Dear Year 2 families,
Welcome to Year 2! We hope that your children are feeling excited about the year ahead... We all are!
This is what a typical school day will look like for your child this year:
Phonics / Guided Reading
Maths / Writing
Break
Writing / Maths
Lunch and Play
Reading / Mastering Number/ Handwriting
Foundation subjects / PE
Picture News / Storytime
Home Time
PE sessions for this term (subject to change) are:
2SF - Tuesday & Friday
2W - Monday & Wednesday
Please ensure your child comes to school wearing appropriate PE kit on these days, especially appropriate footwear.
Maths
Throughout the Autumn term we will be covering units on Number and Place Value, Properties of shape, Addition and Subtraction, Multiplication and Division as well as Position and Direction.
Remember that your child has access to Numbots which will support your child’s maths. We will put your child’s log-in in their Reading Records. If you lose it, don’t worry! Please let us know as soon as you can and we will give you a replacement.
When we start a new unit of work in maths, we will send home a ‘knowledge organiser’ which will show you visuals about what your child is learning.
(We will properly introduce Times Tables Rock Stars when we start learning about multiplication in Spring Term, but you are welcome to let your child go on it if you’d like them to get going with the 2, 5 and 10 times tables as these are the tables that the children must know by the end of Year 2.)
Home learning
We will inform you each Friday of any home learning activities. The work will always include:
And will often include:
*Please make sure that reading happens daily.
We are more relaxed about the rest of the homework, it would be really helpful if your child can do it with you, but it is not compulsory. We do not want it to become a negative thing at home, please let us know that you are struggling and we will endeavour to support you / them in the best way possible. Please do take a look at the home learning, it will be helpful for you to know what we have been doing during the week and we might pop a note on the letter that would be worth reading! Support from home is really helpful, so thank you for anything you do in advance.
Reading
3 things to remember
Writing
As well as working towards the Year 2 skills for writing, we continue to focus on handwriting and spelling this year. We will give you information that will be useful during the year. Each unit in writing starts with a ‘hook’ to engage the children with the new text, then we gather vocabulary and explore writing poems, after that we write a narrative and then a non-fiction based piece of writing. We are excited about this and the wide variety of writing opportunities it gives the children.
Spellings
It is invaluable to continue to practice the Year 1 and now the Year 2 high frequency (common exception/red) words. These are the words that the children should be able to read and spell by the end of Year 2. We will inform you each week of any focus spellings that we would like you to support your child with.
These can also be found online at www.woodlands.kent.sch.uk/attachments/download.asp?file=161&type=pdf
Other curriculum subjects
We will be covering the following subjects this term –
Autumn 1
History – The Great Fire of London
PSHE – Relationships – ‘Being Me in My World’
Science – Materials and their Properties
Art – Printing – William Morris / David Hearld
PE – Ball Skills and Commando Joe
RE – What is it like to be part of the Muslim community in the UK and beyond?
Computing – Online Safety and Digital Photography
Autumn 2
Science – Materials and their Properties
History – Remembrance Day and Walter Tull
DT – Textiles. Make a hanging poppy for Remembrance Day
PE – Invasion & Gymnastics
Computing – E Safety
PSHE – Celebrating Differences
Music
Key dates for your diary:
Tuesday 23rd September – parents are invited to join us making Tudor Houses at 1:30pm.
Tuesday 7th October – Great Fire of London Theme day (see details below)
Monday 13th October – Cheltenham Literature Festival at 11:45am to see Kristyna Litten.
Thursday 27th November – parents are invited to join us making poppies at 1:30pm.
Great Fire of London theme day:
Tuesday 7th October – all day. We will put a message out requesting volunteers for that day – keep an eye out for that if you are interested. It’s a terrific day. The children will also have the opportunity, if they would like it, to dress up. The letter attached contains the information that you need about this. Some children chose not to dress up, that is fine, but the more that can, the merrier! Please speak to your child’s class teacher if you would like clarification or to discuss this in more detail.
Thank you for all the support that you give your children at home; it is really appreciated. If you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to speak to your child’s class teacher. We are here to support you and your child in every way we can. We look forward to working together with you all so that we have another exciting and productive year.
From The Year 2 Team
Mrs Toni Sarna (2SF Class Teacher - Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday)
Mrs Vanessa Flood (2SF Class Teacher – Wednesday, Thursday and Friday)
Mr Tom Bonehill (2SF 1:1)
Mrs Becky Perrett (2SF 1:1 Mornings)
Miss Nicky Woollatt (2W Class Teacher)
Mrs Flood will teach 2W on Wednesday morning when Miss Woollatt has her Planning, Preparation and Assessment (PPA) time and she will teach 2SF from Wednesday afternoon, taking over from Mrs Sarna when she has her PPA time.