Welcome to Class Two 2022-2023

Hello Class Two!
We have another exciting term ahead, with lots of brilliant learning opportunities! Similarly to last term, I (Mrs Johnson) will be teaching Y2 Monday - Thursday. On a Friday, Y2 will be taught by Mrs Wilson. We are very fortunate to be having Mrs O'Brien support us as our teaching assistant throughout the week!
As always, if there is ANYTHING you need, please do not hesitate to contact me via the Class Dojo messaging system, or book an appointment with me through the school office. We are always here if you need us!

Our topic for the Summer term is 'Protecting Our Amazing Earth!'. We will be finding out about what life is like around the world, broadening our geographical understanding and finding out about HOW we can treat the earth as the treasure that it is!

RE

Within our Come and See units this term, we will be looking at 3 different themes including; Spreading the News (Serving), Rules and Treasures.  We will be exploring the story of the resurrection and pentecost, reflecting on the Holy Spirit living with us each day. We will then be looking at rules, focussing on the sacrament of reconciliation and forgiveness. Finally we will be thinking about treasures, and how our wonderful world was created by God as a treasure for us to cherish! There will be many feast days and special events celebrated over the term, and opportunities for you to come and join us in class at our 'Stay and Pray' collective worship sessions. 

Maths

Children will be consolidating their skills of addition and subtraction and multiplication and division. We will then be moving on to look at shape, measure, data and statistics and fractions. The children will be using lots of concrete resources and problem solving activities to deepend their understanding of these areas!

English

Within English, we will continue to develop our spelling, punctuation and grammar skills. A strong focus within Y2 will be building our writing stamina - writing longer pieces of work. We will be continuing our daily phonics/guided reading sessions, following the Read Write Inc reading programme.

Throughout the Summer term we will cover different genres of writing in English, including narrative story writing, poetry, information texts and explanations. We will be supporting our writing with some wonderful texts, including 'The Watcher, There's a Rangtan in my bedroom and The Magic Finger.' We will look at developing children's spellings of common frequency words, use of conjunctions such as 'and' and 'because' and their use of adjectives in expanded noun phrases, to add detail to their writing. Handwriting sessions will take place daily, giving children the opportunity to develop their fine motor skills and develop their writing stamina.

Topic

Our Summer Term topic is 'Protecting our Amazing Earth!' 

Within our ‘topic, we will be looking at the amazing biologist Jane Goodall, and her life's work studying chimps and fighting for the protection of our planet. We will be widening our geographical understanding, naming continents, oceans and using atlases and maps both in books and online. We will be studying a non-European country - Tanzania and the Gombe forests. We will be investigating the causes of deforestation and the impact this has on our world. Throughout, we will be supporting our learning with high quality texts to immerse the children in this topic!

Science

Children will be learning about animals and plants throughout the summer term. We will be thinking about the basic needs for survival for all living things - including humans. We will then develop this further by looking at the impact of a healthy diet, food, exercise and basic hygiene. Following this topic, we will be investigating plants! We will be watching seeds and bulbs sprout and grow, naming the different parts of the plant and exploring their functions and finding out what they need to survive.

The following links are to useful websites for children to engage with further learning at home:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/levels/z3g4d2p
https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/
https://www.thenational.academy/
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/5-7-years/counting
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/5-7-years/letters-and-sounds


Admin

• Children will enter school via the main gate at 8:50am. Children will finish school at 3:20pm and parents can wait on the school playground to collect their child.  We will be entering and leaving the school building via the link corridor door - children will line up along the purple railing and will NOT be allowed to go to their parent, until a member of staff has seen you/told the child they can go. We really appreciate your patience with this, as always this is to ensure that the children all get to their care giver safely!
• Please remember that children are not to ride bikes or scooters, or kick balls on the yard during pick up/drop off times. Dogs are also not allowed on the playground, again to ensure the safety of our whole school community.
• PE will be taking place on a Thursday. Please ensure that your child is wearing our SCHOOL PE KIT only. If you are having any problems with this, please do not hesitate to contact me via Class Dojo, or speak to Mrs Wright. 
• Asthma inhalers/medication must be handed in to the office with the appropriate paper work and will be administered in class as necessary. You will be informed if your child has used their inhaler during the day.
• Please ensure your child comes to school with a water bottle that is labelled with their names.
• Homework will be given on a Friday and is to be returned by the following Thursday. Your child will receive handwriting and spellings and a times tables activity. This will correlate with the spelling and times tables tests that will take place in class on a Friday, with Mrs Wilson.
• Reading books will also be changed every Friday. Please ensure that your child reads their book 3 times and has their reading record signed. It is crucial that you support your child with their reading journey so please ensure that they are reading each night. It would also be lovely to see reading diaries signed with any books that the children are enjoying of their own at home!! We want to promote a love of reading for all of our children and would love to celebrate this with them.
• If you have ANY questions, queries or worries, please do contact the office to arrange an appointment with Mrs Johnson, we are always here if you need us :)

Stay up-to-date with our TWITTER page, we love to tweet about the exciting things we have been learning about!