Hello! My name is Miss Owens, this is my fourth year teaching in St Michael’s and I have the pleasure of teaching in Year 1 again this year. I am excited to be working in Year 1 as it is such a wonderful year in where the children have many different learning experiences and opportunities.

Year 1 is an exciting and challenging year for the children in where they move from Foundation Stage to begin their journey in Key Stage 1. We have an exciting and engaging curriculum designed to ensure it provides the children with many memorable learning experiences.

We are extremely fortunate to have Mrs Leadbetter working with us in class. She has worked in St Michael’s for many years and has decided to now train to become a teacher. Mrs Leadbetter has worked in many classes across the school and has spent a lot of time in Year 1 so has many strategies to support excellent learning.

Personally and as a school, we are extremely grateful and truly value your continued support at home. One of the most vital things you can do to enhance your children’s learning is to hear them read each night at home in addition to them reading in school.

If you have any concerns, queries or require support, please feel free to come and see myself or Mrs Leadbetter at any time. We look forward to the wonderful school year ahead!

We are lucky to have two classrooms this year!

Our classrooms are ready and so are we for some exciting learning.

On Friday 4^th October, we invited our family into school to join us during our Stay and Play. We used this time to sit and talk with our families about our family trees and timelines. This is part of our History work this half term as we are working to find out about our families.

During our time in Year 1 so far, we have thoroughly enjoyed spending time in our Super Learning classroom. There have been many challenges that have allowed us to develop and apply the skills we have been taught in different ways. Our challenges fit alongside our curriculum and allow consolidation of our learning.

In our construction area, we have been working on creating local building and structures, in number we have been working on our number bonds and we have continued to develop our writing in many different ways.

We have been extremely lucky to have worked with Mrs Popova during our P.E. sessions this half term. She has really developed our gymnastics skills with a focus on our core stability and balance. We have begun to look at different ways to roll and move in our lessons too.

We have been developing our Geography Fieldwork skills this half term and have really taken the time to explore our school environment. We have discovered different human and physical features within the school grounds and developed an awareness of compass points.

We were very lucky to have a visit from Tommy and Harry from the British Legion. They told us some information about how both travel and the shops around Ditton have changed over the years. They also shared some information with us about how their school experiences were different to ours now.  

This half term, during Music and Movement sessions, we have been looking at different ways to express ourselves through instruments and non-verbal communication.

For most of our computing lessons this half term, Miss Barrow has worked very hard with us ensuing we are able to use our login cards to be able to log ourselves onto the computers.

This has developed our keyboard and mouse skills and we have now been working on the drop and drag skill within our lessons.