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Mrs Kirsten Hodgson |
Year 2 Class Teacher and KS1 Lead |
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Miss Mina Panchal |
KS1 Teaching Assistant |
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Miss Clare Holden |
KS1 Teaching Assistant |
Welcome to the Squirrels class page. We are looking forward to a busy year and we have some really exciting topics ahead. Squirrels class are lucky to have our KS1 teaching assistants working with them supporting their learning. We have lots of enthusiasm and are looking forward to the year ahead. Please feel free to come and talk to Mrs Hodgson if you have any questions.
|
Mrs Kirsten Hodgson |
Year 2 Class Teacher and KS1 Lead |
|
Miss Mina Panchal |
KS1 Teaching Assistant |
|
Miss Clare Holden |
KS1 Teaching Assistant |
Outdoor PE will be on a Wednesday and Indoor PE will be on a Friday. Children can come to school dressed ready in their PE kits.
In year 2 our Cornerstones topics this year are:
What will my child learn in Year 2?
As in all other year groups, Year 2 follow the National Curriculum set out by the government. Children are assessed at the end of the year as to whether they have met the ‘expected’ national standard. At HCP, we strive to make teaching and learning personalised, exciting and creative.
The curriculum for English in Year 2
We follow a Mastery approach to English through the programme ‘Pathways to Write.’ Units of work are delivered using high quality texts and children in all year groups are given varied opportunities for writing. Skills are built up through repetition within the units, and children apply these skills in the writing activities provided. Many opportunities for widening children’s vocabulary are given through the Pathways to Write approach and this builds on the extensive work we do in school to provide our children with a rich and varied vocabulary.
Here are some of the books we plan to use this year:
By the end of Year 2, children’s reading and writing should be sufficiently fluent for them to be able to read at 90 words per minute. We will also develop their comprehension of reading, ensuring a good understanding, encouraging them to use inference skills and to make comparisons between texts. We will continue to develop their love of reading for pleasure and read aloud to them in our daily ‘cosy club’ sessions. We will develop their writing skills through a range of text types, encouraging good sentence structure as well as stamina for writing longer pieces.
We will continue with our work using Little Wandle and after a quick review of previously taught phonics, we will start the ‘Bridge to Spelling’ programme.
The curriculum for maths in Year 2
We begin our work in maths by ensuring a solid understanding of place value ensuring children really understand how the number system works. From this we will begin to look at addition and subtraction using the column method; children’s understanding of place value plays a key part in this. They will then develop their counting skills by counting in 2s, 5s and 10s and using this to learn their times tables and division facts. We use their division skills to support them with the learning of finding a fraction of a number. We will then encourage the children to use these number skills to solve problems.
The children will also learn about 2D and 3D shapes and their properties and use these in different challenges. They will learn to use measures in length, weight and capacity both practically and also to solve problems. Telling the time to the nearest quarter of an hour is a further area of learning as well as learning to recognise and use money to make totals and solve problems.
How will my child be assessed in Year 2?
Throughout the year, our Year 2 teaching team will be assessing children against the National Curriculum for Year 2, making observations, looking at the work the children complete during lessons and gathering evidence to determine how children are attaining in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of Year 2. This end of year teacher judgement will be shared with parents through your child’s end of year report and will show parents whether your child is working:
Updates regarding how your child is attaining will also be shared at our autumn and spring term parents’ consultations in November and March.
Y2 Standard Attainment Tests (SATs)
In previous years, children in Year 2 have taken written tests in reading and mathematics as part of their Year 2 standard attainment tests (SATs). The results from these tests, taken in May each year, helped to inform their teacher’s end of year assessment of the child in these subjects.
From September 2023, the government have removed these statutory SATs from the primary assessment calendar, making them optional for schools to administer. As a school, we have reviewed our arrangements for assessment in Year 2 and may use some SATs style questions or extracts from past papers to help to inform our teacher assessments, we will also complete the optional SATs tests or PiXL assessments in the summer term.
We will continue to use PiXL (Partners in Excellence) assessments; tests designed to check children’s knowledge and understanding in Year 2, as these assessments enable diagnostic evaluation of gaps in children’s learning and are supported by therapies and interventions which can support children in closing their gaps in learning.
Year 2 Phonics Screening Check
Any children who scored 31 or less in their Year 1 phonics screening check in June are classed as ‘having not met the end of year expectation’. These children will continue to be taught discrete phonics sessions in Year 2 and will re-take the phonics screening check in June 2026. We will continue our phonics teaching using the Bridge to Spelling programme.
For more information, please click on the following link – Phonics screening check: information for parents to read the leaflet produced by the Standards & Testing Agency (STA) regarding last year’s check.
The children will be given a login for Numbots so they are able to practise their maths skills at home and earn certificates for their achievements. Later in the year this will move to Times Tables Rockstars as the children begin learning their times tables.
There is an expectation that the children read at least three times a week and record their reading in their reading records so they can earn raffle tickets. Reading books will be changed on a Thursday. The children will also have a library book each week.
Optional homework based on their Cornerstones topics will also be set each half term and once completed the children can share their homework with their class. Later in the year we will also send home maths homework for the children to complete with you. This will also be due in on a Thursday.
Autumn Term 1 - Year 2 Home Learning Ideas - (Wriggle and Crawl)
http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/freeIndex.htm - Phonics games and activities to make learning phonics fun.
www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/alphablocks - Short clips which support in developing your child’s knowledge of phonics.
www.dinosearch.com - Dinosearch is a child-friendly version of Google which has stronger filters to protect your children when searching the internet.
http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk - A useful website with an abundance of reference material.
www.ictgames.co.uk - Provides a range of educational games for literacy and maths.
Please let us know if there are any other websites or apps that you use at home. We can add these to our website for other parents and children to enjoy too.