Year 2

Welcome Back!

We hope you had a lovely, restful summer. We're looking forward to the year ahead with lots of fantastic learning.

Notices 

Please refer to our 'Welcome Back' newsletter, below.

Please see below for Year 2 Gardening and Cooking dates: 

2H- 8th October 2018

2F- 10th October 2018
2P- 11th October 2018
2S- 12th October 2018

For important information regarding G&C, please refer to our 'Gardening and Cooking' section below. 

Please see below for Year 2 Sharing Assembly dates: 

2F - 12th October 2018

2H - 19th October 2018 

2P - 2nd November 2018

2S - 9th November 2018

Calendar

Year 2 Letters

Books Home Termly - English and Maths

"Knowing where children are at, where they need to go and how they will get there".

These are the underlying principles of our Visible Learning approach to teaching and learning at Fielding. They are important components within our assessment structure, which pupils are very much a part of.

The principles that underpin our assessment system are:

• Every child can achieve: teachers at Fielding have the mindset, ‘What do I need to do next to enable a child in my class to achieve?’

• Objectives from the  National Curriculum are used as the expectations for all children.

• Pupils will make age appropriate progress from their different starting points – 12 months in 12 months, more for those who need to 'close the gap' to reach  age related expectations.

• Teachers are experts at assessment - assessment is effectively used to ensure the correct scaffolding is built into lessons to ensure all children achieve.

How we share this information with you:

• Books home, at least once each term your child will come home with their English and maths books, ready to share their progress with you, You will have an opportunity to make comments on this to share with your child and the class teacher.

Books will be sent home in Lower Phase on the following dates:

Autumn 2 - Friday 23rd November return books Monday 25th November

Spring 2 - Friday 15th March return books Monday 18th March

Summer 2 - Friday 28th June return books Monday 1st July

We send books home on the Friday to be looked at by adults over the weekend and require all books to be returned to school on the following Monday.

Home Learning

Top education researchers tell us that homework has minimal impact for primary age pupils, unless it requires children to rehearse and practise.  We have therefore adapted our routines to reflect this. The routines for children in this year group are as follows:

• Reading and/or talking about their reading to an adult for at least 20 minutes, 5 times a week. This will be evidenced through reading being recorded in reading records. Reading records and reading books should be coming into school daily. Reading records will be signed by teachers to check regular reading is occurring.
• Learning spelling patterns linked to age-related expectations ready for use in dictation towards the end of every week. These spellings will be on year group notice boards and should be practised at home. Dictation (recorded on sheets) will now be sent home weekly in reading folders so you can see achievement and progress.
• Reciting multiplication tables to increase their fluency so that they can be applied in other areas of maths and problem solving. These will be  tested in our weekly times tables challenge and will be sent home.
• Half-termly creative home learning will be set at the start of each half term and will celebrated and fed back on during our creative home learning showcases.

You will be able to see achievement and progress through the dictation and times tables challenge sheets going home weekly. You will also be able to witness progress through class exercise books for English and maths being sent home at least once during every term as well as at parent consultation meetings.

Creative Home Learning

Here is the Creative Home Learning list for Autumn 1 - enjoy! 

Reading

Spellings

Please find attached weekly spellings for children to practice at home. As well as Year 2 100 spelling words. 

Gardening and Cooking

Children are to come on their G&C day in comfortable and appropriate clothing for the kitchen and allotments. Please ensure children also wear safe and comfortable footwear which covers their feet (i.e. trainers) and any long hair is tied back. Children do not need to bring an apron as these will be provided. In addition, children must also bring a container on the day where they can store their cooking to bring home, these can be a standard small sized container.

Information about any termly £4 donations you would like to contribute which goes towards their G&C lessons can be found on the 'Welcome Back Newsletter' and payments are to be made on the Fielding Laser page. The Year 2 team would like to thank parents for any donations which are made towards the G&C lessons.

Maths - Times Tables Rockstars!

Times Tables Rockstars is a online programme we have introduced to encourage children to have fun with multiplication facts while improving fluency, recall and speed. Children can access it in their own time on any IOS, Android or Windows device.

What is it?

Times Tables Rock Stars is a carefully sequenced programme of  times tables practice. This programme has very successfully boosted times tables recall speed for hundreds of thousands of pupils over the last 7 years in over 4500 schools - both primary and secondary - worldwide.

How does it work?

Incorrect answers are always immediately corrected in front of your child so that they start to associate the correct answer to every question. The clever code behind the scenes works out which times tables facts each child is consistently taking longer to answer and then it gradually starts to present these facts more frequently until they have mastered them. It will also ask related division questions 20% of the time in order to reinforce division facts.

Is this instead of the times table challenge completed in class?

No, this is to supplement the times tables challenge, giving children a fun way to practise and challenge themselves.

Where does this fit with National Curriculum expectations?

From June 2020, all pupils at the end of year 4 in England will take an online multiplication tables check .The national curriculum specifies that pupils at this stage should be able to recall the multiplication tables up to and including 12x12.

The check aims to support pupils to master multiplication skills, which are essential for future success in mathematics. It will help to identify pupils who have not yet mastered this mathematical concept, so additional support can be provided.

How do I log in?

Log in here: https://ttrockstars.com/login, use your child'd details that came home at the end of the Summer Term, lost them? Speak to your child's class teacher.

Reading

Reading Challenge

Please read the information about our new reading challenge:

http://www.fieldingprimary.com/news/detail/new-year-group-recommended-reading-lists-parent-vi/

Once the children have read a book, they will need to complete one of the reading activities outlined below. This can be done in their reading planners or on a separate piece of paper.

Activity choices (you can do the same one twice):

1. Compare the book to another book you have read. What was similar? What was different? Think about the characters/ setting and events.

2. Draw a picture of your favourite character and write down five words or phrases to describe the character's personality and five words or phrases to describe their appearance.

3. As you're reading, list any unfamiliar words and write down the meaning.

4. If you could make one change to the story, what would it be and why?

5. Make a note of 3 of your favourite sentences and explain why you like them.

6. Complete a 'story S' which outlines the main events of the story.

5 books = Bronze Award

10 books = Silver Award

Learning this week

English

Over the next few weeks, we will be focusing on Storytelling. Pupils will practise writing creatively using a wide range of skills. In our stories, we will be uses exclamation sentences, interesting adjectives and a range of adverbs. 

Maths

Over the next few weeks, we will be focusing on Addition and Subtraction. Children will need to continue practising their knowledge of number bonds, place value and partitioning in order to apply these to the relevant calculations. 

Learning Next Week

English 

We will begin writing our first draft of Katie in London. 

Maths

We will focus on Addition and Subtraction - introducing the concept of commutative law and the inverse.

Fielding Learning Challenge Curriculum

Specialist subjects