Can you believe that February half term marks half way through the academic year? At least the nights are getting lighter and we will hopefully soon be able to spot some early signs of spring!

Year 2 have continued to work hard throughout Spring 1, adapting to having a student teacher – Miss Rogerson- for some of their lessons.  She will now be moving on, so it will return to being Mrs Smith and Mrs Stewart from Monday to Wednesday and Miss Finch and Mrs Stewart on a Thursday and Friday.

We continue to start every morning with some quiet reading time, with opportunity to share reading books and complete Accelerated Reader online quizzes independently.  Numerous reading rewards have already been given and some children are already on target to join the trip to Madeleine Linley’s in the summer term!

The first lesson of each day is now Maths and having covered Place Value, Shape, Addition and Subtraction and Money, we are currently working through our Multiplication and Division unit.  We continue to follow the White Rose Maths Scheme which breaks learning up into manageable steps. By the end of the year the expectation is that children will be confident with their 2,5 and 10 times tables, also knowing the related division facts.   TT Rockstars is a great resource that children can access at home, it really does help with their fluency and confidence!  We will also be covering Length and Height as well as Mass, Capacity & Temperature later in the term.

We now have our phonics and Whole Class Reading sessions straight after play time.  Children will remain in smaller groups, with some continuing to work through the RWInc programme, whilst others will now begin whole class guided reading sessions in line with what happens when they move into KS2.  In these lessons we will be focusing on the development of reading skills such as vocabulary, prediction, questioning, inference, summarisation and comprehension as well as encouraging increased fluency and expression.

English lessons will continue to be taught by using high quality books as a starting point.  Our first text will be the fabulous ‘Tadpole’s Promise’, which will be our springboard for writing simple explanations, speech bubbles, setting descriptions and thought bubbles.  It’s a brilliant book but it does have rather an unexpected twist at the end, so be warned!  The work we do in English will tie in nicely with our Science as we move from Animals including Humans to Living Things and their Habitats- a topic the children always tend to enjoy!

Throughout Spring 1, our topic has been ‘Why don’t penguins need to fly?’ with a focus on developing our Geography skills. In Spring 2 we are back to History, asking the question: ‘How do our toys and games compare to those of children in the 1960s?’  Look out for questions about YOUR childhood as well as that of your older relatives!

This half term also sees a move from Art back to DT, focusing on ‘Mechanisms’. Children will learn how to design, plan, build and evaluate their own fairground wheels, with the aim of building a stable structure with a wheel that can rotate.  The children continue to enjoy weekly PE lessons with our PE coach as well as computing with Miss Finch and singing with Mr Martin and Mrs Higson.   Having spent the last few weeks learning about Islam in RE, our focus will now switch back to Christianity, building up an understanding of the significance of the Easter story for Christians.

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 support and cooperation,

Mrs Smith, Miss Finch and all the team.