Welcome to Year 2

Meet the Year 2 team Badgers Class - Mrs Jackson with Mrs Yeo and Miss Godfroy Owl Class -Miss Parker and Mrs McConnell Mrs Clarke will teach music every week

Routines of the day Children self register and make lunch choices. Literacy, Numeracy, Guided Reading and Phonics and spelling are taught daily. Generally we teach inside PE on a Monday and outside PE on a Friday and every other week we have team spirit on a Wednesday. (PE kits are to be in school all week as PE can be taught on different days.) Foundation subjects linked to the topic are taught daily. We choose a subject area at a time to focus on and try to include many practical and exciting activities as well as the children applying their literacy and maths skills during these session. We usually do 1 main topic per half term and within this many subjects will be taught.

Independent learners At Hollybrook Infant School we are committed to creating independent learners. Every morning as children arrive they are encouraged to change their own reading books, they are also encouraged in Guided Reading and PDR time. Children will be prompted to hand in letters or money from their book bags and put it in the register tray each morning-book bags will not be checked by adults. As the year progresses we will be encouraging the children to be more independent in their learning, selecting their own resources and organising themselves efficiently for learning.

Topics Topic flyers will be sent home at the beginning of each new topic to inform you about what your child will be learning. (These will also be uploaded to the school website.) Our current topic is ‘The Lady of the Lamp.’ As part of this topic children are:

Topics to come this half term… The Big Freeze-A non-fiction topic based on the Arctic Mini-topics-Remembrance and Harvest

Home learning Home learning is the opportunity for your child to explore their own interests within a topic. We appreciate your commitment to support your child's learning with these projects. Home learning is shared in the classroom as part of our topic time and makes the children feel really proud and a valued member of the class when it is their turn to share. We will also be sending home extra half termly information to support your child…

Reading Teachers will lead a guided reading session with your child in a group setting once a week. Teachers will initial the reading logs regularly when your child has read and will write a comment only when your child moves a reading level or needs some specific help or guidance. Teachers will read and appreciate comments left by parents in their child's reading log. Teachers keep their own records of children's reading. Your child will receive individualised targets for reading during parent’s evening. Your child needs to be able to read around 90 words per minute so reading with pace should be a great extra target for you to work on.

Phonics/support for spelling Phonics/support for spelling is taught on a daily basis Support for spelling is introducing the children to learning spelling patterns to aide them to spell a word correctly Teaching them, amongst other things, appropriate use of ‘ed’,’ly’, ‘ing’, plurals and compound words

Year 2 Spelling Content Segmenting spoken words into phonemes and representing these by graphemes e.g. r-ai-n Learning new ways of spelling phonemes for which one or more spellings are already known, including common homophones e.g. ay -> eigh Learning to spell common exception words e.g. door, because, fine Learning to spell more words with contracted forms e.g. did not -> didn’t Learning the possessive apostrophe e.g. the girl’s book Distinguishing between homophones and near-homophones e.g. their/there/they’re, quite/quiet Adding suffixes to spell longer words e.g. enjoyment, beautiful, happiness, carefully, useless

PDR PDR stands for Plan, Do and Review This is an opportunity for children to practise and master the skills that they are learning in class The children choose an area of learning they would like to improve on that has been previously taught. They will find questions within the zoned areas that are in the classroom The child’s learning may be kept for record at school or sent home to share with parents

Communication Parents evenings take place in the Autumn and Spring terms. During these you will receive targets to help support your child at home. If you have any concerns about your child please talk to their class teacher at the end of the day. The office is able to get messages to the class teacher if you are unable to speak to your child's teacher directly.

End of year assessment All children within the United Kingdom get assessed at end of Year 2 (End of Key stage 1) They will be assessed by teachers in all areas and at the end of the year will complete a 2 x reading and 2 x maths SATs. You will be invited in Spring Term on Monday 28th January where more information will be provided.

We start learning at 8.50am so please ensure your child is in school on time every day. Thank you. Please ensure that your child does not wear nail varnish to school. Please make sure that long hair is tied up. Please remember that jewellery is not permitted to be worn at school. Please make sure that only stud earrings are worn. Please remind your children to tuck in their t-shirts to ensure they have a smart appearance. P.E kits need to be in school all week as we often do extra sessions. Please ensure that your child’s P.E kit has a pair of trainers and a warm top for outdoor P.E in winter. A few reminders…

PARENT HELPERS Parent helpers are always required within the classroom. You will be invited in for a briefing on school policies and procedures at the end of September and a letter will be sent out soon regarding this. You will need a DBS check and this can be sorted via the school office. This could be reading 1:1 with a child. This could be helping with resources. It could be joining us for school trips. It could be to cook with a small group of children. Please see your class teacher or class representative if you think you could help out in anyway.

From all of the team, we hope your child enjoys this year.