Year 1

It has been another busy and exciting couple of weeks in Year 1!

In English, we are still enjoying The Emperor’s Egg. We have been focusing closely on describing the setting of the South Pole, using rich adjectives and the suffix -ing in our verbs. The children have produced some fantastic sentences such as “the blistery wind is howling all around the sky” and “the cute fuzzy penguins are huddling together to keep warm.” We are very proud of their creativity and growing confidence in writing. We have also now learned all lead-outs for every letter of the alphabet, so any extra practice at home would be very beneficial.

In maths, we have completed our unit on sharing and grouping, which builds important foundations for multiplication in later years. We have now moved on to halving and quartering as an introduction to fractions. The children have been learning that halving means splitting into 2 equal parts, while quartering means splitting into 4 equal parts. So far, we have been halving shapes and objects and will soon begin halving and quartering amounts. Please continue to support your child at home by practising counting in 2s, 5s and 10s, as this will help build their confidence and fluency in maths.

In art, we have loved learning about Andy Goldsworthy. This has given us the opportunity to spend more time outdoors creating our own land art using natural materials. We have experimented with leaf imprints and built sculptures using rigid materials we found outside.

In computing, we are developing our photography skills as part of our digital imagery topic. The children have created their own stories using small toy creatures and have been taking photos on iPads to bring their ideas to life.

In science, we have become researchers, learning why it is important to protect ourselves from the sun. We have also found out that clouds still don’t protect you from the sun. Very important stuff coming into summer!

Well done, Year 1, for all your hard work!

   

   

   

  

  

w/b 27.04.26	w/b 05.05.26
Keywords: adjectives, verbs, setting, grouping, sharing, equal groups, 2s, 5s, 10s, Andy Goldsworthy, leaf, imprint, pattern-seeking, day length, seasons   Sounds: ur/er, ow/ai, oa/ew, ire/ear CEW: where, there	Keywords: suffixes, South Pole, Antarctica, penguins, half, halving, whole, rigid, land art, natural materials, digital imagery, photograph, research, sun protection   Sounds: ure, tion/c/tious, au/ck, e-e/ie CEW: love, ask

 

Messages: 

• Reading folders need to be brought in on Monday and will be 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: Wednesday and Thursday

• Library days: 

  • Diamond: Monday

  • Sunstone: Tuesday

 

Dates: 

• 1st June: Class group photo shoot

• 4th June: Geography field work day

• 5th June: Y1 Kew Gardens trip

• 19th June: Living things workshop in classroom

• 25th June: Festival of sport (1.45 - 3)

• 3rd July: Vineyard walk

• 17th July: Last day - school closes at 1.30

 

Year 2

Thank you to families for visiting our open classrooms this week! It was great to see you and we hope to see you again soon for the Sir David Attenborough picnic!

Following the long weekend, we have enjoyed hearing about children’s Bank Holiday activities. A fair few spent the weekend under canvas and toasted marshmallows - lucky them!

The entertainment continued on Tuesday morning with Trunk Theatre’s visit. They dramatised last half term’s  history topic of The Great Fire of London. The show was educational, fun, immersive and the children enjoyed every minute, from taking part in singing, dancing, water-carrying races and a huge colouring scroll, to designing a new London, following the fire. 

With the finer weather, we have taken our science lessons outside and toured the school to search for objects made of different materials. We want this quite conceptual topic to be fun and hands-on. We will build on this early knowledge and talk about the properties of materials this week, revisiting vocabulary such as flexible, fragile, translucent etc. 

We waved goodbye to fractions this week and our new topic is telling the time. If you are able to talk with your children about time in everyday life, it will help give the topic real-world applicability. 

The children have responded passionately to the environment theme of our key text, The Journey Home. This week, we will be writing - and posting - a persuasive letter to Sir Keir Starmer to encourage him to put endangered species’ welfare further up the country’s agenda. We have been finding out about renewable energy, electric cars, recycling and planting trees as ways to mitigate the environmental damage wrought by humans. 

In PSHE, we have been talking about the concept of boundaries, as part of our topic relating to consent. Last session, children drew around their talk partner’s hand and we talked as a class about how that felt for us all. This time, we have talked about how to resolve friendship disputes.

   

   

w/c 04.05.26	w/b 11.05.26
Keywords: numerator, denominator, equivalent, one third, two thirds, endangered species, climate change, persuasive letter, Keir Starmer,  São Paulo, Brazil, South America, and Southern hemisphere.   Spellings: The suffix -tion: station fiction motion national section addition subtraction potion	Keywords: hour, o’clock, half past, hour hand, minute hand, analogue, materials, object, properties, compare, Richmond, port, human and physical features, Kandinsky, feelings, shape, colour.    Spellings: contractions can’t didn’t hasn’t couldn’t It’s wouldn’t shouldn’t wasn’t

 

Messages: 

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

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

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

 

Dates:

• 8th May: Family picnic - Sir David Attenborough’s 100th birthday (3.30 - 6)

• 1st June: Class group photo

• 4th June: Geography field work day

• 25th June: Festival of sport (1.45 - 3pm)

• 3rd July: Vineyard walk

• 17th July: Last day - school closes at 1.30