Year 2
Welcome to Year 2
Below you can see the Year 2 team.
Here are the teaching staff:
Mrs Ryall Miss Sleem Mrs Marshall Miss Cole
We are very to lucky to have some great people supporting us in Year 2.
Mr Lucas Mrs O'Mahoney Mrs Simon Miss Deakin
We have 2 classes in Year 2, with a total of 57 children.
Mrs Ryall and Miss Sleem job share in 2A. Mrs Ryall teaches Monday to Thursday lunch time. Miss Sleem teaches Thursday afternoon and Friday. 2A is supported by Mr Lucas.
Mrs Marshall teaches 2B and is supported by Mrs Simon. Miss Cole teaches 2B on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday.
Mrs O'Mahoney works across both classes; supporting in class and leading intervention groups.
Mantle
Much of our curriculum is carefully woven into a Mantle story.
Summer Term
A team of digital photographers are approached by a film company. They have a new film idea set mostly in a Norman castle. It features a dragon and an unusual tower. They need a series of photographs to support their promotional work. The Norman castle chosen for the photo shoot poses a number of safety issues as it is a ruin. The area is also likely to have rain at this time of year. Equipment will need to be protected.
Spring Term
A team of marine biologists monitored the midnight zone in the world's oceans. This habitat is unlike anything most people experience. There is no sunlight for a start. No plants grow at this depth. So how do things survive? What food chains exist?
A well known professor from the University of Hawaii was researching the creatures which make shipwrecks their home - microhabitats. The Midnight Minders monitored an area near to a wreck. The wreck was Titanic. How long had it been there? The professor wanted the team to investigate whether our wreck was a living wreck and if so, what lived on it? Stormy winter seas could be treacherous, but the professor wanted this information as soon as possible. The team also needed to find out more about their wreck so that they could identify the different areas they were looking at.
The team also found giant sea spiders. This was exciting news for the professor. She had seen sea spiders in the Pacific Ocean and knew they had been found in the Southern Ocean. So did the largest sea spiders live in the world's largest ocean?
Autumn Term
During the first half of the Autumn Term we were working as a team of conservationists. The Peak District Authority wanted to apply for Eyam Moor in Derbyshire to be recognised as an area of outstanding natural beauty or AONB for short. The conservationists had been asked to explore the location and report on the important habitats there and the life they support. Whilst working on the moor they used cameras to explore what was eating the bilberry bushes; an important food source for the rare bilberry bee. They had also discovered the graves of 3 people hidden on the moor beneath vegetation. These could have been the graves of 3 of Eyam's plague victims. Interest in the site may have caused damage to the habitat. The conservationists needed to work with the Peak District Authority to minimise the damage and protect the flora and fauna.
The graves were beneath an old beech tree. If only it could speak and tell us what happened here... It seemed like the team were staying in a village with a fascinating history and one which may have started to help to change the world's approach to tackling infections spreading.
In the second half of the Autumn Term we saw a King staring out of a palace window. He seemed to be a man with a huge worry. The King was King Charles II. The villages of Eyam spoke to him about how they had stopped the plague spreading from Eyam. This pleased him, but there was now a great fire destroying the capital city. He needed a team of local people, prepared to fight the fire. Fire fighting was very different in the 17th century and the positioning of the houses and the weather made it a very difficult and dangerous job. We looked at evidence about the fire.
Across the term we found out a lot about life, housing and fashion in the 17th century. We can talk about 2 major events from that time period and about some of the characters we met in our Mantle. A visit from Redditch Fire Brigade helped us see how fire fighting has changed. We even had a demonstration of bread making by Mr Lucas. After all, the fire started in the bakery on Pudding Lane.
Writing
We follow the Year 2 National Curriculum for writing and we use "The Write Stuff" by Jane Considine to learn how to stack fantastic sentences and create stories, non-fiction texts and poetry.
Our writing is often linked to the work we do in Mantle; we write to entertain and inform as described by Michael Tidd on his website.
Spelling and Handwriting
Once the children have completed the Little Wandles Phonics programme, they move onto Little Wandles Spelling programme. This begins with a review of phase 5, but focuses more on spelling and writing.
The children also have access to the free spelling app and website called Spelling Shed. This is used to practise the weekly spelling lists linked to Little Wandles.
Reading
We begin by completing the Little Wandles Guided Reading programme with 3 guided reading sessions each week. These books are closely matched the phonics we are learning. We can also read these books at home via the eCollins website. Many of the children will move on to whole class reading. These lessons are three times a week. We look at new vocabulary, have a chance to read with a reading partner and on our own, as well as having the chance to discuss the text.
We read lots of non-fiction texts as part of our mantle stories and use websites like DK Find Out and BBC Bitesize.
Daily Story Time
In class we love to share a book. We read a whole range of books and texts. When we have read a book, it goes in our class reading corner for us to read again independently. We are trying to read more than 100 different books this year! But sometimes we just like to re-read old favourites!
Most weeks we have the chance to go to the school library and choose a book for ourselves.
Home Reading
As well as our eCollins books, we also choose a home reader and change this as we need to. These books may have some unfamiliar words in them, but they are for us to share with our families. Our grown ups can make a comment in our reading diary.
Maths
We follow the White Rose planning for Maths.
Four days a week we use the NCTEM's Mastering Number programme. These sessions help us to practise number bonds and calculation skills.
We also have a daily quiz. This challenge is to help us improve our fluency with number facts. Each quiz has 10 days of challenges. We love trying to beat our daily score. We can also practise these facts at home Maths Shed. This is a free to use website or app. We have our own logins. (The same as for Spelling Shed and Showbie)
Once we have cracked addition and subtraction facts within 20 we will move on to times tables facts. Some of us might begin to use TTRockstars for this.
Science
Sometimes we learn science through our Mantle story. Sometimes we just do science!
These are the National Curriculum areas of study we focus on:
RE
We follow the Worcestershire Agreed Syllabus for RE.
Here are the questions we think about in Year 2:
RSE
We follow the PSHE Association's Thematic Builder. Here are the themes we learn about in Year 2:
Computing
We have started to use the Teach Computing programme.
Music
We love joining Rock Steady Music every week. We learn all about the different musical instrument families, music from around the world and musical notation. Each week we learn how to sing and sign along to a song too.
Lunches
All children in Year 2 are entitled to Universal Free School meals.
The children can have a school lunch or bring a packed lunch from home.
Lunches need to be ordered in advance via the parent app.