Welcome to Larch Class

Classteacher: Mrs. F. Earle

2025-26

 

 

Thursday 23rd October 2025

Dear Parents/Carers,

What a wonderful half term we have had! The children have all settled in beautifully and worked so hard. It has been so nice to meet you all during Parents' Evening and share the children's progress and targets for the year. I'm sure you can agree they have done very well so far!

In English this week, we have finished looking at instruction texts and have written our own independent piece. I have been very impressed with the adjectives, adverbs, time openers and bossy verbs used. I'm sure the children will enjoy practising instructions over the half-term! In Maths, we have continued to look at subtraction with larger numbers. It has been quite tricky but we have been using our understanding of place value to subtract from the ones first, then the tens. We will continue with this topic after half term for another week.

In Reading, we have finished looking at the 'Revolting Rhymes' and the children have been discussing the characters'  relationships. They have been able to identify the characters' feelings and discuss how these might impact their relationships. They have done really well to use sentence stems to structure their ideas and use ambitious vocabulary.

Have a wonderful half term and thank you for your ongoing support. 

See you in Autumn 2!

Mrs, Earle

Thursday 16th October 2025

Dear Parents/Carers,

In our English lessons this week, we have been finalising our shared writing and understanding of the instructions toolkit. Together, the children created an innovative text map, incorporating a dragon instead of a wolf. They have had lots of fun putting together our new text map and working on how to create easy to understand instructions. 

In maths, we have been exploring addition within 50 and 100. The children have been looking at a 100 square and identifying how many tens and ones a number has to support their understanding of how to add the ones and tens individually. We have moved on to using a column method to add and the children have really enjoyed working in this new way.

For your information, next week we will be assessing the sticky words we have been focusing on this half term. These are on the website so you know which words the children will be assessed on. The children will also be  writing from memory using their own text map next week.

I am looking forward to parents' evening next week to discuss how Larch class has settled into the new year and I look forward to discussing their progress with you. Please make sure you have booked an appointment. 

Thank you for your continued support and have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Earle

Thursday 9th October 2025

Dear Parents/Carers,

What another wonderful week in Larch! The children have been working really hard to master subtraction in maths this week and developing their written work to include time openers, imperative verbs (bossy verbs) and adjectives in their writing. They have all really impressed me with how well they can create instructions and I am sure they will love to practise using their bossy verbs at the weekend!

In maths, where we have been focussing on subtraction, we have used many methods to cement our understanding. The children have learned how to take away counters, count backwards on a number line and we have started to use the Base 10 resources to create numbers and subtract. All of the children have enjoyed using the different methods this week. 

In Design and Technology this week, we finalised our designs and created evaluations for our Revolting Pizzas! I think we can all agree that the children did a superb job in following the design brief! We had some fantastic concoctions, from Marmite with jelly sweets to jam and spinach. It was great to see the children have so much fun making their pizzas.

Please note that next Friday evening is the School Disco - have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Earle

 

Thursday 2nd October 2025

Dear Parents/Carers,

 

This week we have been busy learning lots of new things! We have started to move into adding in maths with a focus on using concrete resources to add within 20. We have also used a number line to practice counting onwards to add across 10. The children have worked really well and can confidently identify the symbols used. I'm sure they would love to show you their addition skills over the weekend!

In English, we have started looking at instructions and how they are written. Our model text is about how to catch The Big Bad Wolf, which has captured their imaginations. We have created our text map and have been looking at rhetorical questions. The children found this quite tricky! We were looking at persuading Mrs Earle to let us have burgers. Maybe they could practice trying to persuade you over the weekend.

Throughout the week, the children have worked really hard to remember their sticky knowledge in our various subjects and they have been working hard to improve their letter formation in our handwriting sessions.

 

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Earle.

 

Thursday 25th September 2025

 

Dear Parents/Carers,

We have had another wonderful week in Larch. The children have shown me fantastic resilience in their writing. Our Year 1s have been focussing on writing at length and using capital letters and full stops consistently, whilst our Year 2s have been focussing on adding exciting adjectives and adverbs to help describe a character. I'm sure they would love to share some of their ideas with you! 

In Maths, we have been focussing on greater than, less than and equal to. We have been looking at how we can decide which number is larger and the correct symbol to measure it. We have focussed on using a hundred square, number line and counters to represent the numbers so we can see how one number is larger than another. The children have enjoyed working with the idea that the symbols will always want to have the larger number and using this method to decide on which symbols the number needs.

We have continued delving into our various topics this week, learning about Queen Elizabeth 2nd and Queen Victoria in History, as well as looking into various revolting toppings for our pizzas in Design Technology. The children have worked incredibly hard this week and really shown great enthusiasm for their learning. Well done Larch!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Earle

 

Thursday 18th September 2025

Dear Parents/Carers,

We have had another wonderful week in Larch! The children have been working incredibly hard and have been wonderful at supporting each other in their learning. This week, we have been starting our shared writing and editing our text map to develop our own character. The children have worked hard to build their resilience and stamina for writing, as well as ensuring they remember full stops and finger spaces. In maths, we have been working on looking at 1 more and 1 less. We have worked practically with counting blocks and using the number line to see how we jump forward and backwards 1. I'm sure they would love to show you this and, as it is Year 1 KIRFS, it would be great to keep practising it at home when you can. 

It was lovely to see and meet many of you at our first 'At Home' evening for this half-term. Please do keep coming to see all the wonderful work the children are producing and, of course, to see how our enhanced provision is supporting learning throughout the curriculum. We have had some wonderful depictions of Tudors being made in the castle!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Earle

 

 

Friday 12th September 2025

Dear Parents/Carers,

What a wonderful first full week we have had in Larch! The children have settled in beautifully, adapting to the new environment and routines well. They have shown me how well they can work together and have been brilliant at sharing their knowledge politely. They have shown great enthusiasm for our new topics, such as significant queens in History and the Human Body in Science. They have also relished having some time to create and make in our Art Lessons, where we drew the Big Bad Wolf from Little Red Riding Hood.

In maths, we have been exploring the concept of partitioning numbers. The children are discovering the various ways to make a number and are also learning how to break down two-digit numbers into tens and ones, such as identifying that 15 consists of 1 ten and 5 ones.

In English, our focus is on fiction stories. We are beginning with the classic tale of Little Red Riding Hood, where the children are learning to create a text map. This exercise emphasises understanding the main characters and their roles in the story.

Our PE Days are Tuesday (Sports Coach) and Friday with me, the class teacher.  Please ensure your child’s PE kit is in school and earrings are removed on this day. 

How can you help at home?

• Reading
• KIRFS
• Sticky words
• Numbots and TTRS

Reading

The children will bring their phonics book home every evening. The children will also be able to choose a library book and this will be changed every Friday. This can only happen if they bring their old book back in.

KIRFS

This half term, our KIRFS focus is one more and one less for Year 1 and Number Bonds within 20 for Year 2. We will focus on these skills in our enhanced provision throughout the term but, of course, a little and often at home will be beneficial too.

Numbots and TTRS

These are free websites that the children are able to use to practise their fluency skills. These can also be downloaded as an app on tablet devices. The logins will be put inside the home school diary for you to use at home with your child.

Sticky words - spellings

In Larch,  we will learn new sticky words each week and at the end of the half-term, the children will be assessed on writing these without any prompts. We will teach and practise these in class, but it would be wonderful if you could support your child with these at home also.

Autumn 1 – Sticky Words
Revisited each week	September October Monday
WB 8th September	I                me
WB 15th September	do every
WB 22nd September	all              are
WB 29th September	was my
WB 6th October	once said
WB 13th October	to you
WB 20th October	Assessment

 

Thank you for your ongoing support and we hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs. Earle

 

 

Phonics support for parents