We are now at the end of our first full half term in Year 2 and ready for a well deserved break from all our hard work over the past 8 weeks. The progress we have made is clear to see already and we have been growing our brains and our confidence every single week.
Parent Consultations
Just a quick reminder about parent consultations tomorrow. These are online via a video link that you will need to connect to before your appointment. Please do not come into school as we will not be able to do face-to-face appointments at this time. Your appointment will last for 10 minutes at which point the connection will end. Please have any important questions ready for the start of the meeting but please be aware that this might take some time away from other areas of discussion regarding the children’s academic progress. I am contactable via Class Dojo for smaller, less immediate questions.
Phonics Screening Check
Just like last year, the Government have stated that all Year 2 children will undertake their phonics screening check during the second half of the Autumn term. These will be carried out by myself in a quiet place in class to assess the children’s knowledge. The children will try to read 40 words. Some are real words and some are made up ‘alien words’ designed to test their ability to identify and use individual sounds in unfamiliar words. The pass mark for the test is 32 and you will be notified of your child’s score at a later date. I intend to undertake these screenings beginning either the week beginning 8th or 15th November. I have already sent a practice phonics screening check and have sent another to practice over half term. There are also phonics resources on the class google drive link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GWBUR5yMLLFFS9cwhvLuAYYsZvNhpQAE?usp=sharing.
This Week…
In English we have begun to write our stories with a familiar setting about bullies. The children have really worked hard to structure their stories into an opening, build up, problem, resolution and ending and they have been great to read so far!
In Maths, we have spent most of the week looking at fact families and related facts. We are fantastic when the facts have an equal sign at the end but find it a little trickier when that sign is at the beginning.
In Science, we learned about the 7 life processes and described how certain living things showed these processes.
In RE this week we have learned about the story of Daniel and the Lions Den. We learned how Daniel continued to pray to God even when doing this put him in great danger. He knew this was the right thing to do and trusted God to keep him safe from danger by doing this. We discussed how brave Daniel was and how we too can be brave and trust in God to help us. We discussed how if something is wrong, we will stand up and do the right thing even if it seems scary or something we might get into trouble for.
In History, we have done some art work based upon the Great Fire of London and used pastels to make some wonderful fiery silhouette pictures. I will try and put some photos on of these.
Homework
The only homework this week is a practice phonics screening check list and some spelling words. Please practice the spelling words for a test on our first Friday back at school.
Award Winners
Golden Award – Florence - for always getting on well and showing pride in her work.
Writing Award – Natalia – for a super poster about Samuel Pepys.
Maths Award – Luna - for working extra hard on her maths tasks this week.
Have a lovely half term break and I look forward to seeing you all virtually tomorrow!
Take care,
Mr Whetnall, Mrs Bowdell and Miss Collins
