St Anne's Catholic Primary School

Welcome to Year 1!

Our Saint is St Kateri who is the first Native American to be recognised as a saint.

We are all very excited about the year ahead and we are going to have lots of fun.

We would like all children to read every evening. Reading books will be changed on  Friday when 2/3 books will be given out, but please send the yellow Reading Record and reading book in to school every day.

Spellings and Maths 'Learn its' will be sent home on a Friday, for the children to practice, and tested the following Friday.

Our PE days are Tuesday and Thursday. Please send your children to school in their PE kit on those days

1. It sharpens vocabulary.
2. It expands emotional intelligence and well-being.
3. It imparts valuable life lessons.
4. It improves focus, concentration, and memory.
5. It broadens imagination and creativity.
6. It challenges preconceived notions and expands understanding of the world.
7. It enhances cognitive abilities, including vocabulary, comprehension, and critical thinking skills

•Phonics is a big part of Year 1. We have a Phonics screening test in June that is completed nationally by every Year 1 pupil.

•Your child will continue to expand on their knowledge of phonics and will probably surprise you with just how quickly they develop their reading.

•They will do 20 minutes of phonics learning each day, just like they did in Reception. These are fun, pacy sessions which involve games and tasks.

•They will learn tricky words, spelling rules and how to sound out and blend to aid them with their reading and writing.

•They will be encouraged to 'have a go' at spelling when writing independently, by phonetically sounding out words and the. introducing the correct spellings more as the year progresses.

The Stations of the Cross is a Christian tradition that commemorates the events of Good Friday through a series of 14 stations. The children took part in the stations of the cross in the hall with Mrs Tobin and Miss Lee.

The children met two exciting authors, Neil Sharpson and Justine Worsley,   through an online workshop.  Both authors read their new books 'Don't Trust Fish' and 'Henry the Artistic Dog' to the class. The children also had the opportunity to take part in an art activity led by the artists. 

Using our hand prints, we made Mother’s Day cards for our mummies. We thought about the lovely thing, our mummies do for us and wrote a little message to them. 

We had a lovely day dressing up as our favourite book character. The children also enjoyed inviting their parents in to read a story from our book corner.

Today the children made wind streamers as part of their Geography topic.  The children then went outside to check the wind direction. We all had a fantastic time enjoying the fresh air and learning about weather.

The Year One team are so impressed with the children's writing so far this year! The children wrote about how to care for an alligator’s egg after reading the 'The Odd Egg' by Emily Grevett.

On Shrove Tuesday, Year 1 made pancakes in preparation for Lent. Lent is a time for us to grow closer to God through prayer, helping others and being more focussed on him.

Today we had a visitor, Christopher, Miss Talbot's cat. Christopher came in to say hello to the children. Sadly, he was a bit frightenend and spent most of the time snuggled up in his box , even though the children were showing him lots of love and kindness. 

Our first week in Year 1! We loved our music lesson and getting to know Miss Lynch through games and singing.

As part of our science topic we are learning about plants. Today, we each planted our very own sunflower. Over the next few weeks are going to observe how it grows and hopefully take them home to replant in our gardens.

Year 1 and 2 celebrated our school's 125th birthday by learning more about the school's history, decorating cakes and singing happy birthday. 

Today the Year 1 children had the opportunity to read the stories we have written about 'The Night Bus' to our Nursery children.  The children enjoyed hearing about all the exciting adventures the Night Bus got upto one evening in Caversham!

Year 2 had a great time at the library. The children enjoyed learning about what happens at the library and how they can borrow books, if they don't so already. All children had the chance to choose a book from the shelf and snuggle up read with their friends. 

Today the children came to school dressed as evacuees from WW2 to celebrate our History Day.  As part of the day our learning was based around Paddinton Bear. We discussed how Michael Bond was inspired by the evacuees who arrived at Reading Station during the WW2 to create a fictional character who was looking for a family to stay with, just like the children arriving into Reading. We also had the opportunity to make marmalade sandwiches - Paddington's favourite!