programme
Little Wandle Phase 2 sound pronunciation
Little Wandle Phase 3 digraphs and trigraphs
Reading with your child
The Little Wandle Phonics books that we send home are specifically written to develop your child’s ability to decode, blend and segment their phonics. Therefore, the more that your child reads out loud, the greater their fluency. Once your child is fluent with their decoding of the words, there are two further elements with which you can support them. Prosody is simply ‘reading with expression’. Where are the full stops? Where are the commas? Where is there speech? Which words need emphasis? Comprehension is answering questions about what they have read. Try and include questions that encourage children to think more deeply about the book. ‘Why does this character feel that way?’ ‘What do you predict will happen next?’ There are examples in the back of each book to help you with this.
Home and Guided Reading
Please make a note of your child’s reading group and the day on which they read with their teacher. It is vital that this book is returned to school on their allocated day, even if you haven’t had chance to read with your child. We are unable to allocate a new book to your child until the previous one has been returned and kindly request your support with this. The second book is a ‘sharing’ book with each child. This is a non-phonetically decodable book that your child has specifically chosen to share with you, their grown-ups. This might be a chapter book or a picture book, and they may choose the same book more than once. Please use this second book as an opportunity to really have fun with prosody (expression) and enjoy the magic of reading together.
Tips for practising spellings
- Try writing down each word in a different coloured pencil or use highlighters.
- Try “rainbow spellings” and write each letter of the word in a different colour.
- Write each word down 2 times on a piece of paper and then cover it up. Can you write it a third time without looking?
- Hide each word around the house and go on a word hunt.
- Print out the words and play a matching game.