Scarcliffe Primary School

Our class is made up of Reception and Year 1 pupils with Miss Baldwin as Class Teacher and Miss Sidwell and Miss Moorley as Teaching Assistants.

This class page is designed to give readers a brief overview of what we are covering in class. We share more detailed information about what we get up to using the Class Dojo app. Parents can request login details via their child's class teacher.

Spring 1 2024

Our new topic this term is 'Living in the Past'. We will be:

• learning all about our history, including timelines.
• learning all about the history of toys.
• learning all about the history of holidays.
• writing a non-chronological report about the areas we have learnt about in history.
• designing, making and evaluating our own toy vehicles made from junk modelling items in Design and Technology.
• learning all about programming Beebots in Computing.
• learning all about being safe in PSHE.

Please see below for this term's Knowledge Organiser and Learning Journey.

Our focus author this term is... Nick Butterworth! We will be reading lots of texts in class by this author.

Autumn 2 2023

This term's topic is 'Improve Our World'. We will be:

• learning all about being responsible and improving our world.
• planning how we can improve our school garden area.
• kindly asking for donations and fundraising ideas to help to improve the area.
• being creative, reusing and recycling items to improve the area. 
• role playing in our recycling centre role-play area.
• focusing on the story 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt.'
• retelling, story mapping, using actions and role-playing the story.
• learning all about adjectives, prepositions (when and where words), exclamation marks and using the conjunction 'and' when writing a section of the text.
• learning all about materials in Science.
• learning all about spending, saving and sharing money in PSHE.

Please see below for this term's Learning Journey.

Our focus author this term is... Jill Murphy! We will be reading lots of texts in class by this author.

Autumn 1 2023

Welcome all new starters to our class and school and welcome back Year 1s to class 1.

This term's topic is 'Who makes the rules?: People Who Help Us'. We will be:

• learning all about rules and people who help us at home, in school, in our country and in the past.
• discussing the importance of rules and making some of our own for in class.
• learning about people who have helped us in the past, including the life and work of Florence Nightingale.
• writing labels and captions about people who help us.
• learning to write Rainbow Grammar sentences, including determiners, nouns and verbs (please see the Knowledge Organiser below for examples).
• investigating drawing different lines in art to draw a self-portrait and learning about the artist Leonardo da Vinci.
• learning all about seasonal changes in Science.

Please see below for this term's Knowledge Organiser and Learning Journey.

Our focus author this term is... Julia Donaldson! We will be reading lots of texts in class by this very popular author.

Summer 2 2023

This term's topic is 'Healthy Bodies; Healthy Minds'! We will be:

• exploring, designing, making and evaluating our own healthy fruit salads in D.T. including safety, hygiene, washing, feeling, chopping and pouring skills.
• writing instructions for how to make a healthy fruit salad (and instructions for how to grow a sunflower, linked to last term's science learning, as well as writing instructions for our own games too!)
• learning about the changes to our bodies and the way that we feel when we exercise in P.E.
• discussing our feelings, how we can help to deal with them and who you can talk to in P.S.H.E.
• learning all about the importance of physical exercise and a healthy diet for good health in Science as well as ways to keep healthy and safe (such as tooth brushing, hand washing, screen time, sleep routine and being a safe pedestrian.)

Please see the Knowledge Organiser below for this term's key topic learning and the Learning Journey outlining the sequence of teaching for this topic. 

Summer 1 2023

This term's topic is 'Weather'! We will be:

• naming different weathers and answering questions about the weather.
• keeping a weather chart.
• explaining features of a hot and cold place.
• explaining how the weather changes with each season.
• identifying clothing depending on where we are in the world and different seasons.
• recapping and extending our learning about the countries of UK and towns and cities from our Scarcliffe topic in Autumn 1.
• taking part in role play in the 'Weather Station'.
• writing a weather report to inform.
• presenting our weather reports and recording them.
• creating a digital book using the 'Book Creator' app all about the weather, including sound effects.
• learning all about plants in science.

Please see the Knowledge Organiser below for this term's key topic learning and the Learning Journey outlining the sequence of teaching for this topic. 

Spring 2 2023

This term's topic is 'Explorers and Space'. We will be:

• finding out about explorers.
• taking part in role play in the 'space station'.
• researching and finding out about space using books, the internet and atlases.
• learning about different space explorers including Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong, Helen Sharman and Tim Peake.
• writing letters to space explorers.
• creating paper mache planets sculptures and exploring mixing colours to decorate them in art.
• learning all about the human body and senses in Science.
• continuing our work on numbers and place value to 50 and addition and subtraction in maths.

Please see the Knowledge Organiser below for this term's key topic learning and the Learning Journey outlining the sequence of teaching for this topic.

Underneath that is this term's Knowledge Organiser for Science all about the human body and senses.

Spring 1 2023

This term's topic is 'Dinosaurs'. We will be:

• finding out about the history of dinosaurs, names of different dinosaurs, what they ate, fossils and Mary Anning!
• reading fiction and non-fiction books involving dinosaurs.
• researching and writing fact files about dinosaurs.
• taking part in role play in the 'dinosaur museum'.
• digging for 'dinosaur' bones and fossils!
• working with malleable media in art and making our own fossils and bones.
• programming Beebots and making our own dinosaur themed mats for them to explore, in Computing.
• completing our work on numbers and place value and addition and subtraction to 20, in maths.

Please see the Knowledge Organiser below for this term's key topic learning.

Our focus author this term is... John Burningham! We will be reading texts like 'Mr Grumpy's Outing' and 'Get Off Our Train!'

Autumn 2 2022

This term's topic is 'Once Upon a Time'. We will be:

• learning about traditional tales.
• sharing traditional tales by listening to them, reading and watching them.
• focusing on the stories of The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
• learning to retell stories through drama and role play.
• writing stories based on our focus texts.
•  learning about the beginning, middle and end of stories.
• creating a class library of our own books.
• listening to sounds in music and linking them to parts of a story.
• printing in art to create a setting.
• creating digital artwork linked to a setting in computing.
• learning all about everyday materials in science. 
• learning about the Christmas story in RE and recording a KS1 nativity.

Please see the Knowledge Organiser below for this term's key topic learning.

Underneath that is this term's Knowledge Organiser for Science all about materials.

Our focus author this term is... Oliver Jeffers! We will be reading texts like 'The Day the Crayons Quit' and 'The Incredible Book Eating Boy'.

Autumn 1 2022

Welcome all new starters to our class and school and welcome back Year 1s to class 1.

This term's topic is 'Know Your Place: Scarcliffe'. We will be:

• learning all about where we live and where we go to school.
• learning about the UK and mapping our local area (school grounds and village).
• using maps to follow directions and describe positions and begin to read symbols.
• going on a walk around the village and taking photographs using an iPad.
• beginning to write labels, captions and sentences for photographs taken on our walk.
• constructing houses out of junk modelling items in Design and Technology.
• reading and writing letters/postcards comparing places.
• learning all about seasonal changes in Science.

Please see the Knowledge Organiser below for this term's key topic learning.

Our focus author this term is... Pat Hutchins! We will be reading texts like 'Rosie's Walk' and 'We're Going on a Picnic'.

Summer 2 2022

This term's topic is 'Amazing Africa!' We will be:

• learning all about Africa - recognising it on a world map and knowing it is a continent.
• comparing the UK and Africa.
• writing postcards about our learning all about Africa.
• making own own sandwiches in Design and Technology.
• reading and writing our own animal stories linked to our learning in class on the text Handa's Surprise.
• learning all about animals in Science.
• learning all about 'changes' in PSHE.

Please see below for this term's Knowledge Organiser and Learning Journey.

Our focus author this term is... Eric Carle! We will be reading some texts in class by this author.

Summer 1 2022

This term's topic is 'Danger!' We will be:

• learning all about how to stay safe.
• reading fiction and non-fiction texts about keeping safe.
• focusing on rhyme.
• writing our own poetry including writing rhyming couplets linked to staying safe.
• focusing on painting in Art including looking at the work of Piet Mondrian, exploring using different tools and mixing colours.
• creating our own safety signs using primary and secondary colours.
• reading and writing our own instructions linked to our learning in class.
• learning all about plants in Science.
• learning all about 'growing up' in PSHE.

Please see below for this term's Knowledge Organiser and Learning Journey.

Our focus author this term is... Martin Waddle! We will be reading some texts in class by this author.

Spring 2 2022

This term's topic is 'Heroes and Villains - Superheroes'. We will be:

• focusing on the story 'Supertato'.
• writing our own superhero stories, thinking carefully about characters, settings, problems and resolutions.
• creating our own comic strips using Book Creator.
• researching, using tools, designing and making our own superhero sculptures in Art using playdough/clay. 
• learning all about the Human Body and Senses in Science.
• learning all about 'medicines/drugs' in PSHE.

Please see below for this term's Learning Journey.

Our focus author this term is... David McKee! We will be reading lots of texts in class by this author.

Our topics 2023-2024:

• Autumn 1 - 'Who makes the rules? People Who Help Us'
• Autumn 2 - 'Improve Our World'
• Spring 1 - 'Living in the Past and Grand Designs'
• Spring 2 - 'Heroes and Villains: Superheroes'
• Summer 1 - 'Danger! Staying Safe'
• Summer 2 - 'Africa'

Our topics 2022-2023:

• Autumn 1 - 'Know Your Place: Scarcliffe'
• Autumn 2 - 'Once Upon a Time: Traditional Tales'
• Spring 1 - 'Time Travel: Dinosaurs'
• Spring 2 - 'Explorers: Space'
• Summer 1 - 'Weather and the UK'
• Summer 2 - 'Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds'

Class 1 - Events in the Past

Below are some of the events that took place when some of our older children were with us in Class 1.  How you have grown!

Seaside Stay and Play Morning

Another big thank you is in order to all parents and grandparents who attended our stay and play morning on Friday 16th June. There was lots of parent-child interaction, with both the children and adults taking part in activities linked to our Seaside topic.

Tesco Farm to Fork

Class 1 children had a fantastic morning at Tesco, learning all about where our food comes from. They tried a variety of fruits and vegetables and cheeses, went behind the scenes to see how bread is made in the bakery, went to the fishmonger and even went into the freezer!

Superhero Stay and Play Morning

A big thank you to all parents and grandparents who came to our Superhero Stay and Play Morning on the first Friday of this term. Both the adults and children had lots of fun playing together in class choosing activities linked to our new topic!

Caterpillars to Butterflies!

In Class 1 this term we have been learning about animals and life cycles. We have watched the life cycle of caterpillars changing into butterflies. A pupil in Class 1 and their parents kindly looked after the caterpillars over Easter and photographed their transformation into beautiful butterflies. Take a look at the pictures here!

Baby Dinosaurs Workshop

To end our topic all about dinosaurs, two dinosaur experts visited our school with a baby Tyrannosaurus Rex and a baby Triceratops. The children had a fantastic afternoon asking the experts lots of questions. They got to carefully stroke the baby dinosaurs too! 

Dinosaurs in Scarcliffe Primary School

This week we have been reading the story 'Dinosaurs in my School'. After a dinosaur appeared in class 1 on Monday, we went in search of any more on Tuesday. We found that lots of different dinosaurs had made a mess and caused havoc around the school, in the hall, in the garden, on the playground and on the nomo outside. On Wednesday we went to tell Mrs Longmate, our head teacher, about the dinosaurs in school and show her photos of the mess they had made. When we went to her office we found that she had turned into a dinosaur! All morning the children thought of spells, wrote letters and made posters to help her to turn back to normal. Luckily by lunchtime Mrs Longmate was no longer a dinosaur. All of the children have been really eager to write stories linked to our dinosaur adventures this week.

Dinosaur in Class 1!

Today in class 1 a dinosaur appeared... Children wrote and drew sketches of the dinosaur in our class. They thought it might have come from a Museum or from under our school! The children have started to write some lovely stories about the dinosaur in our school.

A year 2 pupil from class 2 came into our class this afternoon in the role of a dinosaur expert. The children had lots of questions for him to answer and really enjoyed listening to him explain about why he wants to be a paleontologist when he is older!

Dinosaur Dig!

This week to start off our new topic all about dinosaurs we received a envelope addressed to class one from an archaeologist from the Natural History Museum. It contained a letter and a bone found in our school garden. We were asked to help find other evidence in the school garden of dinosaurs living millions of years ago. We used trowels and brushes to carefully look for evidence. We found bones and fossils! We have been finding, looking carefully and cleaning up the evidence in our trays during continuous provision.

Balance Bikes

In the Spring term all of the reception children had a fantastic time developing their balance bike skills!

On Monday 31st October, after half term, the children had collected Autumn nature items which they explored the textures and colours of. They then created some beautiful nature artwork using the Autumn nature items based on artist'work.

On Tuesday 18th October PC Kat came to visit class 1 and did a workshop with the children about traffic and road safety linked to their transport topic. They discussed being safe around roads and wearing bright colours to be seen and to be safe. The children then got to explore a police car and the objects in the car linked to road safety. They really enjoyed their morning of learning and learnt lots of new information and tried lots new experiences.

On Thursday 12th May class 1 and 2 children went on a trip to Sudbury Hall Museum of Childhood. We learnt lots about old toys and teddy bears. We also played with old toys, looked around the museum, had a teddy bear workshop and even climbed a chimney! We had a lovely day!

This week class 1 have been reading stories about teddy bears and we have compared old and new teddy bears. The children have wrote about their favourite teddy and they have written invitations for them to come to our picnic on Friday. The children took the invitations they had written for their teddies home on Thursday and then brought in their teddies on Friday. We wrote name tags for our bears so that they wouldn't get lost. All of the teddy bears and children had a lovely time at the picnic.

In class 1 we have been reading the story 'Dogger'. At the beginning of the week we lost our class dog called 'Dogger' so we wrote lost posters and put them around the school to try and find him. The next morning when the children came into class he had left footprints so we wrote letters to him to ask him to come back to class. Finally he came back to class one because one of the children suggested that we put dog food down to tempt him back to class!

We have read the story 'We're going on a bear hunt!' and even been on our own bear hunt around the school grounds. The children have enjoyed making up their own stories and songs using the language from the story.

Three Soapbox Derby experts from Scarcliffe village came to school to show us their vehicles and share their knowledge with the children. This has helped us with our own vehicle designs in class for our Scarcliffe Mini Soapbox Derby.

Class 1 had a lovely afternoon in the hall helping with our school's effort of 'Rowing to Rio'. Class 4 children helped us to practice our rowing skills and record our distances.

Our little chicks are now about 7 weeks old and have been spending more time in their run in the school garden. Lola, Pip and Dee have been having a great time exploring their new and bigger environment. We keep going to check on them to make sure they are happy and have what they need.

For Scarcliffe Primary School's Art Exhibition, Class 1 produced nature collages in the style of Andy Goldsworthy's artwork.

On Friday afternoon with Mrs Wigley and Miss Horsley, the children have been investigating using construction kits to make their own moving vehicles. They even tested their vehicles on a ramp!

Whilst testing our model vehicles we used a ramp outside to see how far and how fast they could travel. This is one child's 'car with wings' being tested!