It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Class 1's page. My name is Miss Erwin and I am the Class 1 Teacher at Birstwith School. I am very lucky to be supported by my wonderful TAs, Mrs Johnson & Mrs Plant. Mrs Paxton teaches the class on a Wednesday afternoon when I am planning and preparing the exciting learning for the children.
Class 1 is a very special place as it is the first class your child will join when they start their school journey in Reception and we also enjoy another two magical years in Year 1 and Year 2!
Our days are filled with lots of fun and learning through a variety of hands-on, practical activities within indoor and outdoor provision areas, daily phonics, literacy and maths as well as a wealth of wider curriculum lessons and experiences.
Note to parents: (Updated 4th April 2025)
PE will take place on a Monday and Wednesday. Please could all children come dressed in PE kit on Monday and Thursday. Thank you!
Please ensure your child comes to school with a water bottle (just water please) and appropriate clothing for the weather. As we approach the warmer months, please send your child into school with appropriate outerwear (waterproof coat; sensible school shoes; sunhat).
We encourage reading your child's phonetically matched reading book every day as this makes such a positive impact on their development and confidence. We additionally encourage reading for pleasure, as we send home a 'sharing book' from the library as part of the Little Wandle scheme which your child won't necessarily be able to read fluently yet, but it is a special book to enjoy with their loved ones at home.
Please ensure school reading books and records are both brought into school each day to allow teaching staff to read with children regularly and, if you have time, a comment from parents/carers is always really helpful.
If you have any questions or queries throughout the year, please do not hesitate to speak with myself, Mrs Johnson or Mrs Plant, either at the gate or via email.
School Year 2024-2025
Curriculum Overviews
Text Maps
Have a look at a sample of our learning...
Spring Term 2025
Joint Easter celebration with our friends at Markington!
We had such a special day with our friends from Markington CE Primary and Nursery School as we came together to celebrate Easter! We started the day with a joint service at St James's Church, Birstwith, where we sang hymns and gave a presentation about what our aspirations for the future are including 'helping the homeless', 'being a parent', 'being an astronaut' and 'being a scientist'! We then returned to school and enjoyed decorating our eggs in preparation for our annual egg rolling competition! In the afternoon, EYFS made chocolate crispy nest cakes by crushing cereal and mixing the chocolate together to create these yummy treats! KS1 children rotated between 3 fantastic activities including a bunny drive, an easter egg hunt and playing 'hot cross buns' on the glockenspiel. To end our fun-filled day we took part in the egg-rolling competition and had so much fun seeing whose egg would roll the furthest!
Sporting Influence Dance and Multi-Skills Competition
We have been very lucky to be invited to join Sporting Influence and other local schools to take part in their competitons for EYFS and KS1 this half term! Our KS1 children learnt a routine to 'Try Everything' which links to our Christian Vision 'make full use of the gift God gave you' encouraging us to try new things and be resilient, then performed this in front of lots of children with so much confidence and expression! We then attended the multi-skills competiton on a beautifully sunny spring day to take part in a range of mini-games to work collaboratively to earn points, encourage one another and be determined when things were tricky.
World Book Day
We love reading in Class 1 and to celebrate books all day is a delight for us! We loved making our own bookmarks, sharing stories with friends in our class and other year groups, completed some special activities about our focus text 'The Matchbox Diary' and thought about some of our own special memories. We dressed in our cosiest pyjamas to enjoy this super special day together! 
We are artists and designers!
Our KS1 children have excelled in their Art and DT projects this half term! We have studied mechanisms in DT which has involved learning about wheels and axels, how these can make a design move and ways we can make our own. The children created their own pull-along toy for a child and made some brilliant creations! In Art, we looked at 'Playful Making' where the children studied different sculptors including Faith Bebbington. They loved exploring how sculpture can look different depending on what materials are used to make it and whether it is realistic or abstract. They used their knowledge to create a clay sculpture of a sea creature. We painted these and made an ocean background to display our cereations on!
Autumn Term 2024
Fireworks and Fire Safety
Class One have loved meeting the Fire Service! They learnt about how to be safe at home by creating a family fire plan, testing their smoke alarms and knowing to call 999 in an emergency. As a special surprise, the children got to see a real fire engine and learn about lots of the equipment on it! They were so fascinated by how firefighters help people and animals. They loved taking part in some lovely imaginative role-playing outdoors pretending to be firefighters!
As it was Bonfire Night and Diwali, the children have been exploring fireworks and have loved making large-scale artwork outdoors using different colours and shapes to create them.
Visiting our local church - St James' Church, Birstwith!
As part of our RE curriculum and wider links with our local community, the children were so excited to take a walk through our idyllic village to visit our local church! Here is some of our children's thoughts about our visit...
"Church is special, it is soft and quiet" - Arwen, Y1
"Churches are detailed and cool, I felt satisfied in church. I liked looking at the Alter and the stained glass windows with Jesus in. The Bible was massive! It was nice and quiet in there" - Logan, Y2
"I loved the colourful windows and we all sat nicely and quietly" - Isabella, Y1
Our new EYFS children!
We are all so proud of how our new EYFS children have been settling into life in Class One! They have made wonderful friendships, been exploring the areas of provision both indoors and outdoors, and making positive bonds with their buddies. Well done Reception!
