January 2010
Happy New Year! We hope you all had a wonderful holiday! As you are aware, Mrs Culverwell has joined us in Year 2, covering Mrs Wakefield’s maternity leave.
This is our newsletter for the spring term which we hope will give you a snapshot of what we shall be up to over the next few weeks. The curriculum may change slightly to match the abilities and needs of the children.
| Baby news!! A beautiful baby boy! We are pleased to say that Mrs Wakefield has had a baby boy, Ben Andrew, weighing 8lb 15oz! |
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Reading Books Children are encouraged to change their reading books as necessary. Please feel free to use these as a means of communication too. |
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Home learning Shortly, your child will be bringing home a home learning pack. This will include Literacy and Numeracy activities for the spring term. Home learning tasks are based around discussion and activities and do not need to be returned to school. We hope you and your child enjoy sharing them! |
PE and Games
Your child will need a PE
kit (shorts, white tshirt
and pumps). For
games, a t-shirt, shorts
and trainers. In cold
weather a tracksuit
should be worn.
2B will have Games (outdoors) on Monday and PE (indoors) on Tuesday. 2C will have Games on Tuesday and PE on Friday.
Please ensure that all kit and uniform is labelled.
Literacy
During this term, in line with the Revised Primary
Strategy, we plan to cover the following:
Information Texts
Poetry
Narrative stories by the same author
Non-Chronological Reports
Numeracy
During this term we will be covering the following Units, this also reflects the
Revised Numeracy Framework:
Counting - using number lines and 100 squares
Place Value– two/three/four digit numbers.
Addition and Subtraction – exploring ways to do mental
calculations more efficiently.
Money and Real Life Problems – focusing on how to solve
problems.
Measures including problems – includes time, capacity and
measurement of length.
Shape and Space – properties of common 2D and 3D shapes.
Mental Calculation Strategies.
Handling Data – solving problems by sorting, classifying and organising information.
| Teaching Groups: This term we are continuing to teach the Year Two children in three smaller groups on three mornings a week, with the additional group being taught by Mrs Smith. These groups will allow a much more preferable pupil to teacher ratio. |
Phonics:
As detailed in the autumn term newsletter, phonics will continue to be taught daily, targeted at the children’s needs which have been re-assessed.
The children will receive a 10-15 minute phonics lesson everyday aimed at their own individual level of need.
To recap:
Phase 1: general sound discrimination; rhythm and rhyme; alliteration; voice sounds; oral blending and segmenting.
Phase 2: to teach at least 19 letters; blending and segmenting with letters; reading and spelling some VC (vowel, consonant, e.g. at) and CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant, e.g. cat) words; reading high frequency ‘tricky words’ (e.g. the, to, go, no).
Phase 3:to teach another 25 graphemes, most of them comprising two letters (e.g. oa); blending and segmenting CVC words; reading and spelling simple two syllable words and captions; letter names in order to read and spell more tricky words.
Phase 4: to consolidate knowledge of graphemes in reading; spelling words containing adjacent consonants; spelling polysyllabic words.
Phase 5: to learn new graphemes and alternative pronunciations; increase speed of recognition of graphemes of more than one letter and blending the phonemes they represent; spelling words through choosing the appropriate grapheme; begin to build up word-specific knowledge of the spelling of words.
Phase 6: Support for Spelling: to become fluent readers and increasingly accurate spellers.
Topic (creative curriculum)
Our Creative Curriculum Topic for the spring term is Where’s Wally? This will incorporate history, geography and DT as well as linking in with literacy and numeracy where appropriate. For the first half of the term Wally will be in Lichfield! We are also planning on having a Science Week! If you have anything at home which may support the children in their learning within this topic and you would be happy for your child to it bring into school we would be delighted to share it with our classes.
RE – Worship and Easter.
ICT (first half of term) – Writing a story using Photostory.
Help Required!
We are still particularly interested in finding people to read with individuals or small groups, but admin help is also extremely welcome. If you are interested, then please contact either of us.
Finally!
We hope you have found this useful. Should you have any questions or concerns, then please do not hesitate to pop in and see us.
Mrs Brooks and Mrs Culverwell
