Week commencing 24.11.2025

Week commencing 24.11.2025 

Important dates: 

Thursday 27th November – Trip to Hanley Castle High School (see more information below) 

This week our focus text is ‘Dogger’ as we start our topic on ‘Toys’. This story helps children explore themes of caring for special belongings, problem-solving, and empathy. We will continue to look at different materials and what certain toys are made from. This will form the start of our DT lessons where we will be making our own simple toy towards the end of term.  

Please remember to return library books on a Monday and Phonics books on a Friday, many thanks!  

Trip to HCHS:

We have been invited to the high school for a craft and play session Thursday morning, where Year 13 A level students will be running some fun activities for our children. A minibus has been arranged to and from school, at no cost and we will be back in time for lunch.  

Week commencing 17.11.2025

Planned School Closure - Monday 17th November. Enjoy the long weekend!

Following on from our trip to Envirosort we have been focusing on the story 'Somebody Swallowed Stanley', this book has promoted a lot of discussion and has been thoroughly enjoyed so we will be continuing with this theme next week. The children have been working wonderfully on their handwriting, any support at home with practising letter formation would be really appreciated.

Week Commencing - 10.11.2025

Important Dates 

– Tuesday 11th November – Trip to Envirosort 

- Tuesday 11th November - Remembrance Day – We will be marking this with a short, age-appropriate reflection in class. 

- Wednesday 12th November 2.30pm – Phonics Parents information session - Come along to learn more about how we teach phonics and how you can support your child at home. 

- Friday 14th November – Children in Need Day – Wear something – Non uniform with something spotty 

We have a busy and exciting week ahead in Class 1!  

The children will continue exploring our current topic through engaging activities in English, Maths, and Understanding the World. This week, in line with our trip, we will be continuing the theme of recycling and looking after our planet. We will be reading a story about the problems with plastic bags and the harm plastic does to our oceans “Somebody Swallowed Stanley”. 

I hope that you are enjoying sharing books with your child. Do not forget the reading meeting on Wednesday afternoon if you are interested, or check out the 'reading at home' page on the website. 

Week Commencing 3.11.25

Hope you have all had a lovely half term. The children have come back in with a 'Bang' as we have been learning all about 'Bonfire Night' and enjoying some firework based activities, please check the gallery for some lovely pictures of their playdoh fireworks.

We will be starting specific letter formation activities this week. We do this in a particular order, the order is sets of letters that all have the same basic movement.  Please do not forget that we introduce the children to pre-cursive letters straight away. For more information on writing, see the Learning to Write page  We will be starting with the long ladder letters (l,I,t,u,y & j), followed by curly caterpillar letters (c,a,d,e,s,o,g,f & q), one-armed robots (r,n,h,b,m,k&p) and ziz zag letters (x,w,v & z). 

Reading Books  

We are very pleased to say, that on Monday your child will be bringing home two reading books to read at home during the week.  

You will keep these books for the week and then return them to school on a Friday.  

This will happen each week - Receive the books on a Monday and return the books on a Friday.  

Please make sure you share a book every night. Start to get into a routine and make this time together very special, it will help you in the long run. It is very important to re-read the books to develop their phonetic memory, awareness, ability and confidence. If they get to a point when they have memorized the book (which is good), ask them to point to the words as they read, ask them to identify certain words on the page, and cover words up and ask them to tell you what words are under your thumb. In other words, have fun with the book and turn reading into a game!  

  
You only need to share a book for a few minutes each night and this will help your child develop a positive routine for reading. Regular reading also has a huge impact on children's academic progress.  

If you need help with reading at home, please see the 'Learning to Read' page  https://www.hanleyswanprimaryschool.co.uk/learning-to-read/   

Do not forget to sign the home liaison book each time they read with you. 

 We are also hosting a reading information session for parents in school on Wednesday 12th November 2025 at 2:30 pm. We will go through some useful hints and tips, how we read with them at school and answer any questions that you have. 

Week Commencing 20.10.2025

Dates to remember:

Wednesday 22nd October - Malvern Storytelling Festival - Please provide your child with a packed lunch.

Friday 24th October - Teacher Training day - School is closed

The children had a fantastic day on Thursday 16th October, with Karen from Litter Picking Warriors. They were so enthusiastic about helping to clear up our school and we hope this positive attitude will continue at home and out into the community. Continuing with this theme, our story for this week is the exciting story of Michael Recycle by Ellie Bethel — a superhero who helps clean up the planet and teaches us all about the importance of recycling and looking after our environment.

Through this story, we’ll be exploring a range of fun and meaningful activities across different areas of learning:

Forest School Adventures
Children will become “Eco-Heroes” in our Forest School, using natural and recycled materials to create superhero tools and symbols. They’ll learn how to care for nature through hands-on exploration and teamwork.

Creative Projects
We’ll be designing our own superhero capes using collage techniques with recycled materials.

Investigation and Discovery
Children will explore different materials and learn which ones can be reused or recycled. They’ll become detectives, sorting and testing items to understand how we can reduce waste.

Construction and Fine Motor Skills
Using recycled items and building blocks, children will create eco-friendly towns and vehicles, while developing their fine motor skills through sorting and crafting.

If you have anything at home that we could use for junk modelling it would be much appreciated!

Thank you 

Week commencing 13.10.25

Autumn leaves are falling down.

Our focus book this week is 'The Oak Tree' 

Autumn is here, and this week we will be celebrating this. We will be going on an ‘autumn adventure’ finding evidence for the new season and using the things we find for art and design activities.  

We are running low on spare waterproofs and wellies for Forest School. If your child has a set at home please could they be brought into school. If you do not have waterproofs please could you provide a set of rough clothes that your child can wear out to play. Bring these in a name labelled bag to hang on their peg.

Week commencing 6.10.2025

The children all performed wonderfully in the Harvest Festival, we're very proud of them for getting up in front of such a large audience and performing with such confidence! 

This week we are continuing to focus on the traditional tale The Little Red Hen. 

We will be using the talk 4 writing approach and learning a shortened version of the story to perform to the school in a few weeks time. Once they are familiar with the story we will change elements and retell our own versions.

We will be exploring the change in seasons in our understanding the world lessons and creating autumnal collages in art. In forest school this week our activities will be based on the story "Pumpkin Soup"  

Reminders:

- Please bring a coat to school everyday (no matter what the forecast says!)

- We are now using Forest School every Thursday, you are welcome to provide your child with their own wellies and waterproofs, however we do have spares if needed. 

Week commencing 29.9.2025

This week - Harvest Festival - Thursday 2nd October

This week in Class 1, our focus story is the traditional tale The Little Red Hen. 

As part of our learning, we will be discovering the process of making bread – just like the Little Red Hen! The children will have the opportunity to:

• Retell and re-enact the story through role play and small world activities, helping to develop their language and communication skills.
• Make their own bread rolls, which we’ll be using to celebrate the upcoming Harvest Festival. This hands-on experience supports their understanding of the world and fine motor development.
• Mathematics: Measuring ingredients, counting spoonfuls, and exploring concepts like full/empty and heavy/light.
• Understanding the World: Learning where ingredients come from, discussing farming and food production, and observing changes in materials (e.g. dough rising).
• Expressive Arts and Design: Singing songs related to harvest and baking.

We’re looking forward to a fun and enriching week, and we hope the children come home excited to share what they’ve learned!

Reminders:

- Please ensure water bottles are labelled.

- Please bring a coat to school everyday (no matter what the forecast says!)

- We are now using Forest School every Thursday, you are welcome to provide your child with their own wellies and waterproofs, however we do have spares if needed. 

- Harvest Festival - Thursday 2nd October 

Week commencing 22.9.2025

This week in Class 1, we’re diving into a wonderfully colourful story—The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas! 🌈 This charming tale helps children explore and understand their emotions through colours, and it’s the perfect springboard for a week full of creativity, conversation, and imagination.

Here’s what we’ll be exploring together:

We’ll be talking about different emotions—like happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and calm—and how they can be represented by colours. Children will be encouraged to share how they’re feeling and begin to recognise emotions in themselves and others. In art, we will be using paint, collage, and drawing, we’ll create our own colour monsters to express how we feel. This is a great way for children to connect their emotions to visual art and develop their fine motor skills.

In Drawing Club, we’ll be designing our very own monsters and imagining exciting adventures they might go on—perhaps even around our school! This will help develop storytelling skills, creativity, and confidence in sharing ideas. 

Digital Learning

There are many websites and apps that support children's learning. Here are a few that I recommend using at home (for short periods and it is raining): 

CBeebies Apps (Playtime, Explore, Get Creative & Storytime) - Brilliant for everything! 

Teach Your Monster to Read  - excellent phonics & learning to read app (wait for the free sign-up periods) 

Teach your Monster Number Skills - excellent counting app (wait for the free sign-up periods) 

Cbeebies Website - we use Numberblocks and Alphablocks daily. 

Please use it sparingly. The negative impacts can be huge! 

The Characteristics of Effective Learning in Class 1

When we think of ‘teaching and learning’ it is easy to think about being taught to read, write and understand mathematical strategies. But it’s easy to overlook that there are skills and knowledge vital to develop and practice alongside more academic skills. These are the ‘Characteristics of Effective Learning’ and another way of looking at them is to call them the skills we need for life. They are an integral part of Early Years teaching (Birth to 5) and are the foundations for academic success.

The Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning are divided into three sections. They’re all interconnected and overlap with one another, and hopefully, you’ll already recognise a lot of these characteristics in your children. All children can develop these skills over time  – provided they’re given the opportunities to do so. 

Week Commencing 15.9.2025

This week we will be learning all about the parts of our body. We will be naming the body parts and discussing what they can do and how we use them. We will be exploring the text ‘Funnybones’ and using the story to inspire our artwork.