Hello everyone and welcome to Year 2- it is lovely to see all the children settling back in, ready for the new school year!

Our priority in these first few weeks is to really get to know each other, build strong relationships and establish routines. Only when our children feel safe, secure and happy will they be ready to continue their learning journey.

With this in mind, we have introduced ‘Zones of Regulation’ which is a means of teaching the children about self-regulation and emotional control, helping them to talk about, think about and regulate their feelings. We have shared books based around the theme of well-being, such as: Colour Me Happy, The Jar of Happiness, Silly Billy and The Big Bag of Worries, using them as a starting point for discussions, writing and creative activities.

In English lessons over the next few weeks, we will be using a lovely book called ‘The Bear Under the Stairs’, linking our writing to the story. The main themes of the book are bravery and courage, so this follows on nicely from our work on feelings. We will also continue to enjoy a wide range of stories, poems and non-fiction texts daily, nurturing a love for books and recognising the importance of reading for pleasure.

In Maths we are building on work that the children did in Year 1, starting with a unit on Shape which gives opportunity for lots of practical activities. We will then move on to study Place Value, working with numbers up to one hundred: counting, ordering, estimating, adding and subtracting.

Practising ‘Basic Skills’ forms part of our daily Maths lessons, with lots of opportunity for counting forwards and backwards in 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s as well as revising number bonds and other previously taught facts.

Our topic work for this half term has a Geography focus, comparing and contrasting our locality with Kampong Ayer. We will begin by studying where we live, before locating countries outside the U.K. focusing on Brunei. The children will use maps, atlases, globes and aerial photographs to identify and then compare and contrast physical and human features, describing and explaining their findings.

Our first Science topic is entitled Everyday Materials, where we will be identifying and comparing the suitability of different materials for particular uses e.g. bricks for building and glass for windows. The children will get to be ‘hands on’ with different materials, exploring how the shapes of some solid objects can be changed by bending, twisting and stretching them.

The children are already enjoying PE lessons every Monday afternoon; learning computing skills with Miss Finch every Friday and developing their drawing skills in Tuesday’s Art lessons. We also continue to have weekly RE lessons, with this half term’s focus being ‘Who is Muslim and how do they live?’

Mrs Higson and Mr Martin will be returning to lead whole school singing assemblies every Friday morning and Mrs Higson will continue to teach Music on a Friday afternoon.

These are just the main subject focuses for the half term; there are so many additional things going on from day to day so please do keep checking Class Dojo for updates!

Mrs Smith, Miss Finch and the Year 2 team.