Homework 30th April 2026

Writing Task

There will be no writing task next week due to the Bank Holiday. 

 Phonics

Repeated practice of spelling helps children move their new learning into long-term memory. In Year 1 especially, it’s important to find time to practise and embed spelling outside of phonics lessons. Please keep sessions short and fun! 

 Graphemes:

This week we have introduced 4 new sounds. Please can you recap these with your child.

o-e, o & ou (making the u sound)

se (making z)

se & ce (making s)

ey

Ask your child to:

• Say the grapheme
• Can they tell you the rhyme for the grapheme

 Decodable words: (this week our focus has been introducing four phase 5 digraphs)

done, brother, mother, nothing, son, won, touch, young, above

please, cheese, choose, noise, tease, praise

purse, horse, mouse, dance, fence, choice

money, donkey, monkey, valley, key, honey

Ask your child to:

• Read the words.
• Add the sound buttons (dots and dashes).
• Write the words.
• Remember to sound out and segment each word before spelling it.

Tricky words:

thought

through

friend

work

Ask your child to:

• Read the words.
• Circle the tricky part.
• Write the words.
• Remember to sound out and segment each word before spelling, thinking carefully about the tricky bit.

 Additional dictation:

• Challenge your child to apply their phonic knowledge in short dictated sentences.
• Model and check the correct spelling of the sentence together.

 Handwriting 

Please continue to practise handwriting at home. We will be practising this daily in school, with a focus on keeping letters on the line and ensuring consistent letter size. The handwriting rhymes can be found in the phonics section of the school website. When forming capital letters and numbers, we are placing particular emphasis on starting at the top.

 This week we have focussed on: 

X & x

Y & y

Z & z

 Maths Number Fact Task 

Each half term, we will have a number fact focus, which will form part of the weekly homework.

Number facts are calculations that children should be able to recall instantly, without working them out — in other words, they need to learn them by heart.

To help your child succeed, here are some top tips:

• Practise little and often (for example, while walking to school or during a car journey).
• You do not need to practise all the facts at once — focus on a few at a time.
• Make flashcards for quick, fun practice.
• Use practical resources to help (such as small objects for counting).

The children will be assessed on these facts during the week commencing 18th May.

The number facts to learn this half term are:

• Number bonds to 10 (0+10, 1+9, 2+8, 3+7, 4+6, 5+5, 6+4, 7+3, 8+2, 9+1, 10+0)
• Doubles (0+0, 1+1, 2+2, 3+3, 4+4, 5+5, 6+6, 7+7, 8+8, 9+9, 10+10, 11+11, 12+12)
• If you are confident your child knows their number bonds to and within 10 with automatic recall including subtraction facts then please move onto number bonds to 20
• If your child is now confident with number bonds to 20 (including subtraction facts) please move onto adding 10 to numbers within 100. 

Numbots - 🏆 Certificates will be handed out every Friday. 

 CHALLENGE SECTION: Please can you complete as much of the challenge section as possible as this fills each child's heatmap. Any part of the challenge section will help support with filling in the heatmap. Thank you! 

 Any questions about homework please ask a member of the Year 1 team.

Reading

Children will receive their phonics book and library book every Tuesday and returned the following Monday

• The phonics book is for your child to practise and show you their fluent reading.

• The library book is for you to share and enjoy together at home.

Please remember:

• The phonics book and reading record must be returned daily so your child can take part in their reading group.

• The library book, phonics book, and reading record should all be returned the following Monday.

Parents/carers should record the titles of both books in the reading record each week:

• Phonics book title at the top of the page.

• Library book title at the bottom of the page.

Thank you for your continued support with reading at home.

Tricky Words

In Little Wandle, children learn tricky words within their phonics phases. When teaching these, we explain to the children which part of the word is tricky and how to remember it.

We will keep you updated through homework on:

• Which tricky words we are learning in school.

• Which words need to be practised at home.

At the moment, we are revisiting Phase 2, 3  and 4 tricky words. We will then begin Phase 5 tricky words during the next half term

Please remember that these can be found on the phonics section of the website.

https://www.collinghamschool.com/phonics-early-reading/

Thank you for practising these at home — it really helps to build your child’s reading confidence.

Core Books and Poems

This year we will continue looking at 5 core books and poems as well as revisiting books read in reception. This will continue throughout the year with the aim of the children having a deep understanding of these core books and poems. We will refer to these books as their 'special books' and they will have access to them during provision time. Everyday we will look at one of the books and poems. Please note that this year we have changed 2 of our core books to 'The Tiger who Came to Tea' and 'What happened to you?'. 

Year 1 Core Books:

The Tiger who Came to Tea (Judith Kerr), Snail and the Whale (Julia Donaldson), The Selfish Crocodile (Faustin Charles), What Happened to you? (James Catchpole), Jack and the Beanstalk

 Reception Core Books:

Peace at Last (Jill Murphy), Superworm (Julia Donaldson), The Lion Inside (Rachel Bright), And Tango Makes Three (Justin Richardson), The Three Little Pigs

Year 1 Core Poems:

Nursery Rhyme - 10 green bottles, Michael Rosen - Do I know you?, Nonsense - On the Ning Nang Nong, Alliterative - Tim the Terrifying Tiger, RESPECT Code - Kind Hearts are the Gardens

Reception Core Poems:

Nursery Rhyme - Polly Put the Kettle on, Michael Rosen - Lunchtime, Nonsense - Hey Diddle Diddle, Alliterative - Peter Piper, RESPECT Code - Look After Your Friends

Letter and Number Formation

This year, to support children with letter formation, we will be using the Little Wandle letter formation rhymes. These are available in the phonics section of the school website.

• Children will practise handwriting for the first ten minutes of every day, focusing on both letter and number formation.

• Once the children have learned the rhymes for lowercase letters, we will move on to capital letters.

• To support at home, you can download the letter formation sheets from the phonics section of the website.

Phonics and Early Reading (Parents menu tab)

Thank you for practising at home — it makes a big difference in helping children develop neat, confident handwriting.

Our learning in Summer 1

Phonics - We will be continuing with Phase 5 learning new sounds and tricky words

Handwriting - We will be focussing on letter size and the correct start point for each letter

Writing - We will be embedding our new grammar learning (suffixes) and looking at how we can make our sentences more interesting. This will include ! and ?, sentence starters, adjectives and conjunctions.

Reading - Our reading focus will be inference and prediction

Maths - Our maths topics this half term will be carrying on with fractions (halfs and quarters), place value within 100 and money.

Science - Our topic this half term is plants.  We will identify and name a variety of common wild and garden plants, including deciduous and evergreen trees and also identify and describe the basic structure of a variety of common flowering plants, including trees. Alongside this learning we will look at the seasonal changes of spring.

R.E. - Our focus this half term is Judaism. Our enquiry question will be 'Who is Jewish and how do they live?'.

Computing - Our focus this half term will be programming. We will look at algorithms and Bee Bots.

P.E. - Our PE focus on a Monday will be Yoga and on a Friday it will be sending & receiving & reaction response.

PSHE - Our topic this half term will be 'Mental Health & Emotional Well-being' with a particular focus on feelings. We will learn about different feelings, learn about managing different feelings and learn about change/loss and how this can make people feel.

DT - Our DT focus this half term will be structures and we will be constructing a windmill. 

Music - Our music focus will be having fun with improvisation. Our enquiry question is 'What songs can we sing to help us through the day?'.

French - In French we will revisit some songs and emotions. 

British Values - We will recap the 4 British Values (individual liberty, democracy, rule of law, mutual respect & tolerance). We will do this through stories. 

Worship - Monday: Whole school worship with focus for the week shared. Tuesday: Newsday Tuesday (in classrooms). Wednesday: Whole school worship. Thursday: Biq Question Thursday (in classrooms). Friday: Whole school worship.

English Support

Simple view of Reading

Questions for Reading with Children

Year 1 Further Questions

Maths Support

Year 1 Maths Vocabulary

Written Calculation Policy Y1