Year 1

We have had a wonderful start back after half term in Year 1. The children have quickly settled back into routines and returned to school with fantastic attitudes to learning. It has been lovely to see their enthusiasm and confidence shining through in all areas of the curriculum.

In English, we celebrated finishing our story Somebody Swallowed Stanley by becoming ocean protectors and creating posters about plastic pollution! The children suggested putting rubbish in the bin, recycling and reusing plastic in order to keep our seas clean and safe for all the animals that live there. Our new book is In the Garden, which the children will use to explore how to write clear instructions on how to grow a plant. Watch this space!

In maths, Year 1 have been grouping numbers into tens and ones using practical resources such as counters, cubes and base ten equipment to build numbers and physically group them into sets of ten. This hands-on approach has really helped the children to see how numbers are made up and to understand the value of each digit. We have also begun looking at place value within 50. Using number lines has helped the children understand where numbers sit, estimate where numbers might go and practise counting forwards and backwards.

In science, we have begun our new topic, Plants, which links beautifully to our new English book. We took advantage of the sunshine and went outside to observe our special class tree, looking closely at how it has changed since winter. We will continue to observe and record these changes to see how it grows and develops through the seasons. We also explored plants and trees around the school grounds and labelled the key parts, including roots, stems, leaves, flowers and trunks.

We kicked off our new history topic, Mighty Monarchs, by looking at the Royal Family, discussing what a monarch is and taking a closer look at the long reign of Queen Elizabeth II and the things that made her special. We also took a leisurely stroll to the Museum of Richmond and learned all about the Royal Laundry! Next, we will be looking at life in the 1950s.

In RE this term, we are focusing on the religion of Islam. The children will be learning about its traditions, places of worship and stories from the Qur’an. They have already enjoyed comparing similarities and differences with our previous topic on Christianity.

Well done, Year 1 — you have made a brilliant start to the new half term!

  

       

w/b 02.03.26	w/b 09.03.26
Keywords: poster, recycling, pollution, title  plants, stem, root, leaf, leaf, flower, partition, grouping, tens ones, Monarchy, Royal family    Sounds: g (gem), o (cold), u (unit), ou (mould) CEW: do, today	Keywords: Instructions, non-fiction, bossy verbs,50, numberline, estimate tree, bark, trunk, Islam, Muslim,    Sounds: ou (you), i (mind), au/ck, e-e/ie, CEW: are, were

 

Messages: 

• Reading folders need to be brought in on Monday and sent back home on Tuesday.

• The reading record should be signed by an adult five times. 

• Please make sure your child’s snacks are nut-free as we are a nut-free school. 

• The Learning Garden gates will close at 8:50am, where we will promptly be taking the register. If you are late, please go through the office to not disrupt the register or learning.

• PE days for both classes will be moved from Friday to Wednesdays.

  • PE days: Wednesday and Thursday

 

Dates: 

• 17th March - Family / teacher meetings 

• 19th March - Family / teacher meetings 

• 24th March - Diamond class assembly 9am 

• 25th March - Sunstone class assembly 9am

• 27th March - School closes 1.30pm

 

Year 2

We enjoyed welcoming the children back last week and hearing about families’ holiday time and how it was spent. Thank you to everyone who sent in Extreme Reader pictures! By the time you read this, we will be celebrating World Book Day, with children dressed as a character from a book or in a comfortable outfit for reading.

 

The cohort has been inspired by learning about the Great Fire of London in both history and English lessons. After the half-term break, one of the children brought in a certificate from climbing the 311 steps to the top of the Monument to the Great Fire of London. Congratulations to Bonnie (and parents)!

We have made individual, small-scale paper Tudor houses, but everyone has taken great delight in creating larger replica houses showing the wood, thatch and pitch used at the time. Thank you to families for sending in cardboard boxes to make this possible. As you read this, we will be re-enacting the Great Fire itself by building a street of houses, constructed very close together and made from flammable materials… This will hopefully prove to be a memorable moment for the children! Thank you to Renee for her inspired suggestion of marking out a River Thames so the children can stand safely on the south side of the river and avoid the flames.

We have also enjoyed the improved weather and taken the opportunity for some hands-on learning in our new maths topic, measure. The children enjoyed measuring heights and lengths around the school grounds, teaming up to combine metre rules and trundle wheels to measure larger spaces.

Our science learning about plants has also taken off. The children have been learning about the different parts of a seed (did you know that it contains an embryo?), and this week we will be planting seeds as part of an experiment to investigate what plants need in order to grow.

This short but busy half term also includes RE, and we have already had two lessons on our new topic of Buddhism. In DT, the children will be learning about finger puppets. Our final versions will – excitingly – be sewn, but first we will explore different puppet materials such as paper, cardboard and pipe cleaners.

The teaching team is looking forward to meeting parents and carers on Tuesday 17th and Thursday 19th March to discuss your child’s wellbeing and progress. Please note that children are welcome to attend these meetings with their adults.

 

  

  

This week: 02/03/26	Next week: 09/03/26
Spelling rule:  The /ee/ sound spelt ‘ey’   donkey monkey valley trolley turkey hockey chimney journey   Key words: measure, length, height, centimetre, metre, news report, past tense, questions (Who? When? Why? What? When?), using so to explain causation, Charles II, Samuel Pepys, Thomas Farriner.	Spelling rule:  The / o / sound, spelt with ‘a’ after w or qu   want watch wander squash squad quad quarrel quality   Key words: mass, weight, heavier, lighter, grammes, kilograms, diary, time conjunctions, informal, Buddhism, temple, plant, seed, water, light, air.

 

Key dates: 

• 13.03.26 - Amethyst class trip to National Archives, Kew for Great Fire of London workshop
• 16.03.26 - Phonics screening check, mock test 2
• 17.03 and 19.03 - Family- teacher meetings for all years
• 19.03.26 - Pearl class trip to National Archives, Kew for Great Fire of London workshop
• 27.03.26 - Last day of term - please pick up your child/ren at 1:30pm
• 13.04.26 - First day of Summer term