Our first day in Bodhran Class.
We are going to have an amazing year!

  Welcome to...

Bodhran Class Year 1 / 2

2024-2025

Mrs Cross and Mrs English

A Bodhran is an Irish drum. It can help develop fine motor skills and auditory sensory input. The bodhran is a great traditional percussion instrument, which is perfect for children to use.

"A good drummer listens as much as he plays."

-Indian proverb

Please click on the star above to find a range of phonics resources to help you support your child at home.

'Inside every child is a

rainbow waiting to shine'

______________________________________________

'Every child is a different kind of flower, and altogether

make this world a beautiful garden'

Here are Autumn 1's spellings. These are some of the spellings which feature in our Understanding the World topics this half term, Please be aware there will be no spelling test on these words. We are simply sending them home so that the children have the opportunity to become familiar with them.

This week the children have been busy planning their non chronological report, ‘All about St Mary’s’. We have spoke to different members of staff to to find out lots of interesting facts about our school.

We all carefully thought about the people we would like to nominate for ‘Secretly Famous’ and then neatly wrote our nominations. We were very excited to post our nominations in the special post box. We are excited to find out who everyone has nominated.

What better way to test our knowledge about carnivores, omnivores and herbivores than to investigate (fake) animal poo? The children had three poo samples and a variety of tools, their job was to investigate the poo and decide which poo belonged to which category of animal. They did this by looking at the food the poo contained. The children absolutely loved this learning activity.

World Book Day 2025

The children looked amazing and found it very funny seeing Mrs Cross in an inflatable ‘Fred the Frog’ costume 🐸!

Our Lady of Lourdes

We were honoured to host the Lady of Lourdes statue from the Diocese. The teachers created their own prayer stations and each class was given the opportunity to spend time in the hall worshipping in the presence of the statue and engaging with each prayer station. The children were all very respectful and enjoyed each station.

Congratulations to our ‘Star of the Week’, Forrest. Forrest has been trying incredibly hard this week. He has been demonstrating some super listening, in all lessons. He has been working particularly hard in maths and phonics. Forrest’s phonics teacher has even spoken to me and told me how impressed she has been with the progress Forrest has been making. Well done Forrest, keep it up!

Congratulations to our ‘star of the week’, Noah. Noah was chosen to be awarded our class value award for knowledge. Noah is a very bright young man. He has so much knowledge about so many different things. He loves nothing more than sharing interesting and surprising facts with the grown ups and the rest of the class. He is often able to help members of the class understand different topics due to his existing knowledge. A big well done to Noah.

In English we have been learning about poetry. We wrote our own rhyming couplet and then performed them for the rest of the class.

We have been using our understanding of colour to mix several shades of green. We were then able to create some beautiful and unique pieces of ‘green’ art. 

In maths we have been working on finding the difference between two quantities. This is quite a difficult concept and we found it a little bit tricky. To help us understand this, Mrs Cross gave us two quantities of sweets. We had to find the difference between the two quantities before we were allowed to eat them. 

Congratulations to our ‘Star of the Week’, Kane. Kane has had a truly fabulous week. He has been trying very hard to make the right choices and follow our school rules to be ready, safe, respectful and kind. As well as this, Kane has been doing some great listening and ‘working his socks

off’. This attitude to learning has meant that he has created some lovely art work and well presented English work. I am also very proud that another member of staff has commented on how hard Kane has been concentrating during phonics sessions. Well done Kane… keep it up!

To recognise Mental Health Week, the children were asked to wear a scarf for school.

This week we have started to look at poems in our English lessons. We used musical instruments to find the beat of rhyming poems such as nursery rhymes. We have been thinking about rhyming words and understand that these are words that have the same sound. We have had so much fun finding words that rhyme.

Some beautiful images from our worship this week. 

A huge well done to this weeks ‘star’, Harley! We are amazed and so incredibly proud of the progress this little boy has been making recently. It has been a joy watching his funny, kind, thoughtful, inquisitive, playful and chatty character grow. Harley is valued and loved by all members of Bodhran class and we are all so happy for him to be our star.

In PE we have been focusing on gymnastics and thinking about the ways we can move. We have practised the crab walk, caterpillar crawl, bear walk, bunny hop, pencil roll and egg roll. There have been things we have found challenging, but we kept going and did not give up.

We have been working really hard to secure our understanding of subtraction. Whilst practising our subtractions we have been thinking about the place value of numbers (how many tens and how many ones). We have drawn our tens and ones and used the crossing out method to find the answer to take away questions. We even found time for some ‘funky finger’ number formation activities.

Well done to our lovely ‘star’, Seaenna. Despite finding some of her learning a little bit tricky recently, Seaenna has really persevered and not given up. It is very clear that she cares about her work and that she wants to get it right.  Recently Seaenna has shown a lot of maturity and determination and put 110% into her learning. This effort has even been commented on by visitors to our class. Seaenna is a popular member of our class and a kind, caring friend to everyone. We are all proud of you Seaenna- well done! 

A huge well done to the newest member of our class, Alfie who is this weeks ‘Star of the Week’. Alfie joined the St Mary’s family just before Christmas and for a little boy he has had a massive impact on our class. He is always kind, polite, respectful and gives 100% in all he does. This week Alfie has really grown in confidence and as a result he has had some interesting and valuable contributions to our discussions (especially science). We have loved watching Alfie shine this week and listening to his funny stories about his siblings! Well done Alfie.

Carrying on with our animals unit in science, we have been investigating birds. Here is our wonderful piece of whole class art work… it was created using lots of different feathers instead of paintbrushes and every child contributed to it. This piece of priceless art is now on display in the KS1 resource area for the whole school to enjoy.

In maths we have been looking at place value to 20 and above. We have been practising our subtraction of a 1 digit number from a 2 digit number and a 2 digit number from a 2 digit number by practically taking the tens and ones. We have also been working hard on number recognition and formation whilst strengthening our fine motor skills.

We have had a very exciting week here in Bodhran Class! We were all very shocked when we arrived in the classroom to find three bowls of porridge (although only one had been eaten), a broken chair and a little girl with golden hair asleep in the baby crib. We decided to make our own porridge. Our porridge was ‘just right’ so we ate it all up. In English we have sequenced the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears,  thought about all the adjectives we could use to describe the porridge and Goldilocks, written a character description of Goldilocks and discussed all the bossy verbs we could use to instruct someone on how to make the perfect porridge. 

Well done to our ‘Star of the Week’, Charlie. He was had an absolutely amazing week and the whole year 1 team could not be prouder. He has consistently made the right choices, he has been fully engaged in his phonics, he has used his impeccable manners, he has been a superstar at lunch time and he has shown what a kind, thoughtful and compassionate little boy he is. Well done Charlie! Keep it up.

In RE we have been thinking about when Mary and Joseph visited the Temple with baby Jesus. Whilst at the Temple they met Simeon and Ana. We thought about how each person would have felt in this situation and then used role play to act this out. 

Well done to Henry who brought his ‘Player of the Day’ certificate in to show us. 

This week in maths we started to look at 3d and 2d shapes. We had fun recognising and labelling the shapes.

Welcome back to school everyone! We hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from all of us in Bodhran Class. See you in January! 

We hope you liked the children’s Christmas cards. 

The children worked their socks off to learn songs, actions, dances and sign language. They gave 100% in not one but two outstanding carol concerts and we are all very proud of them. Well done to all our KS1 children.

Our annual ‘donkey day’

Christmas Party Day

We all had so much fun! We danced…we played party games…we enjoyed lots of yummy party food and we even met Father Christmas.

Thank you to all the grown ups who joined us for our Advent craft afternoon. We all had a wonderful time. We had fun making beaded Christmas tree decorations/bracelets, dot pictures, our own nativity scenes, decorating our own Christmas trees, building festive Lego statues and enjoying lots of cosy Christmas stories. Some of us even decided to race our ‘jumping’ frogs! 

This week in science we have been testing the water absorbency of a variety of materials such as cardboard, tin foil, paper, cotton wool, wood and bubble wrap. We then thought about which material would make the best spacesuit. Some of us thought the tin foil would be the best material because it does not absorb water and can help keep astronauts warm. Other children thought the bubble wrap would make the best spacesuit because it does not absorb water and would help protect astronauts.

Farmer Parrs Christmas Trip

We had a wonderful time at Farmer Parrs. The children were all very gentle, respectful and sensible around the animals. They had the opportunity to feed the larger animals, hold the smaller animals and even brushed a pony. We visited Father Christmas and the children were all very polite and remembered their lovely manners when they spoke to him. We even visited the museum and it was great to see how engrossed the children were in our local history.

Christmas Jumpers! 

We couldn’t let our Christmas jumper day pass without a little fashion show. The grown ups even got involved too which made us all laugh. Have a look at our slide show to see our fabulous poses.

Christmas Dinner Day!

Thank you to Mrs Ashworth and Mrs Ward for preparing a lovely Christmas dinner for us all…it was yummy and got us all in the. Christmas spirit.

Advent Promises

This week we thought about how we can make a difference over Advent and into the new year. We discussed what we could do at home or at school. We then wrote our own Advent promises. Some of us made promises to help our grown ups at home, or be kinder to our brothers and sisters and some of us promised to listen more in class or try harder with our handwriting. We then hung our glittery, fairy light Advent promises on our school Christmas tree.

Science

As part of our Science unit on materials, we carried out an investigation on rocks. We were very lucky to borrow Mrs Gregson’s collection of beautiful rocks such as tigers eye and amethyst. We wanted to find out if the rocks were rough or smooth, dull or shiny, heavy or light and if they would float or sink. We used a container of water, weighing scales and our own senses of touch and sight to help us. We thought about whether rocks would make a good material for a spacesuit. Most of us thought rocks would be too heavy or uncomfortable to wear in space. Jobe, however argued that it could be a great idea to use rocks in a spacesuit as they would provide some protection. 

A big well done to our Star of the Week, Wiilow-Ivy! Willow-Ivy has been trying incredibly hard in all areas but especially with her maths. She has shown fantastic perseverance by not giving up even when things seem a little bit difficult. Willow-Ivy is a happy and smiley member of our class and she really deserves to be our Star of the Week. Keep trying your best Willow - Ivy! 

There was a mystery this week in Bodhran Class. We arrived at school to discover that a creature had left snowy footprints and snowflakes in our classroom. Of course we had to investigate what type of creature had visited us, so we got the magnifying glasses, tweezers, binoculars and even rulers out to help us. Some of us thought it would be a good idea to measure the footprint, some of us found some written clues and some of us found other clues like a world map cushion. Once we had found all the clues, we put them altogether and tried to guess what had visited us. We used a non fiction animal book to help us. It took a lot of hard work, determination and patience but we eventually agreed that our mystery guest was a…penguin! We think our penguin friend may have got lost on his way to the zoo. As part of our English, we will be reading a book by Oliver Jeffers called Lost and Found, a story about a little lost penguin.

In science we have been looking at different everyday materials such as plastic, metal,  brick and fabric. We explored our school to see what materials different objects (that we use everyday) are actually made of.

Well done to our lovely Neveah who was chosen as our star of the week. Neveah comes into school with a beautiful smile on her face and this is truly wonderful to see. Neveah is working so hard and making super progress in all subjects but especially maths. It has been a joy to see Neveah’s confidence grow…she will now happily put her hand up and make fabulous contributions to our class discussions. Well done Neveah!

Thank you to all the children who came to school in odd socks for anti bullying day (Mrs C and Mrs E even joined in the fun). The children learnt that the point of odd sock day is to show that it is ok to be different and that we have the power to stand up against bullying and discrimination.

Thank you so much to our friends in Piano Class. Over the past few weeks they have been working very hard, planning and developing their own playground games for the whole school to enjoy. Bodhran Class was very lucky to be the ‘guinea pigs ’ for these games. The younger children all had so much fun and the older children were very caring and patient when explaining the rules. Thank you to Lee Cadwallader for helping make this such an exciting experience for all involved.

Working hard to learn our number bonds to 10.

In computing we have started to learn about algorithms and programming. We have learnt that an algorithm is a set of step by step instructions. With this in mind we worked with a partner to give our Bee Bots a set of instruction to get to a specific place in the classroom. We now understand that it is important to ensure that instructions are clear and in the correct order.

A big well done to our lovely star of the week, Vanesa. Vanesa gives 100% in everything she does but has been working particularly hard in phonics and maths. Vanesa is a kind, respectful and funny little girl, she is a friend to everyone and a super role model. Vanesa has the brightest smile that really does brighten our classroom. Congratulations Vanesa, I know you will continue to be a little star.⭐️ 

We have been working hard exploring parts, wholes and number bonds.

In our English lessons we have been reading Stickman by Julia Donaldson. We explored the outside areas to find natural treasures such as twigs, stones and feathers. We then created our very own stickman character. The children have thought of lots of interesting adjectives to describe their stickman and will move on to writing a character description.

Well done to our star of the week, Michael. Michael always tries his very best in every lesson. This week he has really enjoyed our black history work and made some fantastic contributions to our understanding the world topic this week. He is a quiet, polite and happy little boy and we are very proud of the progress be is making at the start of his year 1 journey. Well done Michael… keep up the hard work.

Using character masks to retell the story of Room on the Broom

Happy Halloween!

Congratulations to our ‘Star of the Week’, Poppy. Poppy is a beautiful little girl with a heart of gold. She tries her best in everything she does, is always kind, respectful, considerate  and has the most brilliant manners when speaking with both children and adults. Poppy is a very helpful member of our class and takes her class responsibility as ‘table monitor’ very seriously. Poppy makes sure our tables and pencil pots are neat, tidy and ready at the end of the day. This makes my job a little bit easier and I am very grateful to Poppy for this. Well done Poppy!

A big well done to Henry who was awarded his 10m swimming certificate and couldn’t wait to share the achievement with his friends at school. 

In science we have been investigating our sense of taste. We were given 5 foods to try. Each food was from a different taste group… marshmallows (sweet), ready salted crisps (salty), cheese (savoury), lemon (sour) and dark chocolate (bitter). After trying the foods we voted for our favourite taste. Sweet was definitely our favourite taste and in second place was sour! 

We enjoyed welcoming Father Steven to Bodhran class. Father Sten is the new priest of St Mary’s and St Wulstan’s. Not only did we share all our knowledge of God with Father Steven but we also had the chance to ask him interesting questions.  We learnt lots of interesting facts about Father Steven and we were shocked to discover that Father Steven doesn’t really like vegetables (but he loves chips)! We ended the visit by saying the Our Father which we have been trying hard to learn.

Dough disco fun to help make our fingers strong.

Singing our ‘good morning’ song with sign language. We have been learning lots of British Sign Language at school. 

In maths we have been learning about number lines. We were all given a number between 0 and 23 and had to organise ourselves into the correct order from smallest to largest number. We helped each other and eventually created our very own ‘human number line’.  Mrs Cross asked us to walk around the classroom and then swap our numbers with the person closest to us. We worked together and made another ‘human number line’.

Congratulations to this weeks ‘Star of the Week’, Sophia. Sophia is a quiet little girl who gets on with her learning activities with a quiet determination. She always tries her best and is working incredibly hard in her maths and phonics. Sophia is always kind, respectful and ready to learn. Sophia has a contagious laugh and is a friend to everyone. It is a joy to watch Sophia’s confidence grow in all areas of her school life. Well done Sophia… keep smiling your beautiful smile.

We are always learning in Bodhran class…even though we might not realise it. As well as using all our new knowledge from our lessons, we are also learning to be patient, to share, work as a team, to be kind, respectful and resilient. Here are some of the fun things we have been getting up to. Mrs Cross loves to see our construction projects and threading designs. She tells us we have amazing imaginations!

We enjoyed a visit from Stephen and Harold (the giraffe) from the SCARF Life Bus. He taught us about all the good things our food can give us such as calcium and protein. He also spoke to us about how and why we should eat a healthy and balanced diet. We started to think about the different organs in our bodies and how they can work together with Jobe wearing a very interesting outfit!

Our third session of balance bikes.

We have learnt that when using the greater than, less than and equal to signs (<, > and =) we can imagine a greedy crocodile eating the biggest number. The children had a fantastic time comparing numbers and pretending to be the greedy crocodile. 🐊 

We have been working hard in maths. We have started to think about the language we use when comparing groups of objects, representations and numbers. We have been practising using the words greater than, less than and the same as. We have also been using the signs <, > and =.

We have been thinking about comparing groups of objects by matching. In doing this we will know if there are enough pencils in the pot for the whole table etc. We were feeling a little peckish so we learnt about this by sharing a pack of cookies between the whole class (snack time is one of our favourite times of the day 🍎🍐🍊🍌). We had to use all our number knowledge to find out if there were enough biscuits, how many more we would need and if there would be enough for the grown ups in class. We obviously got to eat the cookie afterwards… thankfully there were the same number of biscuits as children in Bodhran class. Henry “I didn’t know we could eat biscuits in maths… best day ever!”

Practising mindfulness

A huge well done to this weeks ‘star’, Jobe. Jobe always wears the most amazing smile and is an absolute joy to have in the classroom. He has a fantastic attitude to learning, he gives 100%, he is a kind friend a a polite and respectful member of our St Mary’s family. Although he is one of the quieter members of the class, his character is starting to shine and thus is wonderful to see. He is also doing brilliantly with his phonics! Congratulations Jobe… Mrs English and I are very proud of you. 

St Mary’s had a special visitor and he brought along some very interesting friends. The children listened to lots of interesting facts about creepy crawlies, they saw stick insects, african land snails and a snake. Some of the children were even lucky (and brave) enough to be chosen to hold the snake. 

We always have so much fun on the big equipment. However, this time some of the children had the most fun with the ‘propeller’ seeds they found in the playground. They were amazed how when thrown into the air the seeds would slowly fall to the ground like a helicopter…Magical! Mrs Cross didn’t tell the children what these helicopter like things were, but they investigated and soon discovered that they were seeds that must have fallen from nearby trees. 

In science we investigated our sense of touch. We felt a variety of objects made from a range of materials and tried to describe how they felt. We know that we can feel and touch with our hands, but some of the children even used their faces to feel.

Our second group of children had the opportunity to take part in the balance bike session. The sun was even shining for them!

A massive congratulations to our Star of the Week, Henry. Henry has had a wonderful start to his year 1 journey. He always gives 100% in everything he does, he makes fantastic contributions to class discussions, he challenges himself, he is very helpful and has wonderful manners. Henry is in Mrs B’s phonics group and she was thrilled that Henry was being awarded Star of the Week as she has been very impressed with his effort and progress in his phonics sessions. Henry is a lovely, kind and respectful little boy who always has a cheeky grin on his face. Well done Henry! 

Friday 27th September

Balance bikes time! Our first group of 8 got to enjoy their balance bikes session with the fabulous Coach Matty. Not only did they have lots of fun, but they also had the opportunity to work on the gross motor skills. 

In Geography we have continued to think about our local area. This week the children created ‘messy maps’ of our classroom. They were provided with a very basic aerial classroom map and it was their job to add the detail such as tables, chairs and construction area. They did this by using a range of small classroom items such as counters, straws, pencils, rubbers and cubes. Not only did they have lots of fun, but they worked together to make sure their messy maps had lots of accurate details. They all showed patience, resilience, imagination and wonderful team work skills. 

In maths we have been thinking about representing objects by using maths manipulatives. For example the children understand that instead of drawing the farmers 8 cows we can use a tens frame with 8 counters to show how many cows the farmer has. We have also started to ‘count on’ from any number. This means if we already know the cow has 3 sheep, we can start counting from 3. With our fantastic counting skills we don’t always have to start counting from 1. 

A huge congratulations to Eliana who was awarded our ‘Star of the Week’. Eliana is a joy to teach. She is always ready, always listening and she always tries her best with everything that she does in school. On top of this, Eliana is a kind, considerate and respectful friend. Her beaming smile can light up our classroom and I cannot wait to see how far Eliana can progress over the coming year. Well done Eliana, Mrs English and I are incredibly proud of you.

As a special treat we enjoyed some time on the ‘large equipment’. Mrs Cross thought we were all very brave!