Year 2

Spring Term

We hope that you had a lovely Christmas break. Welcome to the spring term where we look forward to the continuing partnerships between home and school.

Reading

Our goal is to create confident, fluent, independent readers. We prioritise reading at Latchmere School and have very carefully chosen the texts your child will study this term. We focus on word reading to develop fluency and encourage the whole class to join in through strategies such as choral reading (the whole class read together) and echo reading (the teacher models the reading and the class echo back). We also have the Latchmere Reading skills. These are based on comprehension skills such as retrieval, inference, summarising, making links, prediction and vocabulary

In Year 2, we will be studying books including Leaf, The Princess and The White Bear King, and How to be an Astronaut.

We will be continuing to embed the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds phonics programme. This involves daily teaching of phonics and up to three reading sessions per week for every child focussing on decoding, prosody and comprehension.

Please see the phonics page on the website for further information.

Maths

Our curriculum is based on the White Rose Maths programme. This research-based initiative ensures that the skills and concepts children taught are fully embedded before moving on. The children are taught strategies such as bar modelling and have plenty of opportunities to use ‘manipulatives’ such as counters and dienes all the way through the school.

This term we will be focusing on money, multiplication and division, length and height, and mass, capacity and temperature.

Children in Year 2 also benefit from using the Numbots program to help embed the core maths skills of subitising, number bonds, addition and subtraction. White Rose have also released an app called ‘1-minute maths’ which is very useful. We will also begin to use Times Table Rockstars.

Curriculum Highlights

This term, we will be learning about . . .

Science – We will continue to learn about living things and their habitats. We will also be looking at materials and their everyday uses.

Geography – We will be learning about the 7 continents and the 5 oceans. We will then look at polar landscapes.

History – We will be learning about Neil Armstrong and our Solar System.

PE – We will be looking at fitness, ball skills, invasion games and yoga. We will also be swimming this term.

RE – We will be learning about ‘The good news Christians believe Jesus brings’ and answering the question ‘Why does Easter matter to Christians?’.

You can find out more information about the spring term learning by looking at the overviews and programmes of study on the website.

Updates and reminders

Morning and afternoon routine – In the morning, the children should enter school via the Year 2 gate which will open at 8:45am and close at 9:00am. If you arrive after this time please enter via the school office. At the end of the day, the school gates will be opened shortly before 3:20pm and you will be able to collect your child from the KS1 playground.

Snacks – Children are able to bring in a healthy (nut-free) snack for them to have during morning play. Each class will also offer a daily selection of fruit and vegetables.

Water bottles – Children may bring a water bottle to school each day. Please ensure that your child’s water bottle is named.

PE Kit – We continue to ask for children to come to school in their P.E kit on P.E days. We ask that children are dressed appropriately for the weather. A PE day timetable relating to carousel can be found on the Year 2 notice board.

Ruby – Monday (indoor PE), Friday (outdoor PE).

Sapphire – Tuesday (indoor PE), Friday (outdoor PE).

Gold – Tuesday (outdoor PE), Friday (indoor PE).

Silver – Tuesday (outdoor PE), Thursday (indoor PE).

Swimming – Please speak to your class reps if you are able to help out. We will need three parent helpers each week for the swimming lessons to take place. On the day of their lesson, children will need to come to school with a bag containing: a towel, a swimming costume, and a swimming cap/hat. Goggles are optional. Please ensure that all clothes and equipment are named.

Ruby – Monday afternoon.

Sapphire – Tuesday afternoon.

Gold – Wednesday afternoon.

Silver – Thursday afternoon.

Swimming lessons for Ruby, Sapphire and Silver class fall on indoor PE days and children should come to school in their PE kit as normal. Gold class should wear PE kit on Wednesdays whilst they are swimming this term.

Medication – Please ensure that any medication your child needs is in school and up to date. Please speak directly to the main office regarding medication that is kept in school.

Class reps – If you have any messages or anything you need clarifying please contact Class reps or email the office.

Contact Address and Telephone Numbers – If you have moved recently or changed home or mobile telephone number, please let the office staff know. It is important that we can contact you quickly if your child is unwell.

Parent helpers and DBS Clearance – We really appreciate the support that parent helpers can offer in school. As you can appreciate, we are only able to ask parents who have an up-to-date DBS form. Please speak to the office if you need to apply for clearance of if you are unsure whether your DBS form is up to date. Thank you.

Class reps – If you have any messages or anything you need clarifying please contact Class reps or email the office.