Year 1

Welcome back and happy first week of the half-term. We have had lovely sunshine and learning in school so far. We started a new story for English called ‘Somebody Swallowed Stanley’, where we got the chance to explore ocean pollution and how we could combat this. We even made our own ‘Stanley's' by reusing plastic bags we had at our homes, and adding Stanley’s facial features onto them. We are practising writing in first person by creating a diary entry, pretending to be Stanley. We also make sure to write in past tense, adding in the suffix ‘ed’ to our verbs. We make our sentences super by adding time conjunctions, a variety of sentence openers, adjectives and conjunctions. 

In maths, we used what we have learnt from adding and subtracting, to practise writing our fact families and solving missing number problems. We became detectives and tried to find the missing part by using Numicon to help us. We are now moving on to place value within 50, counting and writing numbers to 50. 

We had a very interesting question posed to us in science, ‘What material would be best to use for our class mascot’s raincoat?’. We conducted a ‘fair experiment’ where we tested to see which materials were waterproof and not waterproof. We made sure to keep the water as a constant and the materials a variable. 

In DT, we are experts at making a sliding mechanism by cutting out a small line in the middle of a piece of paper and putting our minibeasts through. In history, we are learning about the monarchy in the United Kingdom, introducing them to Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles’ coronation.

   

   

                                          

w/b 24.02.25

Keywords: past tense, suffix, first person, diary entry, fact families, fair experiment, waterproof, absorbent, constant, variable, sliding, mechanism, monarchy, King, Queen

Sounds: a (after), c (cell), ch (school), ea (head)

 

w/b 03.03.25

Keywords: numbers to 50, tens and ones, 

Pivot, lever, Queen Elizabeth II, Muslim, Islam, pillars, Allah, worship, prayer, respect, materials, humans, parts of the body, senses

Sounds: g (gem), o (fold), u (unicorn), ou (toucan)

 

Messages: 

• Bring reading folders (reading records and spelling books) on Monday. 
• The reading record should be signed by an adult five times. 
• Your child will receive their reading folders back on Tuesday. 

 

Dates: 

11.03.25 - Family Meeting (1)

13.03.25 - Family Meeting (2)

25.03.25 - Amber class assembly (9am-9.15am)

26.03.25 - Diamond class assembly (9am-9.15am)

27.03.25 - Sunstone class assembly (9am-9.15am)

 

Year 2

Year 2 has had a lovely start to this half-term, from Yes Day to World Book day we have seen an array of crazy hairstyles and wonderful book-related costumes. We have loved spending outdoor PE lessons in the moments of sunshine this week. 

We have been exploring the Great Fire of London in English and in History. The children have been making our sentences more exciting, thinking of different ways to interest our readers. We are working towards writing a diary entry in English. This has involved looking at interesting time adverbials, emotive language and irregular past tense verbs. The children have explored the story by acting it out and drawing different events, as well as creating their own Tudor house, in order to recreate the Great Fire of London. Thank you to our Site Team, who helped us to make this both fun and safe for the children! The children have been working on making our sentences more exciting, thinking of different ways to interest our readers. 

In maths, we have been using manipulatives to practise grouping and sharing, which are key skills for understanding multiplication and division. The children have been organising objects into groups, which helps them recognise how multiplication works. Similarly, they’ve been using the grouping and sharing method to grasp division and how numbers can be split into equal parts.

To reinforce these concepts, we’ve also been working with arrays. Arrays help visualise multiplication by arranging objects into rows and columns. This technique is a great way to see the patterns in numbers and begin to recognise the structure behind multiplication.

Next week, we’ll be introducing the two-times table. The children will learn to recognise and practise multiplying by 2, which is a fantastic foundation for further multiplication learning. We’ll also be exploring doubling, halving and odd and even numbers.

Our wider curriculum highlight has been history learning, enriched by our English text. We explored the challenges of 1666, such as the plague, overcrowding, and lack of fire engines. The children were fascinated by how people depended on fire and what happened when one broke out, asking lots of interesting questions! In science, we investigated materials, classifying them as 'rigid' or 'flexible.' Some materials were hard to categorise, sparking debates among the children. For example, paper could be bent, twisted and squashed but wouldn't return to its exact original form. Did that make paper rigid or flexible? In DT, we started our finger puppet unit, and on March 21st, the children will try sewing. Thank you to all our volunteers who have offered to help with this! The children will be sewing a finger puppet which could be used to act out their next English text, 'The Journey Home'. Finally, the next fortnight looks super exciting for year 2, with upcoming events like Bocketts Farm, a Gurdwara trip, and the Trunk Theatre!

  

   

w/b 03.03.24

Keywords: Plague, pitch, fire hook, flamage, timber, warehouse, cart, rigid, flexible, properties, multiply, divide, groups, sharing, arrays

Sounds: the sound /u/ spelt with ‘o’

Other, mother, brother, nothing, Monday, money*, cover, honey

 

w/b 10.03.25

Keywords: Diary, translucent, first-person account, Samuel Pepsy, Seva, the 5 K’s- Kara, Kesh, Kangha, Kirrpan, Kachera, multiply by 2, doublig, halving, odd, even.

Sounds: the sound /ee/ spelt with -ey

Key, donkey, monkey, chimney, valley, trolley, turkey, hockey

 

Messages: 

• Bring reading folders (reading records and spelling books) on Monday. 
• The reading record should be signed by an adult five times. 
• Your child will receive their reading folders back on Tuesday. 

 

Dates: 

11.03.25 - Family Meeting (1)

13.03.25 - Family Meeting (2)

14.03.25 - Bocketts Farm Trip

18.03.25 - Great Fire of London Trunk Theatre

24.03.25 - Gurdwara Trip - Amethyst Class

25.03.25 - Gurdwara Trip - Pearl Class

26.03.25 - Gurdwara Trip - Turquoise Class