End-of-Year 1 Expectations

At DBIS, we aim to ensure that our children meet certain standards of attainment by the end of Year 1; these are detailed below for each core area of the curriculum. Having said this, we also know that children learn and develop at different rates; therefore, if some children have not met end-of-year expectations in certain areas of the curriculum, support, interventions and next steps will reflect each individual child’s stage of development when they transition to Year 2.

The end-of-year expectations for Year 1 are outlined below.

ENGLISH – SPOKEN LANGUAGE

By the end of Year 1, we work towards the children showing confidence in the following aspects of the spoken language:

• Listening and responding to adults and other children by engaging in turn-taking within a conversation

• Asking relevant questions to extend their understanding and knowledge

• Having developed vocabulary which can be rehearsed and applied through play and everyday interactions

ENGLISH – READING

By the end of Year 1, we work towards the children beginning to show confidence in the following aspects of reading:

• Reading accurately by blending the sounds in words that contain the common graphemes for all 40+ phonemes

• Reading accurately some words of two or more syllables that contain the same grapheme phoneme correspondences

• Reading many common exception words (we refer to these as ‘Tricky Words’)

• Reading aloud a range of familiar words quickly and accurately without overt sounding and blending (we refer to this as ‘Fred Talk’)

• Sounding out many unfamiliar words accurately (we refer to this as using ‘Fred Sounds’)

• In a familiar book that is read to them, answering questions in discussion with the teacher and making simple inferences

• Re-reading books to build fluency and confidence

• Beginning to retell familiar stories

• Using repeated phrases from familiar stories in their imaginative play

ENGLISH – WRITING

By the end of Year 1, we work towards the children beginning to show confidence in the following aspects of writing, either with the support of an adult or independently:

• Understanding that writing is a form of communication and beginning to apply this purposefully within their play

• Writing sentences that are sequenced to form a short narrative (real or fictional)

• Demarcating some sentences with capital letters and full stops

• Applying knowledge of the sounds learnt in phonics lessons to spell some words correctly and making phonetically plausible attempts at others

• Spelling common exception words relevant to children in EY1 (we refer to these as ‘Red Words’)

• Forming lower-case letters in the correct direction, starting and finishing in the right place

• Forming lower-case letters of the correct size relative to one another in some of their writing

• Using spacing between words

Mathematics

By the end of Year 1, the children should have a fluent understanding of whole numbers and counting as well as a developing knowledge of addition and subtraction using concrete objects and pictorial representations. They should be starting to describe and compare different quantities such as length, mass, capacity and volume, and they should recognise simple fractions. The children will be beginning to tell the time and should read and spell mathematical vocabulary at a level consistent with their increasing wordreading and spelling knowledge. The teachers will observe the children applying their understanding through play and exploration. In addition, the children will be beginning to show confidence in the following:

• Reading and writing numbers in numerals up to 100

• Partitioning a two-digit number into tens and ones to demonstrate an understanding of place value, with the support of resources

• Recalling at least four of the six two-number bonds for 10 and reasoning about associated facts (e.g. 6 + 4 = 10; therefore, 4 + 6 = 10 and 10 – 6 = 4)

• Counting in twos, fives and tens from 0

• Knowing the value of different Hong Kong coins

• Naming some common 2D and 3D shapes and describing some of their properties

Science

By the end of Year 1, the children should be beginning to develop confidence in the following areas, which will be consolidated in Year 2:

• Asking questions about what they notice

• Using different types of scientific inquiry to gather and record data, using simple equipment

• Making simple observations

• Communicating their ideas and making simple hypotheses

Critical Scientific Content

By the end of Year 1, the children should be beginning to develop confidence in the following areas:

• Naming and locating parts of the human body, including those related to the senses

• Describing and comparing the observable features of animals from a range of groups

• Grouping animals according to what they eat

• Describing seasonal changes

• Distinguishing objects from materials, describing their properties and identifying and grouping everyday materials