Year 1

What a lovely couple of weeks of sunshine we’ve had! We’ve been making the most of the beautiful weather by doing lots of artwork outside, enjoying PE in the sun, and creating nests for our English lessons. We've also taken part in many other exciting activities!

We’ve finished Meerkat Mail by publishing our own travel journals, written from the perspective of Sunny the meerkat. We followed his journey and met all of his family members. In our writing, we focused on 'upscaling' our language by using conjunctions like ‘but’, ‘and’, and ‘because’, descriptive adjectives, and varied sentence starters to make our journals more engaging. We wrapped up this topic by writing our own travel journals. Each of us chose a destination to visit and described the activities we enjoyed there. We’re also making sure to use the suffix -ed when writing in the past tense!

Next, we’re reading The Emperor’s Egg by Martin Jenkins, where we’ll explore the features of instructional texts. Eventually, we’ll write our own instructions on how to care for a penguin egg. To get into character, we pretended to be penguins waddling around with balloons between our legs — just like real penguins! We’ve also adopted a classroom “egg” and built cosy nests to protect it.

In maths, we’ve been learning about halves by splitting objects into two equal parts, which helped us understand the concept of finding half of a quantity. Soon, we’ll move on to finding a quarter of an object and quantity.

We’ve been creating land art outside, inspired by Andy Goldsworthy, and exploring deciduous and evergreen trees in science. We’ll also dive deeper into plant parts, using what we learned in Reception. In geography, we’re comparing the climates of the Sahara and Antarctica.

   

   

w/b 12.05.25

Keywords: hot desert, cold desert, deciduous trees, evergreen trees, rigid materials, half, instructional text, bossy verbs

Sounds: kn, ph, ue, wh, ay, ee, igh, ow

 

w/b 06.05.25

Keywords: sculptor, facial expressions, climate, Sahara, Antarctica, plant, seeds, roots, leaf, stem, flower, blossom, petal, fruit

Sounds: oo (zoo), oo (look), ar, or, air, ir, ou, oy

 

Messages: 

• Please drop children off to their classrooms by 8.45am. If you are running late, do not go to the classrooms after 8.45 and instead go through the office as this can be disruptive to the learning. 
• 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. 
• Please take a moment to check the lost property box for any missing jumpers. Any unclaimed items will be disposed of during the half-term holidays.

 

Dates: 

Every Monday - homework club

02.06.25 - Vineyard’s Got Talent Round 1 audition

05.06.25 - Career Day

09.06.25 - Vineyard’s Got Talent Round 2 audition

13.06.25 - NSPCC Number Day

 

Year 2

We’ve had a fantastic week in Year 2, full of rich learning and hands-on experiences across all subjects. As we move through the summer term, the children continue to impress us with their curiosity, collaboration, and growing independence.

In maths this week, we’ve been exploring volume and capacity, focusing on measuring using millilitres and litres. The children have been learning how to compare different capacities and are developing confidence in using appropriate units. Alongside this, we are continuing to practise a range of mathematical operations and would encourage families to support with fluency practice at home, especially with addition, subtraction, and times tables—2s, 5s, and 10s.

We’ve proudly published our retellings of The Gigantic Turnip—the children did a brilliant job using rich vocabulary and clear structure in their stories. This week, we’ve launched a new writing unit all about instructions. To kick off the topic, the children tasted some turnip soup and discussed its texture, smell, and ingredients. We’ve started learning how to write a set of instructions for making soup! So far, we’ve explored bullet points and imperative verbs, and next week we will practise using the conjunction ‘if’.

In our geography lessons, we’ve been learning about Favela settlements in São Paulo. The children engaged thoughtfully in discussions about both the positives and challenges of living in such environments. It was especially heartwarming to see many children identify the strong sense of community that exists within Favelas.

This week in science, we’ve been looking at the structure and life cycle of a seed. We dissected a bean under a microscope, and the children were able to see all the different sections. They’ve been fascinated to learn how a tiny seed transforms into a plant, and we’ve enjoyed observing and recording some of these changes in class.

   

  

w/b 12.05.25

Spelling rule: Contractions-can’t, didn’t, hasn’t, could*n’t, It’s, would*n’t, should*n’t, wasn’t

Key words: volume, capacity, measure, millilitres, litres, compare, addition, subtraction, lots of, shared by, germination, shoot, leaves, flower, fruit, favela, settles, positive, negatives, retelling, suffix -est, prefix un-

Maths facts: counting in 2s, 5s, and 10s

 

w/b 19.05.25

Spelling rule: The possessive apostrophes-Megan’s, Ravi’s, the girl’s, the *child’s, the man’s, the woman’s, the school’s, a dog’s

Key words: instructions, bullet points, imperative verbs, ‘if’, groups of, shared by, investigate, different, same, fair test, port, ship, explore, import, trade

Maths facts: counting in 2s, 5s, and 10s

 

Dates:

19.05.25- Mental Health Week

20.05.25- Turquoise Trip- Archies. 

05.06.25- Careers Days

08.07.25- Hampton Court

 

Messages:

We love having parents and carers join us on trips—your help makes a big difference! If you're interested in volunteering, please consider applying for a DBS certificate. It’s a simple process and ensures we’re keeping everyone safe. Contact the school office for more information on how to apply.

Thank you for your support!

Top tip, the Rhododendrons are thriving in the Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park- take a moment to go and see them.