Good afternoon everyone,

Welcome back to our second half term of Year 2. We hope you had a lovely break and we look forward to lots more learning to come!

This week, we attended Mass in church to observe All Saints Day. Whilst there, Father Frank talked to us about what it takes to be a saint. He explained that we can all be saints by following Jesus’ example and treating everyone as if we were treating Jesus himself. Year 2 immediately demonstrated this with their fantastic behaviour and focus in church and made us all proud.

English - This week we designed covers and wrote our neat drafts of our explanation texts. We also explored conjunctions and began to think about how we can start sentences with conjunctions to really improve our writing.

Maths - In Maths we have spent lots of time focusing on related facts. We have learned how if we know one addition or subtraction fact, then we know 3 other related facts. We have worked hard, also, to improve our understanding of what happens when we move our equals sign and the effect this has on a number sentence. We then applied our new knowledge and used inverse operations to check whether number sentences were correct or not.

Science - We learned about the 7 life processes - things all living things do which lets us know they are alive. We chose a living thing and explained how they undertake these 7 processes.

RE - We focused upon wonder questions for our mysteries topic. We looked at existing wonder questions and worked with partners to discuss possible answers. We then created our own wonder questions and discussed these with our partner.

PE - Our indoor PE sessions focused upon dance and our outdoor session focused on passing and moving skills.

Art - We focused on mark making for our sketching unit.

Please continue to practise counting in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s.

Please practise the year 1 and year 2 common exception words sent home before half term. The children need to be able to read and write (spelling correctly) each one of these by the end of year 2.

Spelling

Mr W’s group - Y2 Common exception words.

Mrs B’s group - Y1 Common exception words.

There is also a handwriting practise sheet for each group’s spelling words.

Maths

Fact families worksheet.

Writing

Fix the sentence - Read the sentence and circle/correct each of the mistakes. Afterwards, rewrite the whole sentence as it should be written.

Golden Award -

Writing Award -

Maths Award -

Year 2 PE lessons will take place on Wednesday and Friday. Please come to school in PE kit on these days.

Water bottles - all the children were given a new school bottle. This will come home each night to be cleaned and re-filled. Please only use the school bottles and ensure your child brings theirs each day. Lost water bottles can be replaced at the school office, but I am afraid you will have to pay for those. Year 2 have green tops.

I will not be in class on a Thursday afternoon, as it is my release time. This will be covered by Mrs Bowdell and Miss Andrew and is also when the children will have Music with Mrs Watson.

Party Invitations - I am afraid that Mrs Bowdell and I will not be able to give out party invitations in class. Please do not send your child into class with them for them to give out - it creates upset and fuss about something that takes place outside of school.Thank-you for your understanding with this matter.

Key Rings - please do not put key rings onto your child’s school bag, it creates fuss in class and then upset if they are lost.

School bags - please continue to use the red book bag that your child was given in Reception, we don’t not have the room to store large bags. Many thanks for your help with this matter.

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters.

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guides give helpful advice about…

The social media site X, highlighting the major changes since its rebrand from Twitter and the related online safety risks.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: a suspense-filled horror game which has nevertheless attracted a relatively young fan-base.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

For the next 7 weeks, we are incredibly lucky to have a special visitor in Year 2 - Mr Vincent and his therapy dog, Bailey! Bailey will be hearing 7 children read each week with a focus upon developing reading for pleasure, building relationships and providing a calming experience for each child.

I know the children loved having Bailey in school this week. She will be with us every Tuesday or - as Mr Vincent has now named it - Doodleday.

New Staff Member - We also have a new member of staff who will be in Year 2 working to support the children, Mrs Hall. We are welcoming her to Year 2 very nicely!