Year One Welcome Letter Dear Parents, Welcome to Year One. Whether you are returning to school after the summer holidays or whether you are new to our school, we want to make sure that you have all the relevant information you need to know in order for your child to have a smooth start to the academic year. There are several changes that have taken place at the school over the summer; physical changes to the classrooms as well as curriculum changes and not forgetting people changes – with new members of the team joining our school. Over the next few weeks you will have opportunities to meet the key people who will be working with your child as well as find out about our curriculum and what your child will be learning. The Year One Team Our Year One team this year is: 1A Mrs Sofina Finan s-finan@naispudong.com 1B Mrs Stacey Ann-Palma sa-palma@naispudong.com 1C Mr Adam Shackleton a-shackleton@naispudong.com We also have three Teaching Assistants who will be supporting the year group. They will not be allocated to one particular class, but instead will support the year group according to the teaching and learning taking place. Our Teaching Assistants are: Ms Sandy Shen Ms Jane Zhou Ms Mary Song The First Day On the first day of school all returning students should make their way directly to their classrooms. We know you might not know where your new classroom is so we will make sure there are people to help you get there. All new students will go to the Auditorium in the Performing Arts Centre, where Mrs Wallace will give everyone a big NAIS welcome and then lots of adults will help to get you to your classroom where you will meet your teacher and your classmates. What to Wear and Bring to School All students should come to school in school uniform and with a school bag. Students should pack a water bottle, hat and their Learning Journal. Please make sure all personal items are labelled with your child’s name. Timetable Your child will receive a timetable that will indicate when specialist lessons will take place. The rest of the timetable will be taught by the class teacher and it is our aim to leave this as flexible as possible in order to cover our topic work. Our topics will incorporate Science, Humanities, Art, Technology, Computing, Society and Internationalism. English and Maths will, on the whole be taught as discreet subjects, but as much as possible we will link our English work to our topic.

 

 

Specialist Lessons In Year One students will receive specialist lessons taught by specialist teachers. These include: Mandarin, Music and P.E. Students who are still developing their English language will also receive EAL and this will take place at the same time as Mandarin. Homework Students will receive Homework weekly. This will include an English task and a Maths task. Students are also encouraged to read on a daily basis either independently or to an adult. Reading can be recorded in the Learning Journal. In addition, to their weekly homework, students will be given a choice of various activities they can complete over a longer period of time, linked to their topic work. Students will receive information about the different tasks and will be encouraged to talk with their parents about what they would like to complete. End of Day The school day finishes at 3.15pm. Students who take a bus home at the end of the day will go to a designated ‘bus room’ where they will be registered by a teacher. Once all students have been registered the teacher will then take them to their bus and support them in putting their seatbelts on ready for the journey home. Students who are collected from school will be accompanied (Y1 – Y3) by a teacher to the Early Years entrance of the school, where they will be handed over to the designated adult responsible for them. Children will not be able to change their method of going home, unless their class teacher has received an email, phone call or letter from the parent directly. CCAs (Co Curricular Activities) Our CCA programme is available to all Primary students from Year 1 to Year 6. The CCA programme will start the week beginning Monday 7th September. Information about CCAs will be made available to you over the next two weeks. Dates in the Diary Meet and Greet – Tuesday 1st September, 5pm to 8pm. This is an opportunity for you to come and find out more about what your child will be doing this year. We will talk through the curriculum, expectations at school and how you can help your child at home. We will also answer any questions you may have about our day to day routine here at NAIS Pudong. Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th September – School closed due to holidays as determined by the Chinese Government. Communication If you have any queries about the daily routine or what your child is learning then do not hesitate to get in touch with your child’s class teacher in the first instance, or with me, as the Year One Leader. Please refer to our email addresses on the first page. We will always endeavour to reply to you as soon as possible, when we have finished our lessons. All students also have a Learning Journal which can be used for communication between home and school and also features as the students’ Reading Record. Whilst the start of the new school year is always busy, we hope you and your child are looking forward to the beginning of what we’re sure will be a very exciting year ahead. With best wishes, Sofina Finan Year One Leader