Witnesham Class 1

Welcome to Class 1. Mrs Cleverley is our class teacher and Mrs McCormack and Mrs Seaman are our TAs. Class 1 is a fun, supportive place to learn, where we develop our confidence, independence, curiosity and creativity!

How we learn

In Class 1, we learn in a range of different ways, including short adult inputs, supported group work and practical activities. We also have plenty of Discovery Time, which is a chance for us to choose our own learning. We have many different areas in the classroom to choose from, including construction, small world, role play, malleable and creative areas. We are also very fortunate to have a large outside area with water trays, a sand pit, a large mud kitchen, bikes, scooters, climbing apparatus and much more!

In Year R, we follow the Early Years curriculum which is very active and play based. The adults observe our play and develop our learning. They also encourage us to try new activities and increase our skills! We have daily Phonics lessons, as well as daily ‘Funky Fingers’ sessions to develop our arm, hand and finger muscles, ready for writing. We have two group reading sessions each week, where we work on our decoding, fluency and comprehension. We use Drawing Club for our Writing lessons, where we use our imagination to draw pictures inspired by books and then use our phonics skills to label and describe them. We also have a mixture of Maths lessons and ‘Project Time’ sessions throughout the week. Please see the curriculum part of our website to find out more about the topics we will be focusing on!

We use Seesaw in lessons to record our practical learning, for example in Maths lessons. We can also record our independent learning from Discovery Time on Seesaw.

Communication

At Witnesham, we believe in the importance of effective communication between home and school. Families are encouraged to communicate with teachers in person at the beginning and end of the day, or via messages on Class Dojo. Teachers will also share pictures and updates from the classroom.

There are a variety of parent workshops, meetings and Stay and Play sessions throughout the year, about a variety of topics. Look out on newsletters for the dates of these sessions. 

Homework

Children will bring home their reading book after reading it twice at school. Please help them by listening to them reading this book at home! This will help them to practise their reading and Phonics skills, and to become more fluent. Children also bring home weekly Phonics sheets with information about the sounds, words and sentences that we have been working on in Phonics that week. Please help them to practise these at home.

Other Notices

We have regular outdoor learning sessions where we explore different parts of the school grounds and complete a range of exciting activities. Sometimes we work with our friends from other classes during these sessions! We will go outside in all weathers, so please help your child to remember their hat/coat/wellies!

We visit the library once a week and choose a ‘reading for pleasure’ book to bring home and share with our family. 

Our PE day is Tuesday and our library day is Friday. 

Please make sure that all items (bags, bottles, jumpers…) are named, so that we can easily reunite any missing items with their owners!