Welcome to Year 2

Class Teachers:

Cedar: Mrs Ffrench 

Laurel: Mrs Pallister (Mrs P)

Support Staff: 

Mrs Shelley (LSA)

Mrs Rossi-Kerr (LSA)

Key Messages/Dates

• PE is on a Friday.
• Water bottles should contain only water.
• Children to be reading at least 3 times a week and recording it on Boom Reader.
• Children need to be playing TTRockstars at least 3 times a week.

Spring 1 

What are we learning?

Reading

These are the texts that we cover throughout the year:

At St Margaret's we are passionate about reading! We teach a daily reading session based on a  Curriculum for Unity School’s Partnership (CUSP) text.

This half term, our core texts are The Quangle Wangle’s Hat by Edward Lear, Coming to England by Floella Benjamin and The Street Beneath My Feet by Charlotte Guillain .The core texts are supplemented by a variety of additional texts to support children developing their reading fluency and confidence across a range of text types.

Writing

At St Margaret's Primary Academy, we follow CUSP for our writing curriculum. The CUSP curriculum is a vocabulary rich, knowledge-based approach to help develop pupils' retrieval, vocabulary and deepen learning. During the Spring Term, Year 2 will be learning to write poetry on a theme, a non-chronological report on St Margaret’s school values and a formal invitation. The formal invitation will be to invite our governors and a few residents from the care home to a tea party. This tea party will be held on the last Friday of term. 

Maths 

At St Margaret's Primary Academy, we adopt a Mastery approach to teach maths lessons. The mastery approach supports children in becoming fluent and confident mathematicians. Maths lessons include ‘Flashback 4’ where children recap four previously learnt skills, fluency activities and opportunities for children to apply their knowledge to reasoning and problem solving. This half term we will be covering addition and subtraction, shape, multiplication, and division. The children will continue to practice their 10- and 2-times tables daily. 

Geography

This term the children will compare a small part of the UK and a contrasting non-European country. In this unit of work the children will compare England to Kenya and London with Nairobi. 

Science

This half term, the children will be studying materials. In this unit the children will categorise and compare wood, metal, plastic, and glass. They will then categorise and compare ceramics, rock, paper, card, and fabric. They will explore what happens when we squash, bend, twist or stretch a material. The children will explore which material is best for a job and which is the most absorbent material. 

Art/DT

In art the children will be studying and engaging in printmaking. They will make marks by printing with potatoes. They will experiment with layering marks by overprinting and respond to the marks they make. The children will make a printing block and use this to create repeated prints. They will identify the negative and positive space in a printed image and evaluate the quality of their printed image. They will create repeated prints from natural objects such as fruit and leaves and create a symmetrical printed pattern.

In DT The children will identify different types of vehicles. Know that vehicles and everyday objects use wheels. The children will study the terms wheel, axle, axle bearer / holder, chassis. They will explore the difference between fixed axles and rotating axles and identify their applications. They will explain the effects of changing different variables relating to wheels and axles; draw conclusions from experimentation about the most effective positioning of wheels and axles; identify the advantages and disadvantages of using small wheels or large wheels. They will record findings using annotated sketches, diagrams, and sentences. Finally, they will make vehicles in our PSHE lesson on teamwork.

RE

This half term the children will be exploring the enquiry: is Shabbat important to Jewish children? During their study the children will talk about their favourite day of the week and say why it is special; retell The Creation Story and how it relates to the Sabbath ; explain how Shabbat is celebrated; talk about why a Jewish family might go to a synagogue to celebrate Shabbat and say what happens on Shabbat.

PSHE

The children will be working through the unit goals and dreams. In this unit the children will choose a realistic goal and think about how to achieve it; talk about things they have achieved and say how that makes them feel; carry on trying (persevering) even when they find tasks difficult ; they will talk about some of their strengths as a learner; they will start to recognise who they work well with and who it is more difficult for them to work with; they will talk about  how working with other people helps them learn; finally they will  work with other people in a group to solve problems when they make vehicles in our PSHE lesson on teamwork.

Home learning

We expect children to read a minimum of 3 times a week at home; this should be logged on Boom Reader. If you need support with Boom Reader, please come and speak to a member of the Year 2 team who will be more than happy to help. 

Children are expected to practise their times tables at home regularly using Times Tables Rockstars. 

https://ttrockstars.com/ 

If you need support with logging into TTRS or are unaware of your child's login, please reach out to a member of the Year 2 team.