Welcome To Year 1

Statement of Intent KS1

In Key Stage One we are passionate about supporting children to continue to develop their love of learning.  Our children’s wellbeing is at the centre of our curriculum, we understand that they need to feel safe, loved and secure within the environment in order to access a high level of learning. We teach topics in cross-curricular ways and are committed to providing hands on learning opportunities, enabling children to shape their own learning journey. We aim to foster children’s independence, resilience and perseverance and ensure that through our high quality provision they are able to consolidate and enhance a range of skills in all curriculum areas. Our inclusive approach enables us to foster our children’s curiosity and imagination as well as their academic achievement.

Term 6

Wellbeing Wednesday

This term we have enjoyed many activities during our Wellbeing Wednesday afternoons that have made us feel happy and that have been lots of fun.The children have chosen many exciting activities such as enjoying water play, having an ice pole to cool us down in the sun, parachute games, junk modelling and extra PE games outdoors. We have loved these sessions and have reflected upon how we can improve our wellbeing at school and at home and we look forward to continuing this next year!

Herne Olympics

We have had a brilliant term learning all about the Olympics. We have learned about inspiring Olympians and the sports included in the Olympics. We particularly enjoyed immersing ourselves in learning all about Japan, the host country of the Olympics 2021. We created cherry blossom trees, wrote in Japanese, tasted rice crackers and had a tea ceremony!

Each year group represented 9 different countries and competed against each other for points in our Herne Olympics. We enjoyed a range of challenges during activity morning and loved running races on the Junior field. A highlight was making our flags to use at the opening and closing ceremony.

Water Fun Day

We rounded off the Summer term having a fun time playing games and splashing around with water! The children enjoyed completing an obstacle course while getting squirted by their classmates and having more gentle fun playing in the water trays with bubbles, sea creatures and water beads. They had to protect a bear from being bear-napped by soaking the would-be thieves with cups of water (while blindfolded!) but best of all was a traditional water fight with EVERYONE, even the grown ups ending up dripping wet!

What a brilliant way to end the year!

Term 5

Judaism

Part of our RE Curriculum here at Herne involves our children learning about other faiths and this term in Year 1, we have been finding out all about Judaism. As well as learning about what is precious to Jewish people, we have also been exploring some of the reasons why these things are so special and significant. We have found out all about Shabbat and why this is celebrated each week as well as discovering the significance of the Mezuzah, the Star of David, a Kippah and the Torah. We have been so impressed at the curiosity shown by the children which they have demonstrated by asking some really thoughtful questions.

Minibeasts

We have been doing lots of exciting Science this term where our focus has been on Minibeasts. We have named different types of minibeasts, spiders, insects etc. and took our learning outdoors to our wonderful Wildlife and Hive areas where we went looking for minibeasts. We were able to identify and name lots of different creatures including snails, woodlice, beetles, worms and ladybirds and the children learned the importance of being gentle and taking care of living things. We also spotted lots more minibeasts on our walk to Curtis Woods as well as remembering some of our learning from about plants from last term!

Wellbeing Wednesday

Wellbeing Wednesdays have continued this term with each of the classes doing various different activities ranging from learning a new sport to film afternoons.  Often, our afternoons are centred around a quote which encourages reflection by the children and they are becoming very comfortable when talking about feelings and what well being means to them and others. Mole Class have particularly enjoyed art afternoons, creating mini-beast and sunshine pictures while Owls enjoyed playing classic games such as ‘Guess Who and ‘Connect Four’ to practise our turn taking skills, spending time in the Hive and Wildlife area exploring and playing with our friends. A particular highlight for Owls was turning the classroom in to a cinema to watch a film with popcorn as this is something we had mentioned that we miss! In Rabbit class we have enjoyed playing turn taking games too, especially Jenga! We have also participated in speed stacking activities and played new team games on the field.

Term 1

We have had such a brilliant start to the year in Year One and are just so proud of how well the children have settled back into school life. They have adapted so readily to new classrooms, new adults and new routines and we are really enjoying being part of our Year One bubble.

We have really enjoyed looking at the amazing posters you created during the Summer holidays as well as the lovely decorated pebbles.

In just a few short weeks it seems that we have already done so much – PE, both indoors and outside, exploring in the Hive, visiting the computer room as well as all our learning in our wonderful new classrooms. We are loving our new class names and have created lots of artwork which reflects each of the Year One animals, Rabbits, Moles and Owls.