Year 1 – Bellbrae Primary School
AIMS AND BELIEFS
Year One is an amazing year for student growth and learning. We focus on ensuring a continuation of a creative, supportive and productive environment that nurtures and promotes the physical, social, emotional and cognitive development of each student. Connecting learning to students’ lives and providing diverse, engaging and stimulating learning experiences is fundamental in our approach to curriculum. As well as opportunities for play and discovery, students will be engaged in structured daily learning routines, with a strong focus on the foundations of Literacy and Numeracy.
INTEGRATED CURRICULUM
The daily program consists of a two-hour Literacy block (Reading and Writing) and 1 hour of Numeracy each day. Knowledge-rich curriculum is embedded throughout the curriculum, and encompasses science, history, geography, and civics. As well as STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineers, Art, Maths) being integrated throughout the curriculum, all students have a focussed one-hour STEM session each week. Each week, students also attend specialist classes in Indonesian, Performing Arts or Art, and PE.
LITERACY
Each morning there is a two-hour literacy block that promotes skill development in reading and viewing, writing, speaking, and listening.
As a part of our whole school commitment to best-practice literacy education, Multisensory Structured Language (MSL) is a core part of every day in Year 1. MSL is an evidence-based approach that applies proven knowledge of how the brain works and how learning best occurs in reading and writing. Students receive explicit teaching in the relationships between phonics, spelling rules and the meanings of word parts (morphology), as they are simultaneously engaged in multisensory (auditory, visual and kinaesthetic-tactile) activities to support the development of stronger neural pathways and embed learning in long-term memory.
As well as a systematic phonics spelling program, each day students are immersed in a range of rich core literature, are explicitly taught vocabulary, and have regular focused fluency reading practice. Writing incorporates learning about punctuation, sentence structures and how to make sentences more interesting to our readers. Students also practise planning writing to generate interesting and logically sequenced ideas. Daily handwriting instruction emphasises correct pencil grip, the right starting point, the direction to follow, size and spacing, and fluency development.
NUMERACY
The topics focused on in Mathematics through the year are Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry and Statistics and Probability. Lessons begin with quick warmups and revising previously taught content. Games and hands-on learning are important for this age group. And throughout Mathematics, we aim to develop mathematical thinkers by engaging students in opportunities to relate what they learn to real life problems or other areas of the curriculum, celebrating creative thinking, exploring variety in strategies when solving mathematical problems, building confidence and enjoyment of maths, and encouraging evaluation and discussion of mathematical thinking.
WELLBEING:
Our whole school values of Respect, Resilience, Responsibility and Aspire are interwoven into our daily learning. We explicitly teach and celebrate expected behaviours, in line with our whole school positive behaviour support approach. Respectful Relationships, Restorative Practices, and a focus on building a kind and caring community where everyone belongs, are guiding principles at Bellbrae in our Year 1 team.
PARENT COMMUNICATION
Year 1 is a time when students are becoming more confident in their approach to school life. This is evident in the way they independently manage their morning classroom jobs and routines each morning and get themselves organised and ready to learn at 9:00. You can promote and encourage this growing responsibility, by supporting their daily home reading and daily diary signing. As well as the daily signing and recording of home reading, the diaries are a useful tool for communication to school, for example reassuring notes for your child about bus or pick-up plans, or as a place to write questions for their class teacher. The diaries are also where notes and resources traveling to and from school can be clipped to keep them safe. In addition to diaries, Compass is where school and year level information is posted. This is also where you can see excursion details and give permission for events. Seesaw is a digital platform for classroom and student learning updates and sharing, and you can directly message the classroom teacher via Seesaw too.
