The Greatest Fire in history

Year 2 have enjoyed learning about the Great Fire of London over the past few weeks. They are now experts and can answer questions about when, where, how and why the fire started. Do use our Knowledge Organiser to test them on the facts and see how much they know. They can also tell you what happened after the fire and what lessons were learnt. Do ask them why Samuel Pepy’s buried his cheese too! We think you’ll be amazed with how much they have learnt. We are incredibly proud of them all! The children have completed wonderful art work linked with our topic and have created some informative non-chronological reports to share with you. We think they are amazing!

Hey Ewe!

Year 1 and 2 are excited to be creating a video of our nativity play ‘Hey Ewe’ to share with you for Christmas. We are already getting ready and practising in our classes. This will be recorded in our class bubbles and then put together by the magic of technology! Your child should have brought home a letter and some lines today. This will tell you which character they are and give a guide for a simple costume. The children need to come in wearing these on Wednesday 2nd December please. We really don’t want you to go to any extra expense so please let your class teacher know if you have any difficulties with these costumes as we are sure we can suggest an alternative. If your child has lines, we would ask you to practise these with them as much as you can (including you reading the previous line so that they know when to come in). We only have a very short period of time to rehearse due to the extra time that it will take to edit and assemble recordings from 6 classes. We appreciate your support with this and hope you will look forward to the results.  

Click here to read the Powerpoint that was shared.

The questions below are questions that parents asked at the meeting.

Where will we find the spellings?

The spellings are put onto Google Classrooms (your child’s class) each Monday and are tested in school on Friday. They can now also be found on Spelling Shed. They are set as an assignment that is completed by playing fun interactive games that your child may enjoy. Spelling Shed login and password details can be found inside the homework books that were sent home on Monday.

Have the government said what will happen with Year 2 SATS?

As far as we know at the minute, SATS will go ahead as normal for Year 2. These are nothing to worry about and are completed alongside our teacher assessment for each child. We keep these very low key in Year 2 and the children take them in their stride. In many cases, they are really unaware that they’ve done them and just see them as a fun activity that we complete alongside all of our other work.

What do we use the homework book for?  Should it be sent in everyday?

The homework book is for home and does not need to return to school at all. It has the passwords that you need for Spelling Shed and ttRockstars/Numbots, so please keep it somewhere safe. The homework book can be used to keep completed homework tasks in and spelling sheets (if you print these). If you don’t have the ability to print any of the work that we set, it can also be used to write spellings or answers to questions directly into the book.  

Do we record reading anywhere?

Due to Covid measures, and the need to minimise the passage of paperwork in and out of school, we have decided for the moment not to have home reading logs. We do record your child’s reading in school and know that you read with your child at home. Please spend the extra few minutes, that you would have spent recording your child’s reading in the log, by continuing with your reading or discussing the story with your child.  Please feel free to ask us any questions that you have about reading (or anything else) via our email: Year2@stmarksce.org.uk

We have had another brilliant week in Year 2. We just wanted to update you with a few reminders: 

• Non-uniform & PE Day On Friday 2nd October, we have a whole school non-uniform day for FOSM. They have asked that the children wear a colour from the rainbow. Despite this being our PE day, we are encouraging children to take part. We just ask that whatever rainbow colour(s) they choose to wear, that their clothes are also suitable for our outdoor PE lesson. This could be colourful leggings/jogging bottoms, t-shirts, sweatshirts etc. Please make sure they are not clothes that you would be worried about getting a little bit of mud or dirt on; as the weather forecast is not so good for the end of the week! 
• Spellings are issued every Monday and will be available on Google Classroom (2R, 2BT, 2B). We practise these in class but we also ask that children practise these at home too. Children will be tested on these spellings each Friday. 
• Homework will include reading at home on a daily basis, daily spellings, and Maths homework which will also include Numbots. Login details for this will be sent home in homework books next week. These books are to be kept at home so that you will always have the login details that you need. We also ask that homework is kept at home to avoid the passage of paper between school and home. Where work is uploaded to Google Classroom we will also provide an answer sheet so that your child can check their answers. 
• Reading Folders These came home last week and need to come into school each day with only the child’s reading books in them. 
• Reading Books  Reading books will be changed at least once per week. Unfortunately due to quarantine rules, we are unable to change books more frequently than this. We do encourage you to read other books that you have at home, with, and to, your child. Daily reading is extremely important. We will aim to send home a banded Oxford Reading Tree Book, a banded Big Cat Book and a Library Book each week. Library books can be kept at home and brought back in on the day requested by your class teacher. We will put this information on your Google Classroom class page in the ‘stream’. 
• Year 2 Google Classroom Many of you will have noticed that we are uploading work to the Year 2 Google Classroom daily. This work is for children who may need to self isolate with other family members and only needs completing if this applies to your child. If your child has been at school, they do NOT need to complete this work. 
• Emails Please feel free to contact us via our year group email address year2@stmarksce.org.uk. This is the best way to contact us as chats at the door are more tricky with our staggered drop offs and pick ups and should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. We will get back to your emails as quickly as possible. This may be the end of the school day as we are in class with the children. 

Thank you as always for your support. We hope you will be able to make our ‘Key Messages’ meeting on Monday 5th October at 5pm. 

The Year 2 Team

We have had a brilliant couple of weeks in Year 2. The children have been amazing and we have loved getting to know them all better. We have all adjusted to our new routines and everyone has been working hard and looking after each other. We’ve seen some super teamwork!

We have had an exciting start to our new topic ‘Oh the places you’ll go!’ and our work has been taking us on imaginative adventures. At the moment, in English, we are on an exciting journey with Little Red Riding Hood, travelling through the forest. The children have written some amazing sentences and we can’t wait to see their own stories next week. 

We have also been journeying around our school grounds- linked with both our art and science work on materials. In history, we have begun learning about the explorer- Christopher Columbus. Do ask your children about it- you’ll be amazed with the facts they have learnt already!

A couple of notices:

• Our PE Day is Friday so please send your child to school in their PE kit each Friday. They will need to be in their kit all day so please make sure it is comfortable and warm enough (especially as the weather gets cooler). 
• Homework will start on Monday. This will be set on Google Classrooms under your child’s class page.  We will be setting spellings that will be set on Monday and tested the following Monday. These will be set every week.  We will also set Maths homework. This will start this Monday and the children will be given until the following Monday to complete it. This will be set every other week. There may also be additional topic homework from time to time but we will let you know about this in advance.
• For children who are at home isolating, please visit the Year 2 2020 Classwork page.  Children at home (who are well enough) should be completing this work. 
• Thank you for your patience with reading books. Our plastic folders have now arrived and we will begin sending these home from Monday. 

If you have forgotten your child’s login for google classroom, need to get a message to the teacher or have any other questions do please email us on year2@stmarksce.org.uk. We will get back to you as soon as we can. 

We hope you have a lovely, relaxing weekend and look forward to seeing you on Monday. 

Best wishes 

The Year 2 Team  (Mrs Rosso, Miss Burgess, Mrs Brackenridge and Mrs Tickle)