Welcome to Swifts and Skylarks Class
Year 1 & 2 at Pulloxhill
Swifts and Skylarks class is a Key Stage 1 class, where children from year 1 and 2 learn together and support each other. We aim to make our classroom an inviting place to be, combining formal learning at our tables with independently driven educational activities. In Swifts & Skylarks class, the year 1 children build upon the foundations made in the Reception class and continue to develop their independence. Year 2 children are super role models to our younger class members.
At school, we plan a range of learning opportunities throughout each term to teach a broad and balanced curriculum in exciting and different ways. These cover the core subjects of English, Maths and Science plus History, Geography, RE, PSHCE, Art/DT, Music and PE. You will be able to view our new curriculum map and weekly timetable on the school website at the beginning of September.
Children in Swifts and Skylarks learn and regularly practise a cursive handwriting style to improve the presentation of our work, and to help with our spellings. We use Talking Partners to promote discussion and help and support each other in our learning. Phonics continue to be very important, and we teach phonics regularly using an interactive approach to promote confidence in reading and spelling.
Children read regularly at school in Literacy lessons, Reading & Comprehension lessons, and reading on both an individual and group basis to an adult. Children are encouraged to read at home as regularly as possible. Children have the opportunity to change their book at school on a daily basis.
You will be having PE lessons with Premier Sport twice a week. Your PE lesson days are Mondays and Thursdays.
Our weekly Learning Logs are an opportunity for children to share and discuss the learning they have done at school with family at home. We encourage the children to complete the work themselves with their own pictures, writing and sometimes photographs. Our Learning Log activity is set on a Friday and needs to be returned to school by the following Wednesday.
We value the learning that takes place at home as well as here in school and it is important that we work together in partnership to provide the best opportunities for all our children. We love to hear about your child’s achievements at home e.g. awards in sporting activities, clubs etc. so that we can share their successes with their class.
We thank you for the support you give to your child and our school. Please do speak to Mrs Morrissey-Pawar if you have any queries or questions.
Class Teacher - Mrs Morrissey- Pawar
Swifts and Skylarks Curriculum News Summer 1 .pdf
Autumn Term 1
Swifts and Skylarks have had a fantastic half term and have settled well into their new class. We have had lots of new routines and ways of working to learn but everyone has shown wonderful resilience.
English
In English, we particularly enjoyed the story ‘Goldilocks’ and wrote some wonderful sentences with fantastic punctuation. We also had great fun retelling this story!
Geography
In Geography, we have been learning about our school area and enjoyed exploring our school grounds to make aerial maps. We discovered many features that make our school special and drew detailed aerial maps.
Art
We have been very interested in our Art topic ‘Super Sculptures’ where we have been studying various artist and recreating their work using many different mediums. We used pipe cleaners to create human forms, clay to create inside out sculptures, paper to create kinetic sculptures and plastic to create glass sculptures. It has been so lovely to see how creative everyone is!
Autumn Term 2
History
We have enjoyed learning about Guy Fawkes. We used a variety of sources to help sequence the events and wrote diaries to express how Guy Fawkes was feeling about the Gunpowder plot.
Science
In science, we have been learning about everyday materials. We explored the properties and suitability of materials, which helped us with our investigation to find the most suitable material for our broken umbrella.
DT
In DT, we have been learning about slider and lever mechanisms to make a moving picture. We made mock up mechanisms and evaluated which we thought was best to use for our pictures. We then worked hard to design and make fantastic moving Christmas cards.
Spring 1
English
Swifts and Skylarks have had a fabulous half term. We have enjoyed reading ‘The Bear Under the Stairs’ and ‘Dinosaurs and all that Rubbish’ to help us write stories. It was wonderful to read such descriptive sentences with a range of exciting vocabulary.
Art
We have loved our art topic ‘Self-portraits’. The highlight has been sculpting a portrait using clay. We successfully used a variety of tools to create detailed features on our face. Super sculpting Swifts and Skylarks!
Spring 2
Maths
Swifts and Skylarks have had a fantastic half term. Year 2 have been busy describing and comparing 3D shapes and Year 1 have had lots of fun exploring measures to compare length, mass and volume.
DT
We have loved our DT topic ‘Teddy Bear Picnic’. We found out where suitable picnic foods come from and followed a set of instructions to make biscuits and fruit kebabs. Swifts and Skylarks were very good a reading scales to make sure we measured the correct amount of ingredients.
Science
In science, our topic has been ‘Our Bodies’. Swifts and Skylarks are always great at working practically and scientifically. We played many games to identify, name, draw and label the basic parts of the human body. We linked our learning about senses during DT to answer the question ‘Which senses will we use when making a fruit kebab?’ We had great discussions about our predictions and findings.