Welcome back to school! We hope that you all had a relaxing break, and we wish you all a happy and healthy new year. The children have made a great start to the term and are continuing to develop and grow into more independent learners.

In English, we will continue to work on developing confident independent reading, correct letter formation and simple sentence structure. In the first half of the Spring Term, our focus will be non-fiction reports, which will include writing short guides, giving advice and writing commands. In the second half of the Spring Term, our focus will be writing our own version narrative, which will include writing letters of advice, posters, descriptions, poems and recipes.

In Phonics, we will be continuing to learn our Phase 5 digraphs and moving onto alternative pronunciations of many graphemes (letters that denote a sound) and alternative spellings for certain phonemes (sounds).

In Maths, we will be learning about, sorting, and organising 2D and 3D shapes, exploring patterns and describing turns and positions. We will also be learning about multiplication and division, focusing on counting in steps of 2s, 10s and 5s and making arrays, doubles, and equal groups. Later, we will be learning about fractions including recognising, naming, and finding halves and quarters of an object, shape, or quantity. We will also be learning about time including using specific language, sequencing events, and telling the time to the hour and half past the hour.

In Science, plants will be the focus. We will be identifying and naming a variety of common wild and garden plants and identifying and describing the basic structure of a variety of common flowering plants including trees. Caring for the plants and seasonal change will also be focuses.

In Geography, we will explore the countries of the UK, which will include their capital cities, and the key features and characteristics of the countries. We will also be exploring hot and cold countries.

In History, we will be learning about the changes to nursing over the years, focusing on the important historical figures of Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole and Edith Cavell.

In RE, we will be learning about Judaism, particularly exploring Shabbat. We will learn what it is, how it is observed, and different items used within the day. We will also be learning about the significance of the cross to Christians in the lead up to Easter.

In Music, ‘Exploring Sounds,’ is our first focus, which will include exploring high, low, long, sort, loud and quiet sounds. ‘Learning to listen’ is our second focus, which will focus of listening with our ears and eyes and feeling the music with our bodies.

In DT, our Food Technology topic will focus on learning about preparing fruit and vegetables including washing, peeling, and chopping. We will be using these techniques to design and make our own fruit salad.

In our Art topic, we will be exploring hot and cold colours and experimenting with texture and patterns linking this to the artist Wassily Kandinsky.

In Computing, we will be focusing on coding by solving problems by using programmable toys.

PE will continue to be on a Wednesday and every other Friday. Please ensure that your child always has their PE kit (and trainers) in school. We will be focusing on target games and dance this half term, and invasion games and yoga after half term.

In PSHE, ‘Emotional Explorers,’ will be our main topic of the Spring Term. We will also be learning about belonging to a community, media literacy, digital resilience, money, and work.

Please continue to encourage your child to develop a love of reading by providing as many opportunities as possible for your child to read to you. Please use their reading diaries to record their reading at home and provide a comment where relevant as this helps us to support them further during school time.

This half term, the children will begin to have spellings set. These are based on assessment undertaken at school and will be set on a Monday and tested the following Monday. Please bear in mind that their spellings will be based on the use of learnt spellings, not just consistent high scores in their tests.

We will continue to attend Forest School every other Friday – please see the dates below:

Friday 23^rd January                 Friday 6^th February                              Friday 27^th February

Friday 13^th March                    Friday 27^th March

Thank you for your continued support. Please do not hesitate to contact us via the school office if you have any questions.

Best wishes

Mrs Yildiz and Mrs Webb