Texts and topics throughout the year:

Autumn Term

• Labels and Captions
• Adventure stories - Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers
• Poetry - Sea songs
• Non-chronological reports - Katie in London by James Mayhew

Spring Term

• Write a story about a character - Grandpa's gift by Fiona Lumbers
• Write an adventure story with a change of character - the curious case of the missing mammoth by Ellie Hattie and a great big cuddle by Michael Rosen
• Instructions

Summer Term

• Write a fantasy story with a change of character - Toys in space by Mini Grey
• Write a traditional story with a new character - Goldilocks and the just one bear by Leigh Hodgkinson
• Non-chronological reports

End of year expectations

Below are the National Curriculum expectations for children in Year 1. All the objectives will be worked on throughout the year and will be in focus of direct teaching. Any extra support you can provide in helping your children to achieve these is greatly valued.

Reading

•  Identify which words appear again and again.
•  Recognise and join in with predictable phrases.
•  Relate reading to own experiences.
•  Re-read if reading does not make sense.
•  Re-tell with considerable accuracy.
•  Discuss significance of title and events.
•  Made predictions on basis of what has been read.
•  Make inferences on basis of what is being said and done.
•  Read aloud with pace and expression, i.e. pause at full stop; raise voice for question.
•  Recognise: 1. Capital letters 2. Full stops 3. Question marks 4. Exclamation marks 5. Ellipsis  Know what the write has used the above punctuation in a text.
•  Know difference between fiction and non-fiction texts.

Writing

•  Write clearly demarcated sentences.
•  Use ‘and’ to join ideas.
•  Use conjunctions to join sentences (e.g. so, but).
•  Use standard forms of verbs, e.g. go/went.
•  Introduce use of: 1. Capital letters 2. Full stops 3. Question marks 4. Exclamation marks
•  Use capital letters for names and personal pronoun ‘I’.
•  Write a sequence of sentences to form a short narrative (as introduction to paragraphs).
•  Use correct formation of lower case – finishing in right place.
•  Use correct formation of capital letters.
•  Use correct formation of digits.

Handwriting

In year 1, we start off using printed letters, focusing on the letters sitting on the line, starting and finishing in the correct place and being well spaced and sized. We use the RWI rhymes to help children to remember how to form their letters. This can be found below. 

As the year progresses, we teach children to join their letters, starting with the letters that are formed with a c base and progressing on to letters that ascend and descend.