Year 1 Autumn 2025

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• In English, the text, ‘Handa’s Surprise’ is taught, which is about a girl living in an African village, struggling to try and deliver fresh fruit to her friend in a neighbouring village. Pupils will write a list of fruits for Handa to transport and create a new version of the story using different fruits and food items. We then study the classic, ‘The Gingerbread Man’ where we complete a retell of the story, followed by ‘Stick Man’ by Julia Donaldson. We use her exceptional storytelling techniques to write a character description, complete an exciting trail linked to the story, and produce follow-up writing. Reading centres around the Read Write Inc. phonics programme and is tailored to meet the phonetic needs of each child. This term, our handwriting lessons and daily handwriting starters focus on printing letters using the correct formation, orientation and sizing. Finally, SPaG is a key focus within English lessons, focusing on moving away from sentence-like structures to forming basic but grammatically accurate sentences that make sense and include a noun and a verb. Punctuation lessons focus on full stops, capital letters, question marks and exclamation marks.
   

• In Year 1 Maths, we explore place value as well as addition and subtraction within 10. This is to secure understanding of amounts and number work, including ordering and comparing (e.g., more and less) in the Autumn term before moving to within 20 and then 50 later in the year. Autumn term has a focus on number bonds to 10, exploring parts and wholes as well as exploring and sorting 2D and 3D shapes.
   

• In Science, during Autumn 1, the topics of the human body and materials are studied along with a mini project based on seasonal changes. In Autumn 2, we study animals’ and humans’ needs for survival, plus follow-up learning based around materials. Pupils also engage in practical investigations, making predictions, selecting materials, recording results, and drawing basic conclusions based on their enquiries.
   

• Through the topic of “Toy Story”, Year 1 and 2 undertake historical and geographical learning. In history, pupils will find out about changes within living memory, covering aspects such as toys and music, whilst in geography, in the build up to Christmas, children spend time mapping Santa’s route around the world, learning about the different continents, oceans and countries in the process.
   

• In PE this term, pupils will be receiving lessons on team building and target games with support from Soccer 2000 and lessons in fundamental sporting techniques and ball skills led by Miss Walker.
   

• In Art, we will be completing two units; the first is based around paper sculpture and results in the creation of a paper monster; the second is a drawing unit and focuses on the media of charcoal, using hatching, stippling, and blending techniques to create a teddy bear portrait. 
   

• Computing focuses on the basic skills needed to access our technology, such as logging in and using a mouse, before progressing to digital writing. 
   

• In PSHE (Jigsaw), we are covering the topic “Being Me in My World” where pupils learn about feeling special, safe and part of a class. They consider rights, responsibilities, choices and consequences. We then move on to “Celebrating Differences” where pupils identify how people are similar in some ways and different in other ways, think about what bullying is, how to deal with it, and how to celebrate differences in everyone. We use Project Evolve to link this learning to online safety, focusing on self-identity and self-image and how to manage online information.
   

• DT this term has a focus on mechanisms. Pupils will create a moving storybook with a slider mechanism and will create a moving toy monster using levers, linkages and pivots. DT follows the design, plan, make, and evaluate model. 
   

• In Music, Year 1’s learning focuses around a unit called ‘Hey You!’ in the first half term and two half-units titled ‘Rhythm in the Way We Walk’ and ‘Banana Rap’ in the second half term. Pupils will be given the opportunity to listen to and appraise the songs, considering own likes and preferences as well as compare to other, similar songs with a focus on not only the music and instruments but also the lyrics. Pupils will learn to sing the songs and play instruments, including untuned percussion instruments.
   

• In RE, Year 1 and 2 study a unit called, ‘How can we find out about Christianity today in Wolverhampton?’ and a second unit titled ‘Beginning to Learn About Sikhs.’
   

• Our Dovecotes oracy curriculum is based around speaking and listening and we are filtering discussion opportunities and talk tactics into all other curricular areas, as well as into homework opportunities across this academic year. Reading at home is the main tool for learning development at home in Year 1 alongside the “thunk” discussions and IL topic “big questions” that get delivered to you via text.