Good afternoon everyone,

We have reached the end of another half term and we have been reflected on our journey so far in Year 2. We have been thinking not just about or academic growth but also our personal, social and emotional growth as well. As part of our RE and in our whole school assemblies, we have been learning about the Gospel of the Lord. In class, we learned that the Gospel are the stories about Jesus’ life and they teach us about the Good News that he brings - God loves us and wants to forgive us. We have discussed how we can be good news people and shine our lights just like Jesus.

This week, we have continued our work on our STOP approach to support our own assertiveness and understanding of boundaries. This had led on to incidences where children have hit, touched or got too close to others without their permission. We therefore have focused our PSHE work this week on our personal space. We discussed the concept that we have an imaginary bubble around us and that this bubble is important to keep us feeling safe and protected. We discussed that everybody has the right to have their bubble kept safe and not popped and that some people need thicker bubbles than others. We learned that people have the right to tell us STOP if we move into their personal space and that we must ask for permission before doing so. We hope that this will help us to better respect each other’s boundaries and allow everyone to feel safer. If you hear your child talking about ‘personal space’, this will be why!

English - This week we planned and wrote a set of instructions to explain to the boy from Lost and Found and The Way Back Home how to prepare for a plane or a boat. We used bossy verbs and time phrases to make sure our instructions were clear. We also thought about the similarities and differences between the two books, making links between them. Finally, we used our structure for a quest story to box up The Way Back Home and compare the structure of the story with Lost and Found.

Maths - We have continued to develop our recognition of the various coins and notes we use in our money. We have learned how to count amounts by ordering the amounts from largest value to smallest value and counting along. We also began to count amounts which have a mixture of pounds and pence.

Science - We chose a world habitat (polar, rainforest, desert, ocean) and researched the plants and animals which are adapted to life here. We used our information to plan a non-chronological report which we will write after half term.

RE - We discussed how we can be ‘good news people’. We created posters to explain this information to others.

History - We learned about one more nurse, Edith Cavell, who worked during World War I. We collected evidence from sources to decide whether she was a hero or a traitor.

PE - In indoor PE we continued to work on balances with our partner and performed to the class. In outdoor PE we continued to develop our dribbling, passing and trapping skills with a football.

Computing - We finished our word processing unit by using our new skills to type up our instruction writing.

Please continue to practise the Year 1 and 2 Common Exception Words - both reading and spelling!

Please practice learning the 2, 3, 5 and 10 times tables as later this half term we will be having times table tests on these.

Other Tasks

Spellings

I don’t set specific homework over half term. However, we are still finding it very difficult to remember the correct spelling of our Year 1 and Year 2 common exception words. I have sent a copy of the children’s spelling test home so you can see the words they know and those they still struggle with. Please could you regularly practise these in small amounts (4 or 5 words repeatedly written until they can do them by heart) to develop their spelling skills.

As always, the MOST important way that you can support your child is by reading regularly! Please do this as regularly as possible over the break!

Golden Award - Alistair - for always working hard in everything he does.

Writing Award - James - for using super conjunctions to improve his instructions writing.

Maths Award - Artie - for a focused attitude towards his maths learning.

Discipleship Award -

WORLD BOOK DAY - Tuesday 2nd March

To celebrate World Book Day we will be asking children to come to school dressed as their favourite book character on this day. If you can, bring the book with you and be prepared to talk about why you love this character and the book. Parents, please don’t feel under pressure to buy expensive costumes - the best ones are always the home-made ones.

KS 1 will be marking British Science Week in school with a whole host of exciting and engaging practical experiments to really bring Science alive! We will be kicking the week off on FRIDAY 10th MARCH with a Wild Animals VR workshop from Education Group. We are really excited to start off our week with such a wonderful experience for the children. The teachers had then planned fabulous experiments for the children for the rest of the week - with each afternoon given over to Science!

To support us with this we are asking for a voluntary contribution of £2 per child from parents. If you are able to contribute, please go to your ParentPay account where this donation will be added. Many thanks. (The rest of the cost of the visit and the week will be met by school, with help from the PTFA - many thanks)

On Tuesday 7th February we marked Safer Internet Day in school. This is a very important part of our work to keep children safe online. Please spare a few minutes at home to talk about what the children have learnt in school and how they keep safe online - this year’s theme is ‘Want to talk about it?’ and encourages young children to talk about anything that makes them feel uncomfortable. Please take a look at the newsletter below with important information on this subject. Please click the picture for the newsletter.

I hope to be able to organise Assess, Plan, Do, Review and SEN meetings to discuss and update targets for your child if they have a plan in place. I will be in touch to arrange these when possible.