Welcome to Year 2 and what will be our final update of this academic year!  

Please read on to discover our plans for the next few weeks… 

Being kind, respectful, safe and ready are our 4 key values that we continue to establish, both in and out of the classroom; thank you for supporting us in making these part and parcel of everyday life at home and in school. 

We also continue to focus on developing ‘strong foundations’ in all areas of our curriculum; really homing in on basic skills such as handwriting, spelling, correct formation of letters and numbers, sentence structure, understanding of number and good presentation of their work.  This is the half term when we start to prepare the children for their transition to Year 3, ensuring everything is in place to help them to hit the ground running once they move upstairs! 

In our English lessons we will be using a fabulous book called ‘A Walk in London’ by Salvatore Rubbino as a starting point for a wide range of writing: instructions, posters, setting descriptions, captions, postcards and diary entries, culminating in writing individual guidebooks. We will then share a book called ‘Last Stop on Market Street’ by Matt de la Pena which will lead to us exploring poetic language and writing our own metaphorical poems.  

In Maths we will continue our work on Fractions before moving on to Time, Statistics, Position and Direction. Alongside these White Rose Maths units, we continue with our daily ‘Basic Skills’, focusing on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  Counting in 2s, 5s and 10s, word problems and daily challenges also form part of our morning maths lessons. 

Most of Year 2 children have now completed the RWI phonics scheme and have moved on to RWI spelling, focusing on a different spelling pattern each week. This takes place every day for fifteen minutes, followed by Whole Class Reading, where the focus is on developing specific reading skills: vocabulary, prediction, questioning, inference, summarisation and comprehension. We will be using non-fiction texts about the Titanic, linking in nicely with our new History topic entitled ‘Why did Delia buy a hat?’ 

In our History lessons, the children will use a range of primary and secondary resources to discover why so many migrants- including a lady called Delia-left Ireland in the 1900s to start new lives in other countries such as the United States of America.  This will lead to them uncovering facts about the ill- fated Titanic trip- identifying, describing and explaining the events that unfolded in April 1912.  Look out for some suggestions on exciting home learning challenges linked to this topic, coming soon to Class Dojo! 

Science lessons continue along the theme of ‘Plants’, with the children continuing to ask questions, make predictions, conduct simple experiments, observe changes and give explanations.  They will learn about life cycles and continue to develop their scientific vocabulary, understanding and using words such as ‘germinate’ and ‘nutrients’. 

RE lessons will focus on the question: “What makes a place sacred?” looking at the significance of churches, synagogues and mosques as well as other places of worship.  Miss Finch will continue to teach these lessons every Monday afternoon. 

Having completed our final Art topic, we return to DT for our final unit entitled ‘Moving Monsters’ which explores levers, pivots and linkages, using card and split pins to design and make their own ‘moving monster’. 

The children continue to enjoy weekly PE lessons with our PE coach, Jess.  This half term they will be focusing on striking and fielding games such as cricket and rounders- outside as often as possible (weather permitting!) After school PE club for Y1 & Y2 will continue to be 3.30-4.40 on a Monday night, beginning 8th June.  Please sign up via Arbor. 

Mr Martin and Mrs Higson lead whole school singing every Friday morning and Year 2 continue to enjoy their Music session every Friday afternoon. 

On Fridays we also have Computing, a visit to the library to choose a book to share at home and for the final part of the day Golden Time as a reward for following our 4 key values: Kind, Respectful, Safe, Ready.  We continue to earn ‘Marbles in the Jar’ for working together; receive Star of the Week and Character Matters certificates for individual achievements and Dojo points are given as ‘on the spot’ rewards for a wide range of reasons. 

Please continue to monitor Class Dojo for updates and remember you can contact us via this app if you have any questions or queries. 

Thank you as always for your continuing support and cooperation, 

Mrs Smith, Miss Finch and all the team.