Hello, my name is Miss Owens and this is my third year teaching at St Michael’s. I first came to St Michael’s as a teaching student in 2015 where I worked with fantastic staff and children. I am delighted to be teaching Year 1 this year and look forward to all the many learning opportunities throughout the year. I am passionate about teaching and learning, I aim to make learning fun and engaging for all pupils. Year 1 is a busy, exciting and challenging year filled with many changes as the children move from Foundation stage into Key Stage 1.

We have an exciting and engaging curriculum that will bring out each child’s creative juices. We are also very fortunate to have the opportunity to keep elements of ‘Super Learning’ within our classroom, through this the children can continue to explore and learn in a range of different ways.

I am grateful for your continued support throughout the year both with learning in and out of school. One of the most vital things you can do at home is to hear your child read each night.

If you have any queries, worries or need any support throughout the year please feel free to come and see me.  

Only a few weeks in and we have already had such a busy time in school. We have been working hard in all areas of the curriculum and are becoming responsible Year 1 workers. During P.E. lessons, we have been working on our fundamental skills when moving, throwing and catching. We have been looking at healthy foods during Science and have thought about how we can classify different food groups and have also been busy completing our self-portrait sketches; we have even been using different types and styles of lines to create tones in our work. We have also most importantly been having lots of fun!

We have shared some reflective and collective worship time with our other Year 1 friends in Miss McDougall’s class. We shared a story and spent some time in our prayer garden looking at all the wonderful things God has given to us and recognising how lucky we are to be in St Michael’s.

We have been working very hard during Super Learning in our classroom. We loved working and learning with our friends, here are some pictures of the different things we get up to.

Thank you to all our adults for coming to our Stay and Play. The children had a lovely afternoon and it was fantastic to see how the children developed their understanding of their family timelines as a result of working with you.

The children created some fantastic fruit kebabs and especially enjoyed eating them.

I would once again like to take the opportunity to thank you for all your support so far this year.

We have been studying the Disgusting Sandwich during our English lessons this half term. We have loved this and particularly enjoyed making our own disgusting sandwich. This really helped us to write instructions for how to create one, I am sure if you asked us we would be able to tell you our secret.

We loved receiving our books from Father Christmas. He made the trip to come and see us and we were so excited. It was a magical time.

We have been looking at shape in our Maths lessons and decided we could take this elsewhere. During our gymnastics lessons, we worked in groups to see if we could make different shapes using our bodies. We made squares, triangles, pentagons and hexagons.

For our Art lessons this half term, we have been given the challenge to make different crafts and designs from forest materials. We have begun to make dream catchers from wood and string.

We loved it when it snowed. We went outside onto the field and had lots of fun with our friends. A day we will not forget in Year 1!

The children have thought about the seasons and how the weather patterns change during this time. As we were using the Ipads, it was the perfect opportunity for us to recap ESafety and what we should do to be able to keep ourselves safe online.

We have been so lucky this half term to have had such wonderful P.E. lessons with Mrs Popova and the opportunity to work on our Martial Arts. We are really developing our fundamental skills and are strengthening our core stability. 

We particularly enjoy sharing times of reflection together, we are very busy with all our wonderful work in Year 1 that it is a time to sit. We think about the good and possibly bad choices we have made but more importantly how we can go forth and make a positive impact. This is a special time that we share prayer and listen to readings from the Bible.

We love sharing happy times with each other in Year 1. We are very lucky that our fabulous Year 6’s want to help is improve our reading and come to read with us on a Monday afternoon. They are very kind and show us what we should aspire to when we are in Year 6, they are wonderful role models.

Thanks to the Magical Breakfast Programme, we have spent time sharing our breakfast with one another. We clean up after ourselves and help each other. It is a time for us to spend out of the classroom and talk to different people.

Today, we shared lunch with our teachers. We sat together and spent some time away from the classroom with one another. It was our favourite, chip day!