Learning in Maple Class
Welcome to Maple Class for Autumn Term 2025
About our class
Maple class is taught by Miss Searle, Monday to Thursday and Mr Lewis on a Friday.
Mrs Bufton works within the class every morning and some afternoons.
That is the Maple Team! Please come and see us or get in touch if you have any queries at all.
We also have two volunteers: Judy Balderson with Kerry (our therapy dog) and they come to support reading most Mondays. Nicky Thomas (who is completing a Teaching and Learning in Schools, Level 2 course) joins us most Wednesdays.
Curriculum Plans
See our Long-Term Plans, Year A (on the school’s website), to find out what we are studying across the curriculum this year. Below is an over view of this term’s curriculum.
PE is every Thursday and this term it will be outside learning invasion skills and net and ball skills, (so trainers, joggers and jumpers will be needed as the weather becomes more autumnal.) Please try and leave PE kits in school as they may be needed at other times. PE will either be taught by Mr Cox or Miss Searle
Forest school will begin on Wednesday 17th September and will finish on Wednesday 22nd October 2024. Just like Monkey Puzzle class, on Forest School days children come to school dressed for Forest School, (long sleeved tops and long trousers with appropriate footwear and rain wear), and if they would like, they can change into other clothing when they get back to school. We don’t do Forest School after October half term to Christmas, as our focus for these weeks is the Christmas Production.
Values of the month. (These values are the focus for our assemblies and are reinforced during PSHE lessons.)
September – Enthusiasm
October - Confidence
November - Peacefulness
December – Joyfulness
PSHE lessons will focus on Health and Wellbeing looking at keeping safe in the home, outside the home and with strangers. After half term our focus will change to Living in the Wider World where we will discuss family life, school, homes and environments in different countries, and how we can protect the one world we live on.
Science focus is identifying, comparing and categorising the properties of materials.
Computing
On Line Safety learning this term is:
Self-image and Identity (recognise that there may be some people online who could make someone feel sad or upset, and if something happens who can they speak to).
Managing online information (how to find information online, understanding that some information we might not like and how can we get help).
Practically, we will look at computer systems and networks around us and creating media such as digital painting, photos and digital writing.
History focus is on an important event: The Gun Powder Plot
Geography focus is called Our School. It involves teaching about the world around us, starting with the pupil’s immediate environment by looking at maps and thinking about local journeys.
Design and Technology learning is about food hygiene and healthy food choices as we focus on tasting and making different Dips and Dippers.
Art focus is colour chaos. We will look at sketching, making marks, colour mixing and our artist study is work by Paul Klee. We will also focus on autumn using natural patterns, shapes and colours in art.
Music focus is learning to play the recorder by reading simple notation and playing in rhythm.
RE focus is based on Christianity and two important questions: What do Christians believe God is like? Why does Christmas matter to Christians?
English
We follow Twinkl Phonics to learn our sounds and develop a range of reading skills and writing skills. Monday morning children complete a spelling quiz which reflects the sound they have been learning during the week before and is part of their homework. Children have home school phonics books (red) in their book bag that contain the look, cover, write, check sheet to help them practice their sounds.
Children receive a Let’s Read mini book each week which helps them consolidate their sounds and tricky words that they have been learning that week. They also develop comprehension skills.
Rhino Reader books will be changed weekly on a Wednesday. These books link into the phonics sounds that the children have already been taught so that they can practice sounding and blending. They are designed to be read more than once so that the phonic sounds are consolidated.
In daily lessons we will study texts which will include,
Fiction - stories on a theme: feelings and traditional tales
Non-fiction - recounts: animal diaries, our own recounts and letters and postcards
Poetry: poems by the same poet: Edward Lear
Grammar is taught in both phonics sessions and daily class lessons. This term we will focus on capital letters and full stops in sentences, identifying nouns, noun phrases, different types of sentences and subordination and coordination conjunctions.
Handwriting focus will be on the ladder family (l, i, u, t, y, j) and the one-armed robot family (n, m, h) linking in with Twinkl phonics.
Maths
In Maths we will be building on learning from Reception and Year 1. This will include:
We will study place value including:
- Counting and estimation
- Teens and place value in 2-digit numbers
- Numbers on a line; compare and order
- Count to 100, 1 more/less; ordinals
We will study addition and subtraction including:
- Partition numbers and learn number bonds
- Add by counting on in 1s and 10s
- Counting back
- Use number facts to add and subtract
- Add and subtract tens and ones
- Use different strategies for addition
- Coin recognition and finding amounts and change
We will study time including:
- Understand units of time
- Telling the time to half and quarter hours
We will study measures including:
- Comparing and measuring lengths
We will also be developing an understanding of fractions and multiplication including:
- Understanding halves and quarters
- Doubling and halving including odd and even numbers
- Counting in steps of 5 and 10
Learning at home.
We encourage all children to read at home at least 3 times a week. We give stamps as a reward for reading and count up how many times they have read from the reading diaries. Please read the Rhino Readers and the Let’s Read mini books (as well as other texts).
Phonics homework for Level 5 and 6 consists of writing out their weekly spellings. For Maths, please count forward and back working towards 20, 50 then 100.
Maple Class Plans
Expectations in Mathematics for Year 1