Month: October 2020

Dear Parents and Carers

We have come to the end of our first half term in Year 2, and I would like to start by saying a big thank you for how well everyone has adapted to this new school year, it is different, but we’re trying to keep it as normal as possible for the children.

It was lovely to see lots of you at parents evening, and I wanted to clarify some things about the phonics screening test I spoke about to all of you, as I have been told there has been some confusion. The phonics screening is a national requirement for Year 1 children to sit, and it happens every year. As all school testing was cancelled in the last school year due to Covid, it has been rescheduled for the end of this term. If your child doesn’t pass it then, they will have another go at the end of Year 2; again, this is the standard procedure. We are doing all we can in school to make this as easy as possible for everyone, and to ensure that every child is supported appropriately.

With this in mind, the children have brought home a small pack of resources to help you to help them practise at home. They also came home today with the parents evening notes. These are not school reports, and are simply a record of what was said at the meeting. Because of these resources being sent home, I have not set any specific spellings on Spelling Shed this week, but both Spelling Shed and Maths Shed can still be accessed if your child would like to use them.

This week the children have written information pages linked to our topic. They have built Jewish Sukkahs, celebrating the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot (linked to our R.E. topic of Judaism). In maths, we have been learning how to add and subtract when crossing the tens. We have been using dienes to visualise exchanging ones into tens, and vice versa.  In History, we learnt about Rosa Parks, looking at her life and how an ordinary person did extraordinary things. In P.E., we continued our dance lessons, with the children creating their own dance sequences.

I hope you all have a lovely and restful half term,

Mr Stocking and Mrs Killy

Dear Parents/Carers

We have had another good week of learning in which the children have worked very hard right up to Friday home time. Earlier today we had our Key Stage 1 Harvest celebrations (in place of our usual whole school harvest festival) where the children sang Cauliflowers Fluffy and shared with each other what they are thankful for in their lives.

SpellingShed this week is the same as last week, with 3 of the groups having one longer list, whilst the last group has two smaller lists. It is clear the children have been working very hard at their spellings and phonics, and we are seeing excellent improvement from every child. Year 2 was 2nd place this week for Spelling Shed points, despite being the smallest class in the school. If you would like to see what your children have been doing in Maths, maths shed is accessible through the edshed webite as well.

This week we have learnt how to count in multiples of 10, with the children today looking at 20 more and less, and then higher amounts using the column method. In English we have been learning about informative writing, with the aim to be an information page about the Isle of Wight next week. Hopefully, the children will be able to tell you a lot about the Island if you ask them. In R.E. we looked at the Jewish Harvest festival Sukkot, and planned our Sukkah houses that we will be building next week.

It was Year 2’s turn this week to write about our weekly big question. This week our question was :

The children thought about how we can do more to help others and the planet. We followed this up with a lesson on recycling in Science.

Next week is parents evening, thank you for all taking the time to sign up and choose a time, I am looking forward to speaking to everyone!

Have a lovely weekend,

Mr Stocking and Mrs Killy

Dear Parents/Carers

Before today’s blog, I’d just like to apologise for there being no blog last week. I typed it up last Friday and then forgot to press the publish button, only realising when I came to write this week’s blog.

The children have been excellent this week as we shift our focus to harvest. We spent the week thinking about what we are thankful for and how we can celebrate harvest, ending with an assembly delivered by Mother Helen and Father Alastair about self-control, one of our values for this half term.

For Spelling Shed this week, three of the groups have one extended list each, while one group has two lists. Everyone has been working very hard with their phonics and the children are very prepared for the phonics screening at the end of term. Please continue the children’s phonics at home, and read with them as often as possible to support this learning.

This week in maths we started to look at addition and subtraction, focusing on fact families and creating related links between ones and tens. The children found it difficult initially, but it started to click when using additional practical resources. In English we have had a grammar week, looking at adjectives, verbs, nouns and adverbs. In Art and R.E. we have been thinking about our Harvest Festival next week. We have created orange hearts for our rainbow harvest and had a lesson in the garden thinking about what we are grateful for in our lives. All of the children chose sentimental things, such as their families, school, friends and specific memories, rather than material things, which was nice to hear. The children also created their Christmas Card designs which you will be able to buy at some point.

Next week, we will be continuing to look at addition and subtraction, with the aim to strength our number bonds to 100. In English, we will be starting a new genre of writing, informative reports, in which the children will be researching and writing an information page on the Isle of Wight. In Science we will be concluding our materials topic, thinking about what we have learnt this half term, and we are finishing the week (weather-permitting) with our Harvest Festival.

Thank you for all the books bags that have come in for the past two weeks. If you do have any further questions about the children’s reading please send an email to the school office or leave a note in your child’s bookbag.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mr Stocking and Mrs Killy