Wagtail - YR/1

Welcome to Wagtail Class!

We are class of children from FS2 (Reception) and Year 1 (Key Stage One). You will find us in the room known as the Nest. 

Our teachers are Mrs Wilson and Mrs Busson and our teaching assistants are Mrs Fielding and Miss Anderson. We may also work with Miss Howlin, the Robin class teacher as we share our outdoor learning area with Swift class. Teachers planning time is on Thursday afternoons and the children have PE or Forest Schools.  

If you have any queries you can email the teachers on

FPSwagtail@palladianacademytrust.com   

Mrs Laura Wilson, Assistant Head & Wagtail Teacher

Mrs Karen Busson, SENCo & Wagtail Teacher

Mrs Julie Fielding, Teaching Assistant

General Class Information

In Foundation we are taught through whole class sessions, such as Little Wandle Phonics and Numbersense Maths, and then practise, develop and extend our learning through high quality play experiences. Please come to our Fitz Playdates to learn more about your child's education in the Foundation Stage and discover how you can support your child's learning. Please see the link to the workshop presentations below for more details.

This page will continue to be updated throughout the course of the year. 

In Year One we have seperate lessons for each subject. We follow Little wandle for phonics, Numbersense and NCETM for maths. 

Our core aim as educators is to get your children reading and become confident writers and mathematicians. Please read to your children and with your children as often as possible. Regular practise with their phonic reading book is a key expectation of learning at home but it is also really important for you to read to your children - that bedtime story is growing their vocabulary and understanding!  Regular counting will support their maths and opportunities to write at home are always beneficial. However remember they have had busy days at school - so if you can only fit on one thing before they are too tired, please read!

Reading books

We change reading books every Tuesday and Friday, this gives you opportunity to read and re-read your book three times. We also send home Reading for Pleasure texts; we ask that these are returned every Thursday please.

Rewards 

We reward your children using positive praise, marbles and tokens home. The marbles the children earn feed into a jar and when this is full we have a whole class treat- this is often things like extra playtime, extra time on the pirate ship play equipment or a dance session. 

Term 5

Welcome back to school for the summer terms! This term our learning has a History focus. We will be looking at 'What is a monarch?' alongside learning about royalty and writing letters. We began the term by receiving a letter from Thomas who is the character in our book. He asked us to help him make some new rules and laws. We were excited to receive the letter and already have some great ides for new laws! 

We are looking forward to learning about the artist Mondrian and have some big plans to use his work to inspire some stained glass window work. Parents will be invited in to see out work in a gallery at the end of term.

The Trust are running a Scientific Photography Competition, after our amazing Science week it would be fantastic if we had lots of enteries from Wagtail class. Please let us know if you enter so we can celebrate your child in school! 

End of Term 4

It has been another fabulous term in Wagtail class.  The term started with a treasure map left in the classroom which the children followed.  They thoroughly enjoyed finding (and eating!) the treasure. We then went on to looking at maps in more detail, including maps of the school and maps of Bradford on Avon.  The children particularly enjoyed using Google Earth to zoom in on the local features that they recognised. They understood why maps are drawn from an aerial view.  In English we have focused on writing recounts, we started with a walk around school that the children then wrote about, we then went on a trip to the park. We used the features of recount writing, starting our sentences with First, Next and Finally.   Wagtail class really excelled themselves in terms of their behaviour and enthusiasm on the trip and Mrs Wilson and I were very proud of them.  In DT the Year 1 children used their design, planning and making skills to make ferris wheels which were a great success.

Science week 2025!

We have been learning all about the scientist Hedy Lamarr who was both glamorous and clever. We were surprised to learn that lots of people did not expect her to be clver because she was beautiful! We found out all about her invention of signal hopping which we use today with WIFI. We learnt all about sounds- exploring loud and quiet and drew art based on soundwaves.

We also completed experiments on push and pulls, floating and sinking and melting! 

Term 4

This term is all about maps! We will follow maps, read maps, make maps, create with maps and everything in between! 

In maths Year 1 will learn fancy pants words such as commutative, subtrahend, minuend and addend! Reception children will explore numbers, learning about part, whole diagrams. 

 Term 3

This term we have been engrossed in the story 'Zog' by Julia Donaldson. Year One children have been writing the most amazing stories using the new vocabulary from our writing lessons. In maths we have been working hard to learn and use new terminology such as addend, expression, and equation! We have been learning to explain our thinking and are beginning to write our reasoning in our maths lessons- we have enjoyed the challenge! One of our favourite subjects this term has been ICT where we have been using the program ‘Scratch Jr’ to code- we made characters move and even recorded our voices to sound like instruments.

The reception children have also loved Zog and have been looking at what the children can do since starting school themselves. We have been writing these in captions and sentences. In maths we have been learning to use ‘one touch, one number’ to make sure we are counting accurately. In Wagtails we have developed a love for all things craft, and we have been cutting and sticking mad- we have been learning how to join cardboard together using flange joins. Our highlight of the term was when Bradfords bought a dump truck to the school after Bella was suggested the winning name for it -we were lucky enough to all get chance to sit on it and beep the horn! Even the teachers went on it!

Receptions phonics for this term were

ai, ee, igh, oa, oo/oo, ar, or, ur ow oi ear air er

You will notice that these are all digraphs (2 letters 1 sound) or trigraphs (3 letters 1 sound). It is really important that you still practise all of the phonemes from previous terms but especially the short vowel sounds (a e I o u) as children can start reading ‘a’ (as in cat) as ‘ai’ (as in rain).

We will also be tackling more words with double letters and longer words.

This term’s Tricky Words were: was you they my by all are sure pure

We will continue to send home the digraph handwriting sheets for you to use at home. They do not need to be returned to class but will help you talk to your child about the new phonemes that they have learned.  If you need any support around phonics you will find the guidance sheets at the bottom of the class page plus you can access the parents area of Little Wandle here For parents | Letters and Sounds

Term 2

It has been an extremely busy term in Wagtails.  The Year 1 children have written their own short stories in the style of ‘The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig.’  They chose their own characters and a whole range of weird and wonderful materials for the houses to be built out of including feathers, flowers, ice-cubes and more. In Maths the children have created patterns and pictures using shapes The Christmas play ‘Fleece Force’ was a roaring success with Wagtail providing some wonderful singing to proceedings. 

The reception children have continued to increase their phonics knowledge and have begun to write simple words and captions for pictures.  They all worked vey hard on their Nativity plan ‘A Little Bird Told Me’ learning their lines and singing their songs. In our Number Sense sessions, we have learnt about the numbers 4 and 5 and begun to use five and tens frames.  During our last week of term we have done our first science experiment using candy canes, predicting an outcome, observing over time and using the scientific words melt and dissolve.

Welcome to Term 1 2024! 

Welcome to our new families and welcome back to our Year One parents and careers. We hope you had a lovely summer. Below is some information that will be useful. We have attached our 'meet the teacher' presentation that we ran for year 1 parents. 

Reading Books

FS2 - Your children will start to bring home reading books. All children will have wordless books to practice developing expressive language and storytelling skills. Please refer to the reading workshop powerpoint for ways to support your child at home.

Y1- Your children will continue to bring home their individaul reading books. Please continue to read each book three times.

We change books on Tuesdays and Fridays, but we only change books that have been read three times and the link book has been filled in to show this. On a Friday children will also bring home a picture book, this book is intended for you to read TO your child to encourage a love of reading. Please bring them back by the following Thursday. 

Phonics home learning 

FS2- On Fridays your child will bring home a red book. It will tell you the sounds that your child has learnt that week. Please practise saying the sound that each letter makes, and we have included sheets so that you can practice writing the letter too. Please bring them back in on the following Wednesday so we can stick the next letters in for you.

Fitz Playdates dates and timings. 

In term 1, We have run sessions on play, the joy of reading, and phonics. 

In Term 2 We ran sessions on our reading scheme and maths in the Foundation Stage.

Y1- Your children will bring home a sheet each week covering our learning. Please practice these at home.