The Key Stage One curriculum covers year 1 and 2.
Class name | Age of child |
Year 1 | 5 – 6 years |
Year 2 | 6 – 7 years |
When the students enter Key Stage 1 they must study all curriculum subjects. Teaching at this stage is primarily by the English teacher:
- Maths
- English & Italian
- Science
- History
- Geography
- Art and design
- Music
- Physical education
- ICT
It is during the Key Stage One phase that a child gains the foundation for his reading, writing and numeracy skills. The teachers concentrate on building these basic skills and creating a solid base for continued development in the later key stages. Much emphasis at this stage is placed on spelling, grammar, writing skills, communication and numeracy. The teachers of the year 1 and year 2 classes work closely together, through the role of a coordinator, in order to ensure that the children progress smoothly and gain the necessary skills by the end of the key stage.
The children’s curiosity and creativity continues to be supported through project-based learning and hands-on activities in most subject areas. The teachers propose educational trips and outings linked with cross-curricular classroom projects. This ensures a deeper and wider understanding of the learning area, as well as encouraging personal and social development. Teaching at this stage balances the use of games and play with academic instruction and learning. In topic learning such as science, history and geography the children are taught through fun activities encouraging thinking and communication skills. The English teachers work meticulously with the Italian teacher in order to create dual language projects and facilitate learning within the two curricula.
Learning Objectives
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Maths in Year 1 (Age 5-6)
Most children can understand the basic concepts of number, shape and measurement and see mathematics as an exciting and practical element of the curriculum. They say and use the number names. They can count accurately and recognise that numbers may represent a quantity, position or label. Teachers provide a balance of whole-class activity involving counting, problem solving in groups and independent work where children apply and practise their learning. This mix of mental, practical and informal written work engages and motivates children and fosters purposeful attitudes to mathematics. In Year 1, children develop their understanding of place value and recognise the importance of 10 in the number system. They position numbers on a number track and number line. Children count on or back in ones, twos, fives and tens and develop strategies to add and subtract that relate to counting and their increasing knowledge of number facts.
They name and describe the features of common 2-D shapes and 3-D solids and create pictures and patterns that they can explain. Children begin to use standard units to measure and read time to the hour and half hour.
English in Year 1 (Age 5-6)
A phonics assessment is given to all children in Year 1. It is designed to confirm whether individual pupils have grasped the basics of phonic decoding by the end of Year 1 and will identify those pupils who needed extra help, so the school can provide support.
Reading
The reading curriculum in Year 1 includes a wide range of high-quality fiction, poetry and non-fiction texts and provide opportunities for children to apply their developing reading skills appropriately. Teachers promote pleasure in reading through reading aloud a wide range of stories, poems, rhymes and information texts. They should be listened to reading independently at least once a week - not all children become fluent readers by the end of Year 1, but most take their first solid steps toward fluid reading. Through phonics teachers help children listen for sounds in words, write the sounds they hear, and discover parts of written language, like the –at in cat that they can then use to work out the words hat, mat, and sat.
Writing
Writing, like reading, takes a variety of forms in Year 1. Children "invent" their spellings as they work out their understandings of written language. Writing activities include diary writing, writing creative stories, or writing non-fictional texts. Teachers frequently ask children to sound out the words they write to confirm the sounds that letters make.
Maths in Year 2 (Age 6-7)
At the start of Year 2, most children have already acquired a basic knowledge of numbers and place value upon which they build their understanding of the number system. They count in twos, fives and tens and have started to derive and recall number facts. They solve problems from real life and in mathematical contexts and become more independent and competent early mathematicians. Most children can order numbers to at least 100 using the vocabulary of greater than and less than. They can count in 2s, 5s, 10s and 100s and identify the numbers on a number line to help with
calculations. The children develop more sophisticated counting skills, they identify, describe and explain simple patterns and relationships that involve numbers and shapes as well as being able to solve problems that involve all four operations (+, -, ÷, X). Most children understand simple fractions, finding halves and quarters of shapes and sets of objects. By the end of Year 2, most children can read the numbered divisions on a scale and interpret the unnumbered divisions between them. They begin to make connections between standard units of length, mass and capacity. They are able to read time to the quarter hour on both digital and analogue clocks.
English in Year 2(Age 6-7)
By Year 2, most students can read and write at a basic level. They tackle more and more texts in and out of the classroom as they work to become rapid and accurate readers. The majority of children entering Year 2 can read automatically some 150 of the most frequently occurring words in English and can spell many of them. During Year 2, their phonic knowledge and speed of blending increases so that they can decode words independently and quickly. They routinely apply their phonic knowledge as the prime approach to reading unfamiliar and more complex words.
Writing
At this stage children also become better story writers as they learn to write basic sentences and short narratives about an event or a character. By the end of Year 2, most children write stories with a clear and sustained form, a logical sequence of events and a consistent use of person and time. Children's handwriting often becomes smaller and neater.
