Welcome to Year 2
Mrs Radcliffe
2023-2024
It is so good to be back in school. I am Mrs Radcliffe. I have been a teacher for 20 years and taught at Marlfields for nine years. Since starting my career I have taught all primary year groups and really enjoy watching the children take off with their learning and grow more and more independent. I am sure this year will be action-packed and we have lots of fun things planned! I look forward to working with you all.
Reading
Please read regularly with your child to support their learning. During the Autumn term your child will have a reading book for a week which will be the focus of their reading group’s session. These need to be in school daily. Pupils also choose books independently during Year 2, encourage your child to choose a book they can read confidently and are interested. If they have a book they are not enjoying they will be able to change it during the next school day.
Homework
All pupils will be given homework on Monday each week . We expect Reading everyday and some handwriting, spelling and some Maths tasks. Spellings will be checked on Monday and new spellings issued.
PE
PE is taught twice during each week. All children will need the following:
A red t-shirt
Black/navy shorts
School tracksuit
Black pumps
Trainers and Tracksuit for outdoor PE
Please could you check that all jumpers, coats and PE kits are named. This should minimise lost property.
As always please come and see me if you have any further questions about your child in school.
Keep an eye out for your termly ‘Parents as Partners’ Leaflet to give you a better idea of the exciting things we have planned this term.
Autumn Term
Our Theme is:
All Creatures Great & Small
I am really excited about our first topic and hope your children will be inspired by all the fascinating things they will learn. Our topic will be, ‘All Creatures Great & Small’. We will be finding out about a wide range of animals and their habitats. We will also look at the three ‘eras’ of dinosaur life on our planet.
Our timetable includes; phonics, writing, handwriting, reading, maths, science, art, history, geography, PE and World Religions.
English
Over the first term, we will be focusing on fiction texts exploring settings and exploring characters. We will work from ‘Are we There Yet’ -Dan Santat, Various Julia Donaldson titles, ‘I’ll Take You to Mrs Cole!’ and ‘Mrs Wobble the Waitress’ We will also read nonfiction texts including; Usbourne ‘Lift the Flap- Dinosaurs- Questions and Answers’. Some of our writing will link to our topic including biographies about Mary Anning and Charles Darwin. We will read poems by John Foster with a dinosaur theme. Our grammar and punctuation foci will be commas in lists, sentence types and past and present tense. I will be teaching the children how to edit and improve their writing by adding interesting verbs and adjectives, changing word choices and using accurate punctuation.
Reading: In school your child will read in a group 3 x per week and have a specific Pathways to Reading lesson each week focusing on reading skills. We will cover all reading skills from: Unpicking vocabulary, inferring meaning, predicting the next part of a story, explaining our views, retrieving information and sequencing events. To access your child’s Big Cat ebooks, go to: https://ebooks.collinsopenpage.com/
Spelling: We will follow the Year 2 Little Wandle Spelling scheme revising Phase 5 phonics before moving onto the Year 2 spelling requirements. Please continue to practice spellings at home using;’ Look, Cover, Write and Check’.
Maths
During the autumn term, we will be revisiting some key areas of mathematics such as money and time. Our main focus will be around place value and the four operations of calculation. (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). Pupils will be taught skills practically using objects to reason and problem solve, these will translate into jottings and recording maths sentences with understanding.
Science
We will be exploring living and non-living things. We will be finding out about animals and their habitats and researching food chains. We will be learning how to observe features of animals and group them. We will start by grouping dinosaurs based on their characteristics. During our study we will find out about Charles Darwin and explore different ways to classify animals.
History/ Geography
We will be comparing Lyme Regis to Congleton and also improving our basic mapping skills. During history lessons pupils will find out about the important life of Mary Anning and Charles Darwin. We will also explore the 3 dinosaur eras.
Art D&T
We will build dioramas of animal habitats and make photo frames. For both of these tasks we will focus on the full process of design, make, test and evaluate.
Our Art lessons will begin by exploring printing and looking at the work of William Morris to support this. We will build scrap book pages of ideas before creating repeated patterns. Our second art project will centre around Henri Rousseau’s ‘Tiger in a Storm’ which we will use collage to recreate.
Computing
During the first half term we will explore how to stay safe online. We will also use google maps/ google earth to compare coastal areas with Congleton. We will regularly use the internet to support learning; including reading, maths and general research skills. Our Kapow computing scheme will also cover two units ‘What is a Computer?’ and Word Processing.
Music
We will explore continue to follow the Charranga scheme where the children will learn a range of new songs and continue playing an untuned instrument.
World Religions
Pupils will be given the opportunity to explore various Christian stories involving Jesus through drama, art and class discussions.
Jigsaw PSHCE
We are using a new scheme of work for PSHCE this year which links to a whole school theme each half term. During the Autumn term we will cover ‘Being Me in My World’ and ‘Celebrating Differences’. Other important areas of PSHCE this term will include Anti Bullying and Internet Safety.
P.E
PE sessions will focus on team games and basic ball skills and gymnastics. Please ensure your child has a PE kit (named) every day.
Spring Term
Inventors and Explorers
Wishing you a Happy Healthy New Year !
Welcome back to school. I hope you have all enjoyed a relaxing Christmas break and are looking forward to the Spring term ahead. Our topic will be, ‘Inventors and Explorers ‘. This topic will begin by looking at Charles Darwin and the Galapagos Islands, before moving on to look at Leonardo Da Vinci, Columbus and Marco Polo.
Year 2 pupils are assessed in May via national assessments (SATs). These assess whether pupils are meeting their age-related expectation in Maths, English and Reading. Their science and spelling and grammar skills are also monitored.
Our timetable includes; spelling/ phonics, grammar, writing, handwriting and maths during the morning session and reading, science/art/topic/ PE/RE during the afternoons.
English
Over the Spring term we will cover a range of fiction and non fiction texts. We will use books such as; We’re Sailing to Galapagos, The Bog Baby, The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch and more to support our writing. We will also use short video clips about inventions and explorers to inspire non-fiction texts. Our grammar and punctuation foci will be commas in lists, sentence types and past and present tense. I will be teaching the children how to edit and improve their writing by adding interesting verbs and adjectives, changing word choices and using accurate punctuation.
Reading
In school your child will read at least once a week and have a specific English lesson each week focusing on reading skills. We will cover all reading skills from: Unpicking vocabulary, inferring meaning, predicting the next part of a story, explaining our views, retrieving information and sequencing events. Please record home learning in the reading diary. Also make good use of the Collins Ebooks- the ‘read along’ facility with these is an excellent feature to support your child’s progress.
Spelling
We will continue to follow the Year 2 Spellings guidance and phase 5 and 6 phonics . alongside some of the Year 2 spelling requirements, ( plurals, apostrophes for missing letters and adding prefixes and suffixes to words).
Maths
During the Spring term we will be revisiting some key areas of mathematics covered in Autumn such as place value, using numberlines for addition and subtraction. We will also continue our maths mastery program which aims to build up automatic skills and knowledge for pupils.
Our main focus this term will be: multiplication, division, shape, statistics and fractions. Pupils will be taught skills practically using objects to reason and problem solve, these will translate into jottings and recording maths sentences with understanding.
Science
Our science lessons will be very practical as we explore materials and their uses. We will investigate the suitability of materials for various purposes through experiments and investigations. Science Week this year is on the theme of ‘Growth’ this will be a very exciting, hands on time for the pupils.
History/ Geography
We will use Explorers to learn about geography and will make use of maps, photos and ICT to research. During our study of history we will compare changes over time linked to inventions.
Art D&T
We will be developing a range of art and DT skills during the Spring term. We will be focusing on Da Vinci as an artist study and also designing lighthouses and rolling toys.
Computing
We will use ‘Scratch Jnr’ to introduce basic algorithms and learn how to create basic patterns of codes, procedures and loops. We will continue to use ICT in all areas of the curriculum to support our learning in other areas.
Music
We will continue to follow our program of music –singing ‘I wanna be in a band’ and composing our own tunes.
World Religions
PSHE
During this half term we will initially focus on New Years’ Resolutions and setting ourselves goals. We will also look at global issues via Fair Trade. As always we will follow our Happy Minds sessions. We will also be focusing on listening and speaking skills.
PE
Our PE session will be on Fridays. Should this arrangement change I will let you know via Class Dojo.
Summer Term