Year 1 and Year 2
Welcome to Squirrel Class
Welcome to our Key Stage One class! In Squirrels we are taught by Miss Thomas, Miss Hunter, Mrs White-Culf and Ms Thorpe. 
We show great pride in being a part of Tilstock School by always striving to follow our school values and learning behaviours by being ready, safe and respectful in everything we do. We learn and follow our Squirrel class pledge and aim to show up and demonstrate these values every day.
We love learning and knowing more and are keen and creative explorers, historians, geographers, scientists, writers, readers and mathematicians.
Curriculum Planner
Key Knowledge Organiser
In Squirrels we think it’s important that we learn about the world around us. Through our enquiry-based curriculum we begin every term with an enquiry question and through engaging tasks we independently research and demonstrate our understanding through our own unique learning styles.
Enquiry based learning allows us to be in control of our learning. Our classroom is set up to help us discover the information we need to help us with our understanding, and we are supported to work collaboratively with our friends by the adults in our classroom.
Our independent learning sessions take place every day and we have a set amount of time to complete challenging tasks linked to Geography, History and Science. We have learning reviews throughout the week where we present and share our work to inspire each other and to talk about our new knowledge. We also have quizzes so we can show off our amazing knowledge and all of the new things we have learned about our topic.
When we have finished a project or piece of work and have made it the best that it can be, we can publish our work in our Independent Learning Journal. We can use a guillotine independently and safely and take care to present our work with pride.
We are keen mathematicians in Squirrels and we know how to find and use our equipment in class independently to help us with our calculations. Every week we look forward to doing the 99 club. We have five minutes to answer multiplication questions and each time we achieve a level we receive a certificate!
We also love stories and books and have our Squirrel class book club at the end of every day. Our love of stories helps and inspires us every day in our writing. Sometimes we choose to show everything we understand about our topic through a piece of writing.
Our phonics scheme is Read Write Inc. which gives us the opportunity to read with a friend and an adult every day, practise our sounds and become speedy readers! When we have completed the scheme by reading a set amount of words per minute we move onto guided reading and SPaG (spelling, grammar and punctuation) sessions through Read Write Inc. Spelling. We learn how to use skills such as vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation and summarising key areas of text.
Writing: We follow a scheme called ‘Pathways to Write’ which allows us to engage deeply with a high quality text each half term. We love to edit our own work and independently use sound mats, spelling mats and vocabulary lists to make our writing the best it can be.
All of the children at Tilstock are courageous advocates which means we have the courage to speak out against injustice. We come together to learn about issues across the world and we work to improve our local community and raise awareness.
We have worked hard to protect life on land and we have raised awareness and money for The Wild Life Trust and for the protection of hedgehogs through joining The Big Wild Walk where about the ways in which we can protect hedgehogs and why they are so important to our local wildlife.
We have also learned about British birds and how some are in decline in the United Kingdom by taking part in the Big School Birdwatch for the RSPB.
Every morning we start our day by singing our ‘Hello’ song and ‘Days of the Week’ song.
As well as learning about the world around us through core and foundation subjects there is lots of incidental learning which takes place through regular singing throughout the day! Here are some of our favourite songs in Squirrels:
Capital cities song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvDIZoQLgIE
Continents song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6DSMZ8b3LE
Oceans song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6BE4VcYngQ
Seasons song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZjpI6fgYSY
Animal classification song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VixROiu8Qg
Big numbers song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0dJWfQHF8Y
Capital letter and full stop song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjvfcS3K7zM
Homework – Expectations and links
Your child will be able to choose a task from the ‘homework menu’ to complete each week. This will be linked to skills we are learning in class this term and our current topic focus. Homework books will need to be returned by Wednesday each week and will be sent out the following Friday. The child who has gone above and beyond and put substantial effort into their homework task that week will receive a special ‘proud cloud’ certificate for the homework of the week. Every completed piece of homework is awarded 3 dojos.
Timetable
Continuing our love of poetry with pupils from Squirrel Class reciting An Emerald is Green as Grass by Christina Rossetti.
Children in Squirrel Class have learned and recited the poem ‘Happiness’ by AA Milne. This has been part of their Science unit ‘Materials’ where they have recently learned about Charles Mackintosh and created their own waterproof material.
Year 1 and Year 2
