Suckley School
Happy, Aspirational and Ready for Life
Autumn
Dear parents and carers,
Welcome to the new school year! We are very pleased to welcome the Year One children into Robins class. Everyone is settling in well to our new routines.
At the beginning of each term, we share our proposed topic for the term with you so you know the types of things the class will be learning over the coming months. A summary of this term’s topic, ‘Who’s the King of the Castle?’, is attached to this letter for your information.
In addition, we start each term with a whole-school text, which each class uses as their starting point for writing and artwork. This term we are looking at ‘The Koala who Could’ by Rachel Bright. This is a joyful book about a Koala, called Kevin, who learns to overcome fears and try something new. The book provides a wonderful opportunity to talk about feelings and validate them.
Robins staffing
We have a slight change to staffing for this academic year. Miss Clements is returning to Wrens to help support the new reception children. Robins will continue to be aided by Mrs Harris, Mrs Roper and Miss Stevens, and will welcome Miss Tandy to our team on a Wednesday. In addition, we will be hosting University of Worcester Teacher Training students again, so will also welcome Miss Dabrowska into our class.
Reading, reading books and book bags
Reading is a huge part of our curriculum and we put significant emphasis on reading for pleasure and sharing stories to enable children to build upon their understanding of the world and increase their vocabulary. We will send home reading scheme books for the children to read to you. Please do continue sharing other story books in addition to the school-provided books.
We will be changing books as often as possible. We are aiming for every other day and to endeavour to increase the frequency of book changes if time allows.
Please continue to use the book bag for the school-assigned reading books. The book bags help protect the scheme books from damage.
Spellings
Spellings will be issued weekly and tested the following Monday. Words for Year One will reflect the sound patterns covered in Phonics lessons that week. Year Two will follow The Spelling Shed scheme which covers the Statutory National Curriculum spellings and spelling patterns. Please make sure your child has their spelling book with them on a Monday so they can be collected and returned on a Tuesday with new spellings.
Forest school and PE
Forest school will be on a Thursday afternoon, as in previous years. Please send your child to school ready for forest school with a long-sleeved top and trousers. Please only send them in items you are happy to get muddy!
PE sessions will be the first lesson (9-10) on a Friday. Please make sure your child has a PE kit in school for this session, including jogging bottoms and a jumper for warmth should the session be outside.
Other concerns or questions
Please ask any member of the Robins team or email to the below address if you are unsure about any of the above or have any other questions or concerns. We are always happy to help.
Kind regards,
Mrs Pinnington.
cjp147@suckley.worcs.sch.uk
ART - WHOLE SCHOOL TEXT. We have be creating art work in the style of Jim Field, the illustrator from the book 'The Koala who Could'. We have been investigating the difference between a realistic style and a cartoon style, whilst using a variety of mark making techniques.
MATHS - Year one children have been working hard demonstrating their understanding of numbers to 10 in a variety of ways.
SCIENCE - We have been thinking about the different ways plants grow and have been investigating the difference between how seeds and bulbs become plants. we planted our own seeds in pots and put some new bulbs into the school sensory garden. We are looking forward to watching these grow over the year.
ENGLISH- ORACY. We have been acting out a simplified version of our text. The children were fantastic at supporting each other to create their own performances. Well done Robins.
FOREST SCHOOL. All the children have enjoyed being back at forest school. They continued their science and D.T. learning by investigating the apple to trees to find out where food comes from and then made some yummy apple treats.
P.E. We are so lucky to have Miss. Stevens in our class team. She is a fantastic gymnastics coach and is teaching us all some amazing gymnastics skills. We have already worked on pairs to do supported balances and are starting to develop our core strength to support us as we work towards using some of the larger pieces of gymnastics equipment.
