Welcome to Year 2

In Year 2 we have an amazing team!

Miss Elston teaches Chestnut Class and Mr Wilmshurst teaches Cedar Class.

We're supported by our wonderful Learning Support Assistant, Mrs Tancell, as well as Miss Hunt, who will be covering Chestnut Class on Tuesday mornings, and has a wealth of knowledge and experience.

We are looking forward to a fantastic year together in Year 2!

Our Term 1 topic is a history-based topic called

Why was London Burning?

Please see below for our knowledge organiser for this term.

General Information

Our planned routine for morning and afternoons is as follows. We ask that you drop your child at the green side gate from 8:45am where they can come into class. Children are expected to be in class ready for registration at 8.55am. In the afternoons, please arrive at the green side gate at 3.20pm where we will release the children to you.

Morning break is from 10.15am to 10.30am and lunchtime is from 11.50am to 12.40pm. Children in Key Stage 1 have a piece of fruit/vegetable every day at morning break. Children also have the option of having a carton of milk. If you would like your child to have milk, please see the school office. Children not having milk have access to their water bottles. We find that lots of our Year 2s have growth spurts and get extra hungry! If your child would prefer fruit/vegetable from home as a snack, then they may also bring that in to eat during this time.

Please can we also ask that all children have a full change of clothes that can be kept in school on their peg at all times just in case they need it.

PE

Year 2 will have PE twice a week, one session with their class teacher on a Tuesday and one session with the wonderful sports coaches on a Thursday. Your child will need to wear the Birdwell PE kit on both of these days and appropriate footwear.

Home Learning

You can best support and extend your child’s learning by doing the following:

• Reading at least five times a week;
• Practising spellings from the Year 2 statutory list (available on website);
• Using our Knowledge Organiser with your child to go over key information.

Our partnership with you

We are always appreciative of parents/carers/grandparents coming in to hear readers and very much value the support this gives us. If you feel you are able to regularly come in to school to help hear readers, please let us know.

We hope that there will be opportunities during the course of the year where we are in a position to ask for volunteers for other things such as; class trips, cooking and arts and crafts. We will let you know about these nearer the time.

Your children’s safety, happiness and enjoyment at school is the most important thing to us. Therefore, if you have any worries or concerns please do not hesitate to let us know so that we can ensure that any small problems don’t turn into big ones.

We look forward to working alongside you in what we are sure will be a very happy, successful year for your child.

Kind regards,

The Year 2 team  

In Year 2 we encourage the reading of a wide range of materials, from a wide range of sources. We have a Six Book Challenge designed to inspire pupils to explore some fantastic books that will support our learning throughout the year.

The books are:

George's Marvellous Medicine - Roald Dahl

Beegu - Alexis Deacon

The Big Book of the Blue - Yuval Zommer

A Planet Full of Plastic - Neal Layton

Martin's Mice - Dick King Smith

Poems Aloud - Joseph Coelho & Daniel Grey-Barnett