Class 2

                                                     Welcome to our Year 2 class page! 

We are a happy, kind and friendly class of 30 children who work hard and care for one another, remembering to follow our school High 5 for Behaviour to help us in making the right choices. We enhance our skills as a class team through group work and our PSHE curriculum. We enjoy learning and love playing on our amazing school playgrounds and field.

Our teachers Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Jones enjoy teaching us and our teaching assistants Mrs. Mallender, Mrs Browne and Miss Parker support us in class. We are very active and enjoy learning through exercise, ‘hands on’ exploring whenever we can. We are very excited to be learning about Japan, famous people and events this year. We love our themed weeks and are very lucky to have so many opportunities to try new things. This year we will be learning French and the violin for the first time!

 We welcome parents into our classroom through being a mystery reader, hearing children reading, sharing specialisms and book looks. If you would like to come in and share an experience or read with us, please let our class teachers know. 

We aim for a growth mind set in our outlook on our learning. We share and celebrate our ‘marvellous mistakes’ to help us to learn, and learn the power of 'yet'. All children are supported to achieve their personal best, to grow and to blossom.

We use the Daily Mile track daily to complete 10 minutes of exercise and keep our brains working at the highest possible level when learning. Once a year, we can show and celebrate sporting achievement and perseverance by completing a marathon, running a mile a day over a term!

Our Year 2 learners bring an incredible array of talents, skills, and interests to our classroom, and we take great pride in supporting, sharing, and celebrating each one! Among us are confident speakers, remarkable athletes, gifted musicians, brilliant mathematicians, talented artists, curious scientists, and imaginative writers. Every child in our class is truly unique, each with their own special blend of qualities and abilities.

We’re committed to always doing our best and upholding the Wrington High Five for positive behaviour: being kind, resilient, respectful, ready to learn, and safe. Each week, we celebrate our dedication to these values with certificates and a chance to be invited to Ms. Joskey’s special tea party!

Learning about Place value, addition and subtraction in Maths. 

In our first term Year 2 spent time consolidating their understanding of place value and developing and extending this, as part of learning in line with our White Rose mathematics scheme. We moved to consider addition and subtraction and geometry and shape in Term 2, and will tackle money, multiplication and division and measures and measuring in this Spring term.  

Quality Literacy Learning

Year 2 are involved in a trust wide project to develop the writing curriculum on our schools. We explored the text Toys in Space by Mini Gray and retold the story, focusing on learning about the use of adjectives to describe nouns and retelling a story. Next, we moved to become immersed in a traditional tale, progressing to innovate our own stories. In Term 2 we journeyed through London with A Walk in London by Salvatore Rabbino and got ready for Christmas with the Polar Express. We are now exploring in depth the beautiful story of a bus journey adventure in Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Pena, and will next turn to a text with a factual basis, The Great Fire of London. 

Violin

In Year 2 all children have the opportunity to learn to play the violin. Children complete two terms of learning and perform for their class at the completion of their sessions. We have been introduced to the violin and have learnt from our specialist teacher Ms Whittam that the violin can take you all over the world to play with orchestras and even in films like Harry Potter!

Future Stars Coaching 

We have worked with Future Stars coaching, learning to play a variety of team games including small group catching, target games and dodge ball. This improved our sports skills and was lots of fun!           

British Values and Communal Responsibility

      We have been learning about democracy leading up to our school council elections. Our elected class school councillors are Julia and James.

As part of understanding communal responsibility, every member of our class has a special job and responsibility to keep our classroom environment welcoming and supportive of our learning.                  

Maps and Compasses  

 We have engaged in a workshop with Farmlink to learn map and compass skills. We identified local features using Ordnance Survey maps of the area and found lots of places we recognised, using the key to help us. We have also completed a task and navigated using a compass in our school grounds. We have put this new knowledge and our compass skills to use in class. We have created maps with compass keys, showing features in the correct place.  

 Trip to Lowerstock farm 

 We enjoyed a trip to Lowerstock Farm at the start of the academic year. We explored the garden identifying plant species and learning about varieties of seasonal foods, and harvesting them. We also identified pond life and discovered ore about the creatures living in our local watercourses when pond dipping. We met the animals at the farm including merino sheep who give the best wool, the heifers (female cows) who produce lots of milk after having their first calf. We also met Mary the chicken and discovered that some chickens lay eating eggs while some are used for breading, especially the rare breed chickens who stay at a nearby farm and provide our incubator eggs for schools.    

Science Investigations and Working Scientifically

        In science we began by learning about properties and materials, and have now moved ot consider growing up healthily and life cycles. We link our learning to our working scientifically skills, and we have the opportunity to experiment as part of own investigative learning. So far, we have explored the best materials for a reflective jacket using natural light, electric light and torches to consider the reflective nature of a variety of materials. Year 2 have conducted experiments around Macintosh's idea of waterproof fabric for coats, and explored the question; will adding  a sticky substance to a material will make it more waterproof?  

Year 2 Nativity

         Year 2 lead the key stage 1 and EYFS nativity and tackle all the speaking roles. This is such a big endeavour and provides an opportunity to shine. Year 2 were simply dazzling, providing outstanding Christmas entertainment, and telling the story of the birth of Jesus in a fun yet respectful way. 

 PHSE

We follow the Jigsaw scheme of learning for PSHE. This supports us in growing our understanding of this key area of personal development and links to our High 5 for behaviour.

Music

Year 2 have the opportunity to learn music with our specialist music teacher, Miss Anne Clough. They have explored and recapped beat, rhythm and pitch and progressed their skills, playing as an orchestra, and exploring thoughtful improvisation.  

 RE

In RE Year 2 have spent time understanding the awe and wonder of the world and the contrasting ability of nature to destroy the environment, reflecting on Why is our World Special? We have considered human choices and how we can help our world. Year 2 have also explored varied theories of creation, including the Big Bang Theory, the Judeo-Christian creation belief and the Hindu creation story. We will now explore the life lessons we can assimilate from the teaching of Jesus.