Year 2

Welcome to Year 2

Spring 1 2025

Year 2 Spring 1 2025

Dear parents and carers,

Welcome back after the Christmas break.  We hope you have all had a lovely break with your family.

We will continue this year to remind children about our school values of Respect, Good Manners, Patience, Perseverance and Honesty.  We will use our reward system 'Brookhouse Monster's University' to recognise good behaviour and attitudes.  If your child is in the winning University team, they will be given a reward at the end of the term.

To reward individual achievement if your child achieves enough Dojo points they will receive either a silver, gold or even platinum certficate at the end of term. Your child will earn dojo points for demonstrating our school values or working hard. If your child produces an outstanding piece of work or demonstrates one of our school values to a high standard, they will be placed on the golden crown.  If they stay on it for the rest of the week, they earn an extra 10 dojos. 

PSHE also plays a key role, this will take place both through class and assembly sessions.  The topic for autumn 2 is called 'Family and Friends'.  Each week they will continue to focus on an attribute of the week which might be linked to our school values, British Values or their PSHE topic. 

The Spring 1 topic is called 'Explorers'.

Attendance

Regular attendance helps your child build good habits, getting them used to the idea of getting up and ready for learning each day.  It helps your child build and sustain relationships with staff and make lasting friendships.  It can also help to ensure continuity of learning, with staff being more easily able to assess your child’s progress and identify next steps for them in accessing the curriculum.

Every moment in school counts, and missed school days add up quickly. The higher a pupil’s attendance, the more they are likely to learn, and the better they are likely to perform as they progress through school. 

Homework

Please encourage your child to complete their homework each week.  Homework will be collected in on a Wednesday to be marked and returned by Friday.  Your child's weekly homework tasks can be found in the Spring 1 homework grid, which is glued into your child's homework book - a copy of which can also be found above in the important document section.

Furthermore, your child will be given a list of words to explore on a weekly basis for our Whole Class Reading sessions.  It is important that your child completes this work so they are able to access the text that we will be reading.   

An optional termly project is also sent home, a copy of which can be found in the important document section above. 

Optional online homework is available through Purple Mash, Reading Plus and TT Rockstars. Over the course of this term children will be taught how to use the online learning platforms, therefore once login details and a password are glued into your child's diary, your child should be able to login and complete assigned tasks independently. 

Daily reading is crucial, so please can you listen to your child read as much as possible at home to support their learning and also their understanding of different texts.

English

To begin with we will studying a non-fiction unit focusing on non-chronological reports, which will be linked to our focus this half term on famous explorers. We will be learning all about non-chronological reports by learning about famous explorers, in particular Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong. We will focus our exploration of non-chronological reports through the ‘Talk for Writing’ strategy of imitate, innovate and invent.  As well as this, we will be focusing on the skills needed to invent their own piece of writing and look at writing through other subject areas.  

Whole class reading will continue to take place every day, through which we encourage children to focus on new vocabulary in the text and the comprehension of the text.

To further support your child's skills in reading comprehension, please support your children in their reading of school books, at home for ten minutes every day. 

Mathematics 

Maths lessons will continue to provide pupils with the opportunity to learn using concrete, pictorial and abstract models. They will then learn to apply this knowledge to reasoning and problem solving (QUACK - Please ask your children what this means).  We will start the new term with a focus on measurement, including both mass and temperature. We will finish the term focusing on statistics, in particular picture graphs. 

In addition to the daily maths lessons, every child will also take part in a daily 15 minute Maths Mastery programme. The programme uses a range of practical resources and visual aids to help develop every child's understanding of number. 

Science

We will explore plants (Biology). We will observe and describe how seeds and bulbs grow into mature planets. As scientists we will find out and describe how plants need water, light and a suitable temperature to grow and stay healthy. 

In order to help your child remember the key knowledge, please encourage your child to learn their Knowledge Organiser.

Physical Education

In Year 2, P.E will take place every Wednesday so please make sure your children come to school in their full P.E kit - yellow P.E shirt with the school's logo, black joggers, shorts or leggings and their school green sweatshirt. In their P.E lessons (dance) they will focus on performing dances using movement patterns. 

Please make sure that your child has their earrings removed or covered by plasters from home on this day. 

Computing

In our computing this half term pupils will focus on questioning (information technology).  They will learn how to code using Purple Mash coding software. Children will learn how to use and create pictograms, asking yes and no questions in order to create a binary tree. 

Geography

In Geography the children will study the key human and physical differences between Blackburn and the Bahamas. 

Oracy - Voice 21

As a school we are developing our Oracy, learning through talk and learning to talk.  In class, we will create discussion guidelines in order to aid meaningful discussions.  We encourage children to fully participate by taking on a range of roles and utilising sentence stems to articulate their ideas.  We will provide opportunities for discussion in all areas of the curriculum.

Important dates

Any queries feel free to talk to us in the morning or at the end of the day or arrange an appointment through the school office.

We hope your child continues to have an amazing time in Year 2, striding to be the best that they can be. 

Stay healthy, safe and happy! 

From all the Year 2 team: Mr Owen, Mrs Ali and Mrs Burondkar.