In the National Curriculum for England, Year 1 is arguably one of the most significant transition points in a child's primary education. It marks the shift from the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) into Key Stage 1 (KS1), where learning becomes more formal, subject-specific, and structured.
The most immediate significance of Year 1 is the change in how children learn. Our Primary teachers are tasked with managing this transition whilst ensuring the children are making suitable progress in their acquisition of knowledge and skills, whilst keeping things fun and engaging. This includes teaching Critical Thinking as part of our school-wide focus this academic year.
In Year 1, they adopt the overarching theme of Traditional Tales. Lessons are full of familiar characters such as The Three Little Pigs and Jack and the Beanstalk; in fact, the children were shocked to see the damage that Goldilocks left, after she broke a chair when visiting school!
One of the teaching methods that has been adopted this year is the Talk 4 Writing framework. This is designed to help children build efficient and creative writing skills. Children design a “story board”, following a repetitive sentence structure that becomes memorised. This effectively reduces the cognitive load for pupils and frees up their brain power to focus on choosing the best vocabulary.
It can also help pupils to spend more time critically thinking and coming up with their own ideas, in this case, their own characters and events into some much loved fairy tales. This is just one example of how we create engaged learners that grow, year on year.